On The Road To Reality

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Jamie

A must have for any reactive dog owners!

Yesterday I received my copy of Ali Brown’s new DVD, Reactive Dog Classes: On the Road to Reality. I knew it would supplement my reactive dog rehabilitation library well and was very excited to get it. I couldn’t even wait a day to watch it so I sat down to view it last night.

If you’re familiar with Ali’s books Scaredy Dog and Focus Not Fear, then much of what you see and hear in the DVD will be very familiar to you. But, if you’re in a similar situation to the one I’ve always found myself in, you may not have a reactive dog class nearby. This DVD is a great resource for those people that must go it alone when working with their reactive dog. All of the exercises (and several others) outlined in Ali’s books are presented on the DVD in an easy to follow manner. In fact, if you’re a visual learner, you’ll probably get a lot out of the DVD as it’s much easier to really see how the exercises are implemented.

I also liked how there was a nicely broken down menu so you can easily find the section you’re looking for. It makes it much easier to reference the exercises later.

Watching the DVD, I felt much like I did when I first read Scaredy Dog. I can’t remember how many times I said “Yep. That’s Risa” in reference to how another dog behaved or a behavior Ali was discussing. Even with my familiarity with the books and reactivity, I still found some exercises I’d like to try and implement in Risa’s training. If only I can find some willing participants!

On top of everything else I enjoyed on this DVD, it was nice to see so many dogs and people I knew. Including Risa and myself. I feel so honored that both Risa and I could be a part of this DVD seeing how instrumental Ali (through her books) was in my identifying and beginning to work on Risa’s reactivity almost 5 years ago. Though I will admit seeing Risa’s reaction to the ridgeback at the APDT trial was a bit unexpected, it’s okay. 🙂 That’s part of living with and trialing with the Mutt. And it makes a great example. I couldn’t help but grin like a fool when I watched Risa’s backwards circles, though. She was so HAPPY!

All-in-all, you can’t go wrong with this DVD. Any owner of a reactive dog should really add it to their collection.

Posted in Classical Conditioning, Fear, Reactivity | Leave a comment

My Worst Nightmare. . .

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Jamie

"LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! I GOTTA CATCH THAT THING!"

. . .turned out to be a dream come true.

Today was the first day of lure coursing for the year. Unlike last year when we had a rainy spring that delayed the start of coursing until May, this year’s weather has been outstanding and allowed us to get started early.

I was looking forward to coursing again this year and so was Risa. She absolutely loves running more than anything! I only signed her up for two runs today since it was early in the season and I wanted to ease her into it. I also have noticed that she’s been a bit stiff in the knees lately and I didn’t want her to overdo it.

She got to use her Christmas present from me finally; a sighthound quick-release collar made for lure coursing. As she raced away from me after the plastic bag bunny, I was filled with joy. She was so so happy.

About halfway through her first run, she was joined by another dog. One of the dogs had gotten away from his handler and decided to chase the bunny with Risa. My heart should have been in my throat but it wasn’t. In fact, I felt nothing. After all, there was nothing that could be done. Risa was over 100 yards away from me. It was out of my hands. But I wasn’t really concerned. Risa was off leash in a huge, open field and I knew she was more comfortable when she wasn’t contained. I didn’t think anything bad would happen. I was right. The other dog never tried to engage Risa, which I think helped prevent any issues. The two dogs simply chased the lure until it stopped. Then they spent a bit of time just running alongside each other before they both came over to grab one of the plastic bags. This is the only time I got a bit concerned. Risa is a resource guarder when it comes to other dogs. If she was going to do anything, it was going to happen then. Fortunately, both dogs simply pulled on their own bags and paid each other no mind at all. The other dog’s owner grabbed her dog and I grabbed Risa and told her how amazing she was. I couldn’t believe everything played out so well!

Posted in Dog Sports, Fear, Lure Coursing, Reactivity | Leave a comment

Updated Rally Rules

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Jamie

Are you ready for rally!?

Starting April 4, AKC is implementing new signs and rules for rally courses. I have known of this change since the end of last year and, quite honestly, was looking forward to it. The main reasons being that 1) I thought rally needed to be harder and 2) they were eliminating the Honor exercise in Excellent which meant Risa and I could continue to compete.

Despite knowing the changes were coming, I haven’t taken any time to introduce the new signs and behaviors to Risa. Partially because we’ve switched venues back to freestyle. Our next AKC rally trial wouldn’t be until November. But mainly because I didn’t want to train the signs wrong. (This is the same reason I’ve been slacking on teaching the Level 2 APDT rally signs.) It’s way harder to go back and fix your errors both in what your dog is doing and what YOU are doing. I was hoping the local obedience club would offer a class or seminar on the new AKC signs and, to my delight, they did. I signed us up without hesitation.

Along with going over the rule changes and discussing the new signs in depth, we were allowed to run a course with our dogs. Now, as I mentioned, I had not practiced the new signs AT ALL with Risa. So the idea of running a course was pretty nerve-wracking and daunting. But, knowing she didn’t know what the new criteria was, I wasn’t really all that worried about what she would or wouldn’t do. We hadn’t trained the signs so she couldn’t mess them up. She can’t be wrong when she hasn’t been taught what right is. 😉

I was fortunate that they set up two courses: one for the Novice/Advanced signs and one for Excellent. I had to have walked the run through 6 or 7 times and did two of the signs by themselves after all that at least twice. (My usual walk through is 2-3 times.) I usually don’t fret the signs when I do rally because I know them by sight. Today, that was not the case. While I did catch on to what I was supposed to do pretty fast, it still was tough for me to remember it all. Add in Risa and the ring nerves and I knew it wasn’t going to be so simple. I didn’t know the signs any more than Risa did!

Despite not having done the signs before and despite our hiatus from rally training, Risa actually did pretty well. As far as the signs went, she only blew two of them completely. The first I knew she wouldn’t be able to do. It was the send over jump and the jump was a broad jump. I rarely practice jumps with her as it is. Risa has rarely seen a broad jump and, the last time she saw one in a trial, she walked across it (which is an automatic NQ). So I knew there was no way on Earth she was going to go ahead of me over the jump and then come back to heel position. I tried it anyway. The best I could get from her was her walking across the planks and then coming back to heel position. And that was on the second try. Oh well!

The other sign she totally blew was the halt, take two steps forward, pause, call your dog to heel as you walk away. Risa stayed when I asked her to just fine but she didn’t move an inch when I cued her to heel. This was not unexpected. I do not work her with my back towards her that often and I already knew she had issues with a similar sign in APDT rally. So no surprises there.

Those two signs I knew Risa was going to ‘fail’ at. I was, however, surprised at how well she did with several of the other new signs. These are fairly complicated signs that were hard for me to remember how to correctly do all the parts of, let alone expect Risa to perform them right. The first was the new moving down sign where you cue your dog to down as you keep walking 6 feet away to another sign. At that sign, you turn around to face your dog and call them to heel (either around behind you to heel position or swinging in on the left). The dog then halts in heel position, you pause, and move forward. Amazingly, Risa did this one almost perfectly (her sit in heel was crooked). The other multiple step sign she also performed with amazing precision despite our lack of familiarity with it. On this sign, you approach and stop while your dog remains in a stand. You cue them to stay and you walk 6 feet away where you turn to face them. You cue the dog to down. After they down, you cue them to front and then finish them left or right.

The replacement for the Honor exercise is a sit/stay performed right after the Finish sign. I cued Risa to sit and walked away to get her leash which was 15 feet away on a table. I returned to her, walked around her into heel position, and leashed her up. THAT was pretty impressive to me because it’s been ages since I’ve done any long sit/stay work with Risa. And, with a judge in the ring close by, she could have easily broken position when she saw me leaving. But she held it beautifully.

Overall, I was extremely pleased with how well Risa performed the signs. It made me feel good as a trainer because, even though she hadn’t done these movements in this particular sequence, she was still able to do as I requested. Unfortunately, my weaknesses were still showing today as Risa’s focus was horrendous. 🙁

We started off good at the start line with a very focused beginning. It wasn’t long before I completely lost her, though. I spent a good portion of the course trying to get her back into a focused heel with me. She wandered off to sniff, checked out the judge, and was just completely on her own. There was a small section in the middle where I had a nice, connected partnership with my dog. But it was short-lived. Despite working on heelwork at home, I am still failing to get what I want. Let’s face it. The family room is not nearly as distracting or good-smelling as a trial. I really need to up my game and work with Risa on heelwork and focus behaviors in more busy areas. Harder to pull off in the wintertime for sure. But we’re going to continue to struggle if I don’t start upping the criteria. (And, if I’m brutally honest with myself, I lose her focus in the boring family room a lot too.)

Overall, this was a great opportunity for training. We learned the new AKC signs so we’ll be properly prepared come fall when we will likely find ourselves in the AKC Excellent ring. It was also a good chance to get out and work around other dogs again and work on focused heeling (which I did AFTER we had such a poor showing in the ring). Risa also got to be out around dogs and do some more reactivity training. She did try and sneak some sniffs of dogs’ behinds while we waited around. Curiosity is good. She also had a bit of trouble when some other dogs were barking but she was able to calm herself down with little input from me (I simply walked her away to give her more distance to calm down). Ris did have a minor reaction to another dog who must have given her ‘a look’ or something. I didn’t see what set her off nor did I see her getting ready to go off. A fellow competitor had just called to me to tell me how they’d done and, for the split second I took my focus off of Risa, she reacted. It was a very minor snark and Risa wasn’t close enough to the dog to make contact. So, all in all, it was a great day out!

Posted in AKC, Dog Sports, Dog Training Seminars, Rally, Reactivity, Training | Leave a comment

Masterpiece

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Jamie

Risa pictured alongside her portrait.

It’s often said dog training is an art as much as it’s a science. Coming from an artistic background, I can’t help but agree. The same things that allow someone to create a beautiful piece of artwork are very similar to the ones used when training a dog:

Understanding of the subject
Attention to detail
Dedication
Time
Patience
Skill

Innate talent can help a lot as well but, in the case of dog training, I think you can do without it. While you may find yourself capable of doing much more with your dog in regards to training if you have some sort of natural ability, you can certainly do just fine if you don’t!

Posted in Thoughts, Training | Leave a comment

Curiouser and Curiouser

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Jamie

No longer completely terrified of strangers, Risa enjoys being petted by certain people.

When I first brought Risa home, she was absolutely terrified of people. At the time, we lived on the third floor of an apartment complex. As you might expect, we had to travel the hallways and stairwells fairly frequently. Passing people was a common occurrence and a very scary event for Risa. The halls were narrow and, every time we got close to a person, Risa would bolt to the end of her leash in a frantic attempt to get as far away as possible. This happened when we were on the stairs as well; I’m amazed I was never pulled down.

It was very frustrating for me. I was certainly not the trainer I am today and found myself angry with her for her responses rather than sympathetic. Despite my actions in the halls, I did work with her on becoming more comfortable with people. I encouraged her to take treats from people we saw at the pet store. I invited friends over and had our fellow students at training class work with her. Still, I did nothing to help her overcome her concerns when we passed people in the hall. I simply never thought about it.

As time went on, however, she began to realize that the people we passed were not out to get her. After all, most of them simply ignored us. With no effort from me, Risa decided they were no threat. In time, she began to reach out and ‘sniff them on the fly’ as we passed. At the time, I didn’t want her sniffing people as we walked by them. I didn’t want a dog who felt the need to sniff every single person in the world (not to mention not everyone wants a dog doing that to them). But I didn’t want to tell her she couldn’t do it either. She was finally interested in people. Risa was showing curiosity rather than fear. So, while I didn’t like the behavior she was offering, I had no idea how to stop it. Fortunately for me, it eventually went away as she gained even more confidence around people. Risa no longer feels the need to check out everyone she sees. She understands that most people are just part of the scenery and are no threat to her.

I'm realizing many parallels between Risa's initial behavior around people and her current behavior around dogs.

At this point in time, I would consider Risa a recovering reactive dog. She’s pretty well-managed and generally non-reactive. But she still has moments when she falls off the wagon. 🙂

Looking back, I’m seeing a few parallels between Risa’s current actions in regards to passing other dogs and her improvements around human beings. Right now, Risa seems to spend more time trying to sniff dogs as we pass them rather than put on an aggressive display. (Her other usual alternative is moving away and/or offering calming signals which I also find acceptable.) I feel the same way about her sniffing dogs as we pass by as I felt about her doing the same with people. I would rather she not do it. But I cannot ‘correct’ it because it’s actually a great thing! Curiosity is the exact opposite of fear!! I do, however, feel better when I think about how she used to do this with people and no longer does. While I have actively spent time creating positive associations around dogs and still work on this daily rather than simply doing nothing as I did with people, I am confident that Risa will stop investigating dogs on walks some day. Until then, I will smile at her desire to check out the scary rather than hold onto her fears.

Posted in Fear, Reactivity, Training | Leave a comment