Training with Jaakko and Janita

Jaakko’s training

Koirakuvat Jukka Pätynen

Finally had a training session. It has been a long time since we have had someone to watch our work. We did a course training in Onemind Dogs Arena. I had develop my old bad habits back like forgetting to handle tunnels. Too much hurry in my head again. Pixie did pretty nice work but I had to remember real lines to find my right positions to do handling maneuvers. With both girls I needed reminder again about the connection. Especially Freya really got benefit from connection before slalom and also in other training parts. I wish I could slow down my mind even more. I don’t know why I have problem to keep the contact because in many cases I can be too far ahead.

One thing we also worked on was Freya cross bar jumping. She has tendency round up the jumps she goes behind and this makes it hard for her to get in to right rhythm in serpentine work. We did 8 figure work with nets that made a round circle behind the jump. The goal was to stop her from rounding up the turn behind the jump. Freya got the idea right away and started to do smooth and tight jumps cross the bar serpentine jumps. We also did this training in course in few little parts. Freya did really good job. Now we just need to train this a little bit more to make as skills she masters. This will give us more speed in serpentine tasks in competition courses.

Practicing on our own

Koirakuvat Jukka Pätynen

We continued our work with the serpentine jumps. I used jump bars behind the jump to guide her to do a tight and smooth jump. This worked as the same as the nets. It prevented Freya to round up the jumps. I did different angles and started to do more than one jump in row. I used a target toy in the end of the serpentine to help her keep her head and neck line in down position. This helped her a lot to find right rhythm. All jumps were maximum of 45 cm when I started this work. At this moment she can very nice and collected jump with 60 cm jumps. Still work but she is getting there. She has got a lot more confidence in her serpentine work.

One thing I have also tried to improve in the connection. I have my moments but I really need to concentrate to keep my eye contact with the dog. I have done this work with small practices because it has been hard for me. I want to give my self a little goals we can reach with my dog. I have also started concentrate to work in handling to make more calm and clearer to the dog. Still a lot of work and the hurry in head has given me a good fight. I think I have one some battles but the war with my brain is still going on strong. :D

Connection Connection - Training session with Janita

Yesterday we had a training class with Janita. Again we did a connection work. We did a course walk where Janita walked the dogs line and checked our connection. First I had hard time of giving up connection to obstacles but I did found my connection points. This is skill I need to still train. I feel often very unsure about the obstacle positions even though I have done the course walk. I need to concentrate even more to work a eye connection to my virtual dog on the course walks. Yet a new skill to improve in training and competitions. Here are some video of our training. Freya was just super little girl!!! 

Rally Obedience

Rally-O – our journey to a new sport continues

Rally-O has been a sport for every dog because of simple tasks and more flexible rules about aids and rewarding. Handler can use hand signals and vocal cue during whole the competition performance to help the dog to perform tasks. Dogs can also be praised all the time which can give boost to low drive dogs and more happy appearance overall team. We hardly are unhappy if we praise each other or dogs. This has given more relax mode to this sport. As obedience trainer these rules has been a new thing that you can do but old habits won’t die so easily. So I have teach my dogs to work mostly without any hand signals and I have hard time to use praise during tasks. Am I then a too serious Rally-O trainer? I don’t think so I just want to make performance as fluent and composed as possible. I think this Rally-O will more change to variety to how to do things. I think it is a richness. Our journey to this sport has been a fun one already! 

 

Finally we have had a change to enter our team to a rally obedience trial. This a nice sport because I can compete with both dogs at the same time. Our beginner class will be in few weeks. I have studied the rules and trained the signs. To my surprise I needed improve Freya back leg work to make spiral work. I have only done 90 degree turns and she couldn’t do properly turns that were milder. I did some turning work so that she keep the leg line all the time. It took few training session but now I have a dog that better uses her back end. This was one of the new tasks to train and made Rally-O even more interesting to me. I love improve my dogs bodywork to be as perfect as possible.

We have also trained stuff from the higher classes. I really love more trick type of things you need teach like “valkovuokko” (dog and handler turns out opposite direction to change healing sides) and tulip (“tulppaani”) were handler and dog turns in to opposite direction. This really tests the team ability understand healing and different direction. Both of my girls are pretty good at healing in both sides to we have been able train these more complex changes right away. I have had to also make a list of cue I use so I don’t mix them up. I learned to make these cue lists when I did my freestyle course. It has really helped to keep everything in track and also it has made it easier to come up cues that aren’t so similar.

Here is our work from todays training:

Dancing Queens on the road

Dog Dancing competition 3.4.16

I had entered both girl to a dog dancing competition in Ylöjärvi. Pixie did her first run at open class and Freya made first try in beginner HTM (heelwork to music).  Pixie's dance didn't go as well as I wanted it to but she ok and was only 0,7 points from honor prize. I think with her we will do a new program. Freya did routine to Maniac song from Flashdance. She did pretty well for her first try in this sport. We got 172 /200 points which meant that she got honor prize and ticket to open class. I was very happy with our work. I was too fast with my side steps and Freya couldn't keep up. Otherwise everything went almost how we planned. Here is our video from our performance, but the music is wrong... Youtube will block the video with the right song:

Acana treats for tasting

We got this seasons first testing bag from SLN imports. We got Acana Pork and Butternut Squash which has been a huge hit with my girls. They liked it so much that it is easy to use as training treat. I always carry part they meal in my pocket so I can train recall and passing of another dog or human. Kibble is very clean to keep in coffee bag in a pocket. My dogs are pretty greedy so this makes it easier to keep them in shape if use part of their daily meal in everyday skill learning.

Acana has kept my girls in shape for almost 5 years. I wouldn't change for any prize. Best quality, best content and very taste... Well my girls thinks so anyway :D :D

Jumping training begins.... So cool!!

Next week I start my training to become a jumping technique trainer. I hope this course with Vappu Alatalo will give tool to help my future agility students and their dogs to succeed even better. We will have our first training day in Lohja. Freya will be my project dog for this class so I will write more about her training here. I will also start a group that I will teach the jumping technique skills and I will work with them the whole summer. This will be an interesting route and lots of thing to learn. But more about this course in the coming weeks.

That's all for now!!!!

MPF 

Dog Dancing and agility

Dog dancing training

We finally got confirmed that both of my girls got place in a dog dancing competition. Pixie will dance in a open class level freestyle and Freya will make first try at beginner level HTM (heelwork to music). Pixie will do old routine with Jari Sillanpää’s song Bum Bum Bum. I hope our routine will be complex enough get us through the open class. We have been working on a new more difficult routine but I hope I this will be shown in the highest class in the end of the year. Freya’s music will be Maniac from Flashdance. It was just so her song. We did a pretty simple routine to it and we had a lot of help from Sanna Lipponen a member of the Finland National team of dog dancing. I hope this will be a nice entering routine for her and we will have lots of fun.

I think the best part of dog dancing is the training. I can use shaping with very creatively and even the dogs become more and more creative. Pixie has developed many new tricks during our shaping processes. It has been so much fun and also sometimes challenging to find away make the dog do certain things you have in mind. One evening few weeks ago I was training with Pixie with a paw target and doing 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 2 – 3 lifts in variable schedule. We had done this already many session and I started feel that this wasn’t working the way I wanted it to. Then on our third mini session I just adjusting my treats and target, Pixie started to do Spanish walk in continuous space. JACKPOT TIME!!! Pixie had super light bulb moment with our Spanish walk work. I was so trilled. These are the moments why dog dancing is just great. New things to learn and train all the time. It was sad I didn’t get this moment to a video but I try remember film our next session.

Jumping technique training and smooth runs

I have started a jumping technique trainer class with Vappu Alatalo. To this class we need first have project dog and later on own group that we train. I have started to do more of the basic training with my dogs and filmed the trainings. This has been already a very interesting project and I have learned more about dogs. Freya has been very good and adjusting her jumping to different exercises. Pixie in the other hand has shown a little decline in her jumping skills. So it has been interesting work with both girls and make confidence in jumping even better. Here are some of the training we have done so far:

Pixie has had a little problems with her body and we had to discontinue our competition in Lohja. After that we had Piira’s osteopathic treatment which showed that Pixie had multiple locks on her spine. 1,5 weeks of rest and some physical training to her right leg. Little brake and treatment worked well and we did 5 clean runs from 7 at Easter competition. This meant that Pixie had all the needed results team try outs and Finnish Championship competition. Best was that Pixie didn’t drop a single bar during two days of competition. This was a very relieving feeling. And of course when we had good flow in competition, I don’t have a single run on film. Freya had also her moments but I have still few things we need train on and one is slalom distraction. We had few spots that were little too hard for her. So more training to do but Freya found a totally new gear in speed. Super girls!! This is good point to continue.

That's all for now!!

MPF

Obedience training and our first winner class

Learning curve

I have trained Freya for the winner class in obedience. It has lot of new tasks and some that are more challenging version of open class tasks. It has been fun to see her progress and also to see how learning curve goes up and down. When you teach a new behavior chain it usually works pretty well at first. Then follows a testing time where dogs test can they get away with different kind of behaviors. This a normal learning curve period which tests the handlers’ patience and skills to overcome the testing phase. Today Freya had her test period with controlled retrieve. She had her stocking mode on and stopped to a U-shape position to watch the dumbbell. This was the first time she anticipated the retrieve part. It actually looked really funny. So I rewarded her from healing nicely to the dumbbells and next reward point was doing nice straight stop. This is just one example of the testing of the behavior chain in ob.

Scent discrimination

Freya have had problem of being in too high drive while doing a scent discrimination. When she is in a hurry she takes the next wooden object to the right one or she runs so that half of objects are behind her and when she doesn’t find the right one she just brings the nearest. I have tried in many ways to correct her working energy but I haven’t got the results that I wanted. I wanted to find something knew to change the way she worked. I got my answer from video library in Karen Pryor Academy.

I watched a lecture of Hannah Branigan from Clicker Expo 2015 library. She had a very interesting idea how to train scent discrimination. Hanna used a cover of a plastic containers to teach scent discrimination. You start with one cover to teach a strong nose touch, then introduce second cover that has touch only from the edge. You click every time the dog touches the right cover that has touched between hands (a hot target). At first the dog doesn’t know what it’s doing but it doesn’t take too long and the dog hits always the hot target. As soon as you have more than one cover you should change the order all the time. Later on you just add one cover at the time to make this search more complex. If you dog makes mistake, you just wait it to find the right one. With these cover you can easily stop dog from lifting the wrong one and you just click for the right one. Gradually you can also introduce distraction between the cover. Also you can start using retrievable object that you make as the hot object to bring the retrieve part to the task.

With this exercise I could make Freya find out hot object even though it was behind her. With plastic covers she couldn’t retrieve closed object as panic choice if didn’t find the real hot object. I could just wait her to look for the cover that she had left behind her. All together this way of training has made her scent work calmer and I have had change reward her more during one session. I think this plastic cover technique would we super to start to whole scent discrimination work even though I only used it to improve Freya work. Here is a video of scent discrimination work right now, not the best:

Winner Class

Today we had our winner class competition. Freya was in low drive mood but she did the task pretty well. We could have got even 1st prize but I didn't wait her to correct her position in the box. My biggest win today was scent discrimination!!! She got 9,5 points and it was just wonderful. Really liked her work. Few homework for next time but she did really well today. I hope that we get her competition confidence as good she has in training. She could be my best ob dog so far. Love her to pieces. Here is our whole winner class:

That's all for now!!!!

MPF

Pixies' dog dancing depyt

Dog dancing - finally we entered a competition. This has been a dream for a while. Pixie has done lots of tricks for her whole life. Finally I had time to train and take part in dog dancing. We really started training for this routine about three months ago and made it to its final from 1 month before the trial. We had also heat during this time so we couldn't train our routine in arena or with music. So I did lots of work by training the routine by myself and Pixie did little part on our living room mat.

Last Saturday we finally hit the ring. I had never been to a dog dancing competition so all was new to me. Competition started with 10 minute time to get to know to ring. You were aloud to bring your dog with you. So we did some distraction clicker training for few minutes and then I took my headphones and walked the through the routine without my dog. After this it was waiting for your turn. To my surprise it took some time to write the commentary after each performance. So you had a lot of time between each performance. We did few tricks as warm up routine and then we went to wait our turn to waiting area. It was really scary to walk in the ring for the first time. I just knew, I had to just start doing our routine see how it goes. We did few mistakes but in the end our team work looked good and total performance was fluent. End result 177/ 200 point and winning of the beginner class!!! This was more than amazing start in this new sport. Now we just need to work on new routines and head for the next class.

Here is the video of our routine in the competition:

That's all for know!!!

MPF

Quick note from Jaakkos training from yesterday

Agility training with Jaakko

Pixie 2011

It had been a long time since last training session Jaakko. Pixie had had a 3 week brake from agility do to Freya’s kennel cough. We had course with 36 obstacles. First round we did a competition run. We did pretty well. At one point we had few dropped bars from my bad handling. Next we did some talking about when to choose front cross or blind cross. This lead to interesting conversation about the dogs’ line. Do I see the realistic line or the perfect fantasy line? This was a very good note. I often think too much about “fantasy line” and get frustrated when we don’t achieve it. This really gave a good aspect to think when I train and plan my actions in a competition. There are just few things dogs really can do and some things you have accept. Some turns are tight and some will have longer curve to it. You just need see beforehand to make right handling maneuver.

Pixie 2011

Other matter we had was rhythm. I had few spots that I started to run way too early and made Pixie work in inefficient mode. When go too far it makes Pixie a little bit unsure and this shows in the speed. It very small change but it could be difference between winning and losing. It is my job to give my dog support as much as it need even though Pixie can do many things on her own. This is something I need to remember before I just start running fast away from her and have to wait her on another spot without any movement. We need to learn to keep the flow in our motion. 

Here are some nice runs from 3 weeks ago. Pixie did two clean runs:

That's All for now!!!

MPF