End of Year 2016

Last part of 2016

New has begun and new winds are blowing. I want to take look at the last part of the year 2016. Both girls had some brake from agility and we focused our work to other sport like obedience, rally and nosework. Our goal was to really get into the training and enjoy other sports than agility. This has been a very successful brake and we got lot of progress in all of the task we did.

First of course was a reaching of big goal in obedience which was to get a 1st prize result from the winner class (OB2 FCI). We finally did it with Freya on our Indenpence day 6th of December. Freya did wonderful job at trial even though we got a zero from stay. There was another dog that yelled before the task started and in the end came out of the ring. This was just too much for Freya and she stood up and went back down. So something we need to work on. Otherwise she did her work pretty well. Here is some video of her work in that trial:

Kong Prize and testing some new Acana kibbles

I had some luck in the Clicker Expo and won the raffle at the Kong stand. My girls won 12 toys form the Kong company. This was an excellent prize. My girls just loved the prize. They have with us in training ever since. One thing I also got was a Wobbler which is a plastic toys that you can put kibble and dog has to push to get it out of it. The Wobbler was big hit Pixie and loves playing with it. Here is some video how it work. This was also first time she tried Acana new Kibble Cobb-Chicken Greens. 

Wintery Scenary Dec. 2016

Our Acana Kibble Cobb-Chicken tasting went well with Pixie but my younger dog Freya didn't really fancy it.  Cobb- Chiken is grain free kibble that is one the new tastes in the series. Freyas favorite was the new Acana Classic Prairie Poultry. This food contained some oats but this seems to be ok grain for both of my girls and gives them carbohydrates to high speed performances like agility. Classic version has also freeze dried liver which might have been the winner taste for Freya. I liked it also that you could get bigger bags like 17 kg which is nice when you more than one dog at the house. We have tried bigger bags of both foods to my dogs but their favorite has been the Prairie Poultry. We will see what we should try next.

So new year has begun and lots new plans have been done. I will tell more about it later on. Next post will be update from my coach course with SAGI and from our Nosework Scent test tomorrow!!


MPF

Clicker Expo 2017 - Day 2

Bridge Over Troubled Water: Critical Client-Conversation Skills - Susan G. Friedman

Morning started with wonder lecture of conversation skills. Susan first defined what makes conversations crazy. Reason were pretty usually that takes all of our skills to control ourselves like: opposing opinions, strong emotion, broken promises etc. Anything that is important or has emotions attach to it makes conversation base hard. I know I have hard time holding myself down if subject is close to a heart. Conversation skills is skill we need to learn and evolves during time when we practice it. We had to list reasons to learn to be better in conversation skills and I had many situations that I would benefit like better client service, better out comes and to have better skills to make a difference.

So how become better? Most import is to secure the free flow of information to the pool of shared information. This mean that we need to make sure everyone stays in safe place share that information and we are interested about it. So if conversation get too hot (emotional, I'm right stage) - change environment. Behavior is always a function of current condition. So all around us and our partners in conversation can affect the conversation. It is import to realize that our way speaking can great scary or tense environment. Also the surroundings can affect is the conversation comfortable to the other person (public place, closed room). Next to have your story right which means keep to the fact. Don't assume what the other person is thinking ask and give room to their side of the story. Susan told about story telling roles that should be avoided: Not me!, All you!, There's nothing I can do! These roles that stops the founding of common goal.

Conversation is only really done when you have action plan how to resolve to issue. During conversation is important to keep it open so that there could be resolution in the end. We need self exploration and exploring how other react and think. It is also important to keep your own goal without over powering others. These skills that all of us can train become better at it. It takes time and practice but can have much better results in many aspects of life. How we talk and resolve conversation challenges things can make all the difference. Susan lecture was really good and gave lot to think about.

Assessing Function - The Sexy Side Of ABC - Susan G. Friedman

This lecture went through about the ABC ( Antecedent - Behavior - Contingency) of behavior. First Susan talked about what are known about mind and what we know about it. How our brains developed. Then how everything is connected to each other. When we train we train emotions. Condition produce emotions and frustration is emotion that can happen when we don't get the wanted out come. This is phenomenon happening in training too if we don't plan the training good enough. ABC analysis really makes think what happen and why. Goal is to change the environment to get a change in the behavior and make unwanted behavior irrelevant. This gives power to the learner to control the our comes.

Assessing the problem behavior should be done in detail. When it happens, how often it happen and what happens before it. Then you try analyze the motivation of the behavior. Everything happens for a reason and every action has motivation. Test your findings and make plan for a behavior training by changing first the environment to get the wanted results. Susan also showed how to keep data of the progress. Data will really tell you has the plan worked or not. I think this way of analyzing works also in all dogs training. We have problems for example in OB task. We could try to brake it pieces to find out the motivation why dog does the unwanted behavior. In the end all behaviors have motivation why they occur. We just need find them out so we can change training plan (environment) to get behavior we want. This was a really eye opening talk about everything that happens around us. We shouldn't label everything so easy without analyzing the behavior chain at first. 

Smart Reinforcement - Ken Ramirez

Last in the day I had a training lab with Ken where he told us how to built a non- food (or toy) reinforcement. This meant that you would built clapping or thumbs up to be strong enforcement to animal. This was very interesting idea especially to sport like ob. It would cool to have " toy" in the ring. Ken showed us a protocol how to build up this kind connection to for example to clapping. This process was very long and needed a good training plan to achieve. He should how keep data and how to proceed. Using clapping as reward would need a constant training but it had been successfully done with number of different species. The idea of having reward always with you is very attempting. I thought this was a so interesting that I'm going to try to built it. 

In the lab we tried the first steps in training. It was nice see fast the dog pick up the training. Ken was really good instructor for teams. I would love to one day to attend seminar where I could train my own dogs.  

That's all for day two! We had a very nice evening dinner with Panel Discussion, where the audience could ask questions from the faculty member. This year questions were extra good and we got a lot of interesting conversations about it.

MPL

First day at Clicker Expo 2016

 CLICKER EXPO EUROPE 2016

It's been a cool to be back CE. Lots new people to meet and new things to learn. At opening session Ken Ramirez talk about the butterfly effect - a small swing of wing of butter fly can create a storm. This he used as metaphor how we can be part effect and spred the word around about positive training. Also he talked about being open minded so we would shut down people with different view from our clicker community. He talked about clicker training coming sometimes to cult kind training that judges other methods and shuts down to communication with different kind of training groups. I think this could improved everywhere. In Finland we have also people that judges other because their training background. Learning is process that should be open everyone without judgement. So lets welcome everyone to learn more and not judge people what they have done in past.

Working with multiple animals in household - Ken Ramirez

My first session was with Ken Ramirez. Topic was multiple animals in house hold. He talked about how managed training session and gave different tools handle it. One basic tool was to use different shaped stationing mats. This application you could use everywhere and have a nice training set up multiple dogs. Other thing he underlined that all dogs should feel like they had the most attention and by doing that you could reduce aggression and other bad behavior issues during your training session. Dog can feel envy if the other dog gets more attention which can lead food aggression or etc. One thing Ken also emphasized was you have treat/give attention to the dogs that "do nothing" because they are waiting patiently to their turn. He showed lots of different ways to make the training session fair to each learner. We also went through some way to make dogs or animals work in the same time. I got lots tips to improve my training session because I train both of my dogs together all the time.

Last he showed a introduction protocol. First Ken showed a example clip how they introduced new dolphin in the aquarium to new pack. All of the animals did first basic training, then they started to do basic training. So that they saw it's other behind a fence. Gradually they worked some task together over fence like target training. After this basic training was done without the fence and then finally animals started work together in the same pool. This introduction gave them time learn about each other and work together which made final grouping easier. This protocol had helped to prevent aggression and fear when introducing a new animal in to pack.

Next Ken shared with us project where they had used this protocol with highly aggressive dogs. In this project they had 9 trainers working with this protocol to introduce three very aggressive dogs to each other. Even though this project had taken huge mount of man power and time 2,5 years, it was amazing to see former fighting dog that wanted kill any dog in sight to learn to play with them. Project gave a little peak that even the most aggressive can be change to better. Although this amount time and man power isn't realistic to conduct in real life but this study gives hope that we can change even the most aggressive animal to better. I hope this work continues! This introduction protocol has been very effective in everyday use with less aggressive case than they used in this study.

So this was just quick note from the morning part of the day. 

Stranger Danger - Emma Parson

First afternoon session I had Emma Parsons lecture of reducing fear and aggression against people. In this lecture we went through training protocol how to teach dog stay under threshold and learn how to have alternative reacting strategies. Actually this protocol was pretty familiar to me because I had used it Freya. Doing first at looking that game and then making other greeting alternatives is a very effective way to teach to dog to relax and take in information calmly. Reactivity can be reduced and then help the dog gather information first. It's like change the dogs way of thinking.

Simplyfying Complex Tools- Ken Ramirez

Last I had lecture of Simplifying Complex tools with Ken Ramirez. This was a interactive lesson. Ken first introduced the topics we could talk about and then voted what we wanted learn more deeply. Topics were: Jackpot, Keep going signal, Time out, Non reinforcement marker (NRM), End of Session marker, Least Reinforcing Signal (LRS), Recall Signall, Chained Behavior and Differential reinforcement (DRA). Room first choose Keep going signal, then LRS and End of Session signals. So here is little bits of everything.

Keep going signal is training tool that has no real science base. Although there are many practical example. KGS can be continued praise or sound or something that makes the animal keep doing what it's doing. It is debated if its necessary to use. Behaviors can be trained to have stamina and endurance of long work without reinforcement. In army (Bailey 2007) they used a sound to control the dogs movements so it would move until the sound stopped and then had to turn until the sound started again cuing a go signal. Many of us might use KGS in form a continuing praise and some behaviors might be feared to stop with out KGS. I think in the end it's up our training do we needed. If you train well back chained behavior or endurance to long working time task like tracking you don't need to have KGS. Some KGS can even work as a punisher when it has purpose of telling that animals behavior made to KGS stop and reward is not available anymore.

Second Ken told about LRS which is one the tools to have errorless learining circuit. LRS used when animal makes mistake then you have 3-5 sec pause (micro pause). During this pause trainers don't change their response or change environment. During pause animal should do a default position if its trained well. After pause you ask LRS which is something easy and simple task that the animal can do like target training. Goal is not to interrup the rhythm of reinforment and not to cause frustration to the animal. LRS is proven scientifically to work and help the learining process to be more effective. This is good basic skills to have when you doing positive training.

Last Ken talked about End of session - signal. This has no scientific background. Although many of use it to let the animal do their thing or stop the animal to keep offering behaviors. Ken showed us a film where they worked with sea lion as example that with dangerous animals this kind of signal could be dangerous. Animal might not think that session shouldn't end and reinforcement should be gone this and this could lead to trying to the trainer going out of the training area. With dog this isn't the case but do we need it? Does it really make difference? I think many of our animals learn when to work with us and when not from our behavior. Most of have routines how we end training - some might give water or play longer or take the dog to walk. I have used "go free" as  end of session signal. This means my both dogs can go and play together. This doesn't really make a difference to our actual training but it is routine we are used of doing.

In the evening we had a net working event. I had so much fun and I met a lot of new people from all over the world. Lots of talk about training and dog sport.. What else can ask?? :D So a wonderfull first day!!! Next post from the second day....

That's all from the first day!

MPF

New winds and new ideas to catch

Agilitycoach course 2016-2017

I glad to be chosen to second level agility coach course. This course will deepen our knowledge in agility training and also our ability train the handler even more. We a training book that introduces the newest training tools in human sports and goes through how human physiology develops. This has been interesting to read even though some of it pretty familiar from own sport background and my studying in the University. I think this will be a very interesting journey in to more training tools. During this course I will also work with a dog team and train both dog and the human part of team. It will new thing to train more specific way the physical part of the human training. More I read it more I feel I want to know about it.

I have also started train in a gym. I haven’t done this kind of training in a long time but I think it will a good way built up my physic and also learn more about training from training classes in Mentor Gym. Learning to train right is journey. Sometimes you get too excited and train too much. Sometimes your training doesn’t take you anywhere. It’s cool to learn more tools to test and analyze training to make it more efficient. I have already got a some training how train and built up a sport dog but I hope learn from that even more during this course. Goal is to be able to train better both dogs and humans and give tools to become even better agility team.

Competition and training

We had a nice competition day in Kirkkonummi last weekend. Both Pixie and Freya did some nice runs even though we didn’t get a clear ones. I tried Pixie’s running A-frame in competition and it went pretty well. The hit was little too high to my liking but much better it used to be. We still need work on that in training. Pixie jumped really well this time. I hope her body starts be in good condition again. Freya had yet again amazing contacts. I just absolutely love her work with contacts obstacles. Freya and I had few spots where she wasn’t sure what I wanted with my handling. So we have some work to do with handling maneuver separation training to make sure she doesn’t always turn away from me when I put my hand down.

In Tuulias training last week we had the same turning away from me problem when I started to do a normal handling of a wrap. We did some work with it but it needs more training. Otherwise she did pretty nice job. Her jumping has improved a lot. Our forced front cross starts to look pretty ok. I need take off from marking site really fast to give her enough space and time to make a nice jump. Freya can really commit to handling maneuver and obstacle really early. This is something I need to learn to be faster and give her room to do her thing. Slalom was a little slow but we haven’t trained it so much so yet another thing we can improve to get more speed.

ClickerExpo 2017 and my first clicker training class

CE is coming again!! I can’t wait to be there again. Lots of super classes and lots new people to meet. New training ideas and improving my old skills. CE is one the best training events I have ever been. Your just get overwhelmed from all the exciting lectures and the faculty is just full of amazing trainer. If you haven’t been there yet you should go! This year it will be held in Denmark. So I have a very short fly to get there. I hope to have a backpack full new books to read and head exploding from new ideas.

I have also put together my first clicker training class. Well actually I want to share training tools that have helped me to get better performance in different dog sports. I have learned to use different target training in rally, obedience and dog dancing that has made training easier and make dogs performance even better than before. I have also included social learning to my course. I want share the wonder Do as I do protocol created by Claudia Fugazza. My dog have just loved to train copying. I have notice that their focus have improved and they pay much attention to my doings. I hope that this would be a nice plus for everyone that has passion for dogs training.

TALENT DOGS - TYÖKALUJA KOULUTUKSEEN KURSSI

That's all for now!!!!

MPF

Obedience training for Winner Class

Route to Winner Class

We have been to two trials in Winner Class. First one was one paw away from first price and second went more off. I first had in mind of just trying to compete but I got to my senses. I wanted to improve our weaknesses and built her ready better for the higher classes. In the end after one first price in winner class we have to make three first prices in OB4 to become ob champions. Freya is also pretty good in ob so we might even try our luck in the National Championships. But we have more few challenges ahead and the biggest one is her sensitivity.  

We have done lots of work to make her comfortable near people. In last trial she got distracted from work of ring guide. She wanted sniff her every time she showed us our new starting point. This little distraction and checking her our took part of drive. So we need to do lots of work to make everyone in the ring meaningless. She has done already a lot of progress. But as you can see from our training video from last week she still get tense every time we go near people. This same can happen with dogs when we do the laying down or sit in a row. Freya's confidence is pretty fine line but it can be built to be better.

In overall she has improved in every task. Our biggest challenge has been the box. Freya has had a habit of stopping before to first cones. We have done position work from close range and helped sending from  long distance ( by this I mean going half way to send her so that I'm closer to box). Work has finally started to pay off. I think we will be soon ready to take another try in winner class. She has speed and super work ethic but I hope we will over come her fear to people and dogs so that she can work with full confidence.

Here is our video from our last training. This was competition mode training where we did about three task in row without reward:

That's all for now!!!

MPF

Talent Code - What is talent??

Talents aren’t born, they are made.

I finally had time to read a book Talent Code written by Daniel Coyle. This books takes a research how some place have produced multiple super star in their field. Studies have shown that there isn’t talents. Talent is made with right guidance and support. More Daniel found out about the talent hot spots, more story seems repeat itself. Behind every talent is a coach that can support deep practice and motivation. Usually behind talent weren’t any fancy places and top class facilities. They just needed a teacher that ignited their motivation and fueled the hunger for learning for the rest of their lives. These stories came from music and sport world but similar way talents were created in business world.

Ignition

Sirpa Saari

When you start your sport or other hobby, you don’t need to have a super coach or teacher. The person just has to have a way of teaching that fuels your motivations to practice yours skills in your chosen sport or other trait. First touch to for example to new sport can be to key factor does your inner flame burst in fire and to learning start on the right path. This really makes it even more important to find the right persons to teach to first steps. When ground work has been done solid and motivating it can create a life long journey of learning. This can be transferred to agility too to both in humans and dogs. Motivation base must be built well to help the team go through the hardships and difficulties on the route. Passion must be fueled to help fire the learning. So do we support enough the learning of the handler and the dog to give start to route to become supreme agility team?

Deep practice

Sirpa Saari

Next part on the journey is to learn to train in deep practice mode. Deep practice is based on error solving. We learn most efficiently when process the mistakes we have made and divide them in to small pieces. This actually reminds of clicker training. There we chop up the skills in to little pieces and built them together. In clicker training we try keep learning error free but do animals learn also from mistakes? We all learn from our mistakes. Of course as humans we can make this process deeper but I think dogs will also learn from their mistakes in life and in training (this means when dogs don’t get rewarded which makes them change their behavior).  Deep practice is mental zone when we work more slowly and work the problem bit by bit. Deep practice actually helps us built myelin in our brain which enhances the neural transmission. This is a important part the learning in brain.  

Deep practice is something we can learn and train but to help it we need a teacher or a coach that knows how keep us in the deep practice zone. Super coaches can change way of teaching to match each learner. It key to find the best way individual learns and take the teaching in. Everyone has little things that helps them to keep in deep practice zone and coaches in the hots spots have learned see them in every learner. Coaching is another skill to learn to become a deep practice expert. It takes 10 000 practice hour to master a skill, it needs about ten years of training and deep practice to become the talent.

Sirpa Saari

The deep practice idea can be also transferred to dog training. I actually just had light bulb moment when I thought of jumping technique training – deep practice! We give dogs training exercises where they can learn and feel about the jumping and built up their myelin wrapping in their brain circuits. Of course the dog need to be in deep practice zone which in dog training terms is in the right alert state and motivated. So how can we take deep practice to more consideration when coach our dogs? One for starters remember built up everything from little pieces. Clicker training rules are quite like building animal to do deep practice. So more you understand science based training more you can coach your dog work in the deep practice zone. I know this is my conclusion but to me it really make a lot of sense.  My thought may not be totally true. But if it makes even few people to explore operant training this writing has open few new windows to clicker training world.

That's All for now!!

MPF

Finlands National Championships in Nastola

WE DID IT FINALLY!!!!!

What a wonderful National Championship Weekend in Nastola. Pixie was a part of TSAUs team. We had four dogs in our team Petri Mannonen and Bordercollie Fleet, Santtu Stenberg and bc Rairai, Pixie and I, Taija Salokannel and Iisi. Our team did the fast clean runs and got GOLD in team championships. This was our first clean run in big competitions and our first medal in National Champion level. This was a big win to me and my dog and of course to the whole team. Feeling just amazing to finally succeed in a big competition.

I have to thank you Tanja Kotti and Leena Piira to helping Pixie to become better again!!! All our coaches Janita and Jaakko from One Mind Dogs. We are finally starting to find right way to work together still lot to do but it nice to have little prize for all the hard we have done. We want to thank you Acana and Orijen for providing the best nutrition to my Queen. Here is our super run
from the team championships:

In National Championships we did a pretty nice run with one fault and we were first dog out of final but I was really pleased with our work during the whole weekend. We worked as a team and Pixie's jumping had improved miles from the work she has done so far. Her body isn't still perfect since her sick leave but we are getting there. Things are done right and it is starting to so in our work. I think this weekend you could see our totally improvement in agility. My vision and work have started work to our favor. Thank you to our jumping trainer class!! Lots of thinking have changed. It is process that is still going on. I like where this journey has started to take.

Here is our run in the jumping course in National Championships:





In few weeks we have National Team tryouts. I can't wait!!! We are so ready for them!! I have the feeling we have finally have found our team work. It has taken 6 years. Too long for Pixie, she could have been super dog but she needed to wait for me to develop to be worth of her skills. We have found a flow feeling.... We will cherish it as long as we can and Pixie has healthy year ahead.

That's all for now... Next time we will see do we ticket to Spain ;D ;D ;D

MPF