I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on where I’ve been with
Feisty and with my other dogs over the last month as the reality of earning a
MACH with Feisty was getting closer. I have also been doing some
reflecting on what it was about her that kept me going in training her. I
certainly won’t judge anyone for why they stop working with any dog. I
have had dogs with serious issues in the past that I wasn’t able to make
progress on after working with them for a long time. So please don’t
judge people for why they choose to do what they do with their dogs.
Every dog and human is different and has different life choices to make and not
every dog is cut out to do agility. One of the things to really keep in
mind is that when it comes to dog agility – it is a tough performance sport
that requires the dog to have athletic ability, mental focus, and mental and
physical stamina. Not all dogs (just as not all people) possess these
qualities. The dogs who do well in this sport have to have a desire to do
things and the ability to focus on these tasks.
Why did I decide not to give up on her? I also train
her in obedience and have since she was a pup. She loves obedience and I
did proofing in obedience before I did in agility with her and she loves
it. She loves solving the problem and she gets so excited with herself
when she works through difficult things. So it was knowing this about her
that made me think I could help her work through the distractions and stressors
of agility. Little did I know how many obstacles like this would come along.
Many or even most agility dogs never get bothered by the things that bothered
Feisty. I also knew that it was agility related because she was an
awesome dog outside of the ring. I also have access to agility equipment,
agility people and other training resources to help me have the time to work on
it. Not everyone has these things. It cannot be done once a week in
a class – there is so much to do – teaching the handling cues to the dog,
building speed and confidence on obstacles, training cues for turns, collection,
acceleration and much more. Proofing these things comes when the obstacle
performance is reliable. There is a lot to do – I know this because I’m
often overwhelmed by how much I have yet to train my 18 month old puppy to do
and she gets trained several times a week! It is hard to focus on all
these at once so it is best to pick one thing per training session. For
example you cannot focus on both handling skills AND proofing obstacle
performance at the same time. Just as you can’t focus on teaching a
single obstacle performance at the same time you are also trying to complete an
entire sequence of obstacles. You have to pick one thing to focus on per
1-2 minute training session.
I did spend some time trying to do stress reducing things
for her and honestly they were not as effective as going the other way and
building her confidence under stressful conditions. Some of the things
from the Kathy Keats seminar have helped me to have a better understanding of
what we as people experience with performance stress and I do think it is
analogous to what many dogs experience. What I decided to do with Feisty
was to make a concerted and systematic effort to build her confidence rather
than try to reduce her stress. What do I mean by that?
Well I knew that she (and many dogs and many Pyr Sheps in
particular) would be very sensitive to her environment when trialing. So
when she was about 2 years old I put her in classes around the Twin Cities
where I knew there would be different equipment, different instructors
(different genders, sizes, voices etc.), many loud dogs and different running
surfaces. I did it purely for getting Feisty used to working in different
environments and I never worried about handling. For the first few weeks
we did very short sequences with high rate of rewards. Gradually she
worked up to being able to do longer sequences in these different places.
Then over a period of several months she could do sequences with different
people running alongside the dogwalk, crowding the table, crowding the start
line area and being ring crew. She didn’t demonstrate her stress at these
things in obvious ways but I could tell. People would often wonder how or
why I thought she was stressed but she would go really fast around something or
take an off course that was away from the stressor and things like that.
What kept me going with her is that she also wanted to work through her
stressors. She would get more and more confident all the time.
When I started trialing her she didn’t like tunnels she
hadn’t been in – she shut down in Tunnelers the first time I ran her in
it. Then she avoided teeters she didn’t know and she would stop and sniff
them and walk around the base of it and then she would get on it. She
knew a teeter she’d been on even if it was in a different location (like the
MAC equipment that is rented out). She knew a different teeter in a
familiar place. We went through this with almost every obstacle.
She ran around an aframe the first time she saw one that was wider at the base
than at the top. Now she can go out of town to a place she has never been
and get on any piece of equipment. It is interesting that she has not
ever had a table problem in USDAA but there the table is higher and so she may
not have associated the taller table with what had happened to her on the
shorter table in AKC. She has attention to detail and I swear she has a
notebook somewhere in the house with her name on it and all this
information.
While I was working on this I was also training her on
obstacles to the point where she had above average skills on the
obstacles. She had to do weaves past toys, fluff, treats, bones
etc. She had to do lots of difficult weave entrances and she had to do
weaves at a distance and with me right next to her. She had to do weaves
with a tunnel 1 foot from the end of the poles. As a result she just
loves weave poles. I also did a lot with her running aframes and
dogwalks. I went to ASCA trials and had friends stand at either end of
the dogwalk with the assignment to cheer if she got the contact (I couldn’t
wait for the judge’s hands) so I could mark it one way or the other.
It took a lot of work to get the dogwalk to be as consistent as it is
now. I also traveled to work with Dana Pike several times for help
training her contacts and to work her in yet another different place.
Then she ran in NADAC and she would just fly around the
courses. She loves NADAC – there is no one in the ring to distract
her. CPE is her next favorite and I believe that is because the
environment is more relaxed. She is very sensitive to negative energy.
Then we did AKC. I still recall the first time she ran
in Open AKC and she stopped in her tracks in the middle of the Weaves and I got
her back and we ran out of the ring. I knew I needed to keep working on
her weaves and proofing her obstacles. I started for awhile in AKC doing
short courses and avoiding hard obstacles and doing Jumpers with Weaves a
lot. Many an AKC judge and exhibitor scratched their heads as I ran out
of the ring early with a big smile and we had a “beef party” for doing ¼ to 1/3
of the course. There were the times when she wouldn’t get off the start
line – probably because the judge and the ring crew were stressed. If
there were any loud voices or arguments around the ring gate she would not run
or she’d run slowly. So I kept working on things. Then she was in
Excellent Standard at Soccer Blast and she was on the table, the judge, a tall
loud man was saying the table count. Feisty stared at him and would not
get off the table. After a lot of coaxing I got her off the table and
then she noticed Amy on the floor and shied away from her and then I could see
her scanning the entire ring noticing that there were people everywhere. That
was the beginning of our table problem. It was also the beginning of her
dislike of male judges. When that same man was judging Jumpers with
Weaves the next day she was on the start line. I saw her stare at him
while he stood in the middle of the ring. I lead out. When I
released her she tried to run out of the ring. I got her to do the last
jump as we left and I knew exactly what had happened. On the third day I
only ran her with the female judge and she was fine but refused to get on the table.
After trying a couple of more trials where she would freeze
and not do the table I stopped showing her in Excellent standard for many many
months – close to a year. I enrolled her in another training school’s
class where I knew there were male students and I worked on major
proofing. It was fascinating – at that point inside the agility ring she
refused treats from everyone. Outside the agility ring she would take
treats from those same people. After a number of months she went from
working though having people stand in normal places where judges and ring crew
stand to running the aframe with someone laying on the aframe, getting on the
table with three people sitting on it and doing the dogwalk with 7 people
hovering on the down contact (and she got the contact!). It took a lot of
work and that is all I focused on every week at these classes.
Fortunately these other students were friends and acquaintances of mine and
they understand how I wanted to use my time on the course. I didn’t work
on handling in trial or group classes – just proofing. It was all
consuming. I worked on handling in places where it was quiet and she was
comfortable. I could do this because I had a way to do training on my own
time.
Meanwhile I just did NADAC and CPE with her where she was
getting faster and faster running those courses and building her confidence in
trial settings. When I entered her in Excellent Standard she started to
run cleanly – not as fast as I knew she could but she was running
cleanly. She was running faster and faster in Jumpers with Weaves.
I wish I could say she has been perfect but she still has runs where she will
refuse the table – as recently as Dec. 4th. In November 2010 I
discovered that I had caused her to be afraid of camera clicks. She
totally shut down at a trial in St. Louis and would not take the first jump
because a photographer was taking her picture. It took the whole day for
me to isolate the cause of her fear. I won’t go into details but this has
been another hurdle for us and it is a very difficult one that is still a work
in progress. I have been able to get her within about 30 feet of a camera click
with treats and tricks. She can’t yet do agility within 30 feet of a
camera click but I am determined to work on it.
Now where Kathy Keats comes in… She talked a lot about
(and many of you have expressed this) being able to really work on committing a
course to memory so it is second nature to remember the course which then
allows more of the brain’s power to be able to focus on handling and the
dog. I hadn’t really thought about that because I’ve not ever had a
problem remembering courses but I know many of you have had this problem.
A few of you have said that since the seminar you are better able to remember
the course and now you can focus more on your handling and your dog which is
great. Well I’ve always known that proofing dogs performance makes it
better – faster, more accurate etc. One of the reasons is that they
develop better focus on the tasks but I also now believe that the dogs who have
strong skills of obstacle performance are better able to work with distractions
because they are thinking less about how to perform the obstacle – it is more
automatic for them. I see this in Feisty. Today in the Jumpers with
Weaves class the judge was close to the exit of the weave poles. Feisty
was flying until she turned into the weaves. She can have very fast
weaves. She slowed down but stayed in the poles. She was able to
maintain accuracy in the poles because she has had such extensive training that
she doesn’t need as much brain power to weave but the pressure/stressor of the
judge there caused her to slow down. Once out of the weaves she sped up
again. Now I could have taken it as having a slow weave pole problem but
when I looked at the big picture and friends pointed out to me where the judge
was it all made sense. She was actually being a VERY GOOD GIRL!!!
When she first started in agility she would have avoided the weaves all
together. On the standard runs I do pay close attention to where the
judge is and I do take it into account for my handling strategy if I can.
Usually in Jumpers the judge is off to the side and not in the middle of the
ring as she was today. Feisty has been known to veer away from a judge
who is walking toward her as she is approaching an obstacle – especially a male
judge. So I know I need to keep working on this but I pay close attention
to the judge’s path before I run her.
It is a result of this that I have introduced more and more
proofing exercises into my Monday and Thursday night beginners classes.
I’ve always done some but I have definitely increased it as I’ve become
more and more aware of how much this can really help to boost a dog’s
confidence in obstacle performance. I also do this in the Weaves and
Contacts special classes. Providing more distractions in training than
the dog will see in trial and having the dog work through it builds confidence
which in turn increases speed and accuracy. Many of you have seen your
dog get faster in the weaves working with distractions. It is much easier
to do this on shorter sequences and on specific obstacles that we have in the
beginner classes and I like to do it early on in training the dog before doing
longer courses. It is impossible to focus on handling skills and
proofing performance at the same time. When I have a free Friday night I
plan to offer more classes on proofing of obstacle performance for those who
need/want more work in this area.
It will be awhile before I have a free Friday because at
this point I am focusing a lot on trialing in AKC between now and the end of
June. Feisty is currently the #2 Pyr Shep AND Sinco is currently the #5 Aussie
so they are both on track to qualify for the AKC Agility Invitational in December
2012. This is something I’m very proud of and really want to strive to
accomplish. Therefore I may not be able to offer as many Friday classes
as I usually do this winter and spring because I will be traveling out of town
for many of the trials.
As a post script: even though I have this goal with Feisty I
am still stepping to the line with her as if it is just another chance to have
fun together. Today we had a very good Jumpers with Weaves run. In
Standard she went off course on obstacle 3 so I made a short course to the exit
and said “Thank you!” to the judge. I left in good spirits and loved her
up – it is also a good way for her to know that sometimes we do just short
courses out there – random reinforcement! Off courses are my fault not
hers but I don’t see a need to keep her out on a course – she doesn’t have to
prove anything to me and I also don’t want to risk unnecessary mental or
physical trauma to her. So let’s leave early – wow sometimes we just do a
few obstacles! It will keep her fresher and on her toes.
