Saturday, April 27, 2013

Obedience Is No Fun!

Ok, that's not true.  It can be lots of fun, but it's easy to get stuck in a cycle of being nervous to start with at a trial, my dog being stressed and distracted, making me more stressed, making her more stressed, and so on and so forth.  That downward spiral makes it really hard to enjoy anything. 

So if you haven't figured it out yet, Gidget and I just got back from an obedience trial where we did not qualify.  Good things: Gidget was a rockstar for her stand for exam as usual and her stays were perfect which is really a good thing because that's where we've been losing our Q in the past (this was only our 4th trial so that's not saying much).  Bad things: heeling, and there's a lot of heeling in an obedience trial!  Gidget also got up and followed me when I left for our recall.

Gidget was very laggy and distracted for our heeling.  It didn't help that there was a collie practicing in the ring next to us.  I'm pretty sure she thinks every collie is her Uncle Slammer.  Her heeling has gotten worse each trial since our one Q (again, not many trials but still not a good pattern).  I don't know what to do.  We need help!

Her recall was a bummer.  The judge said she anticipated the recall.  I don't think so.  When I turned around she was moving towards me while looking back over her shoulder.  Something, probably the practice ring, was stressing her out enough for her to get up and follow me.  She's anticipated before, she just stands up, maybe takes a few steps, but for the most part holds her wait without looking stressed, just excited to come running to me.

The judge kept saying, "Don't let them get away with lagging in the ring."  Not a line of thinking I like.  That'd be like telling a student that they won't get away with forgetting a line in a play or speech because they're nervous.  My dog is stressed and distracted, not trying to get away with anything.  We need more practice around stress and distractions and help in working through our heeling issues.  We did go to the walk thru the day before, but that didn't seem to help enough this time.

The other thing I find very frustrating is all the dogs with choke collars that do well.  I hate seeing these dogs corrected with a yank of the leash (in practice, not in the trial itself obviously).  Then the teams that train this way (and there are a lot of them) do way better than Gidget and I.  Most of these teams also have way more experience than us too, but it's still frustrating.  I hate to have Gidget and I be a bad example for positive training.  Thankfully I know other positive teams that do well.  I don't get to see them at trials often enough, but it's good to have others to be inspired by.

Thankfully our next chance to do an AKC trial isn't until Sept.  We have lots of time to figure out a new plan.  Until we're doing better I think I'll keep us at the two locations that have less ring distraction too.  I will enter her in the CDSP trial in July, should be a good test of how we're doing plus treats in the ring!

So the plan: get Gidget into a weekly obedience class and maybe seek out classes at other locations in hopes that we can work through stress and distractions at new locations, plus get the eyes of different instructors for different ideas of what might work for us.  Just have to be careful not to take on too many new ideas.  Also, try Rally with Gidget.  Something fun and different for her.  I want to start obedience with Gracie ASAP too.  Now, can I do all this without overloading myself?  We'll see.  Happy... er... working on happier obedience!

Saturday, April 20, 2013

April Trial

The girls and I were in the Twin Cities Lhasa Apso Club trial today.  It was a bit of up and down emotional day for me with everything from very happy, scared, frustrated, more happy, antsy/stressed, and relieved. 

I stopped by On The Run on Fri. to set up my kennels so I could sleep in a bit on Sat.  Gracie's Open STD run started around 10am, a couple hours later than I normally have to be at a trial!  The gate area was crowded and I could tell Gracie was a bit stressed at the start line as she didn't really want to sit and wouldn't shake.  She shook it off quick though, ran clean and got 1st place!  First bit of very happy!  I even tried out a blind cross between jumps toward the end of the course.  I had 2 reasons for trying it: 1) it'd be a fun challenge, if it resulted in a refusal we could still qualify and 2) I wanted Gracie on my left at the end turning toward the exit and minimizing her forward motion toward the entrance (the last jump was in the middle of the ring), safety first!  It wasn't the prettiest blind cross but it worked and it's something we can definitely keep working on and trying! 

Next was Gidget's Exc STD run.  Here comes the frustration.  As usual it wasn't pretty.  Good things: got the weave entrance and took the teeter!  Bad things: I pulled Gidget off the middle jump of a pinwheel trying to get into position for a front cross, Gidget popped out of the weaves after the 10th pole, Gidget danced around the table and judge before finally coming back and getting on the table, and Gidget took off for the exit after the 15th obstacle (tire) making the end just one big mess.  So frustrating!  How do I get her to want to stay and play with me til the real ending?  How do we fix this weave mess?  I swear I didn't start to take off early or change my pace at all near the end of the weaves.  How do I keep myself from screwing Gidget up?  Ugh!

Next up was Gracie's first Exc JWW run!  The gate was once again crowded and Gracie and I were doing our usual treat filled routine in what I thought was an acceptable spot when all of a sudden a border collie butt comes flying into our faces and doesn't go away.  I got Gracie turned away from the BC with her front end in my arms but there was another dog on our other side and I couldn't reach our treats anymore!  So I'm standing there with a growling dog in my arms (scared!) trying to see someone around without a dog that could grab our treats and be a body blocker.  Thankfully our friend Judy came to the rescue!  Once I had treats to distract Gracie and could move to a better spot, all was well again (major relief!).  Gracie was happy to focus on me once again and we both recovered enough to pull off another 1st place Q (more very happy!).

Last up, Gidget's Mas JWW run.  I had no idea what to expect.  Gidget seemed more stressed at the gate area this time, but not majorly so.  We got out there and things were going good until Gidget came to a complete stop in the middle of the weaves!  I got her attention back and finished the weaves without a fault!  So that's how we pull of the weaves successfully!  Slow and with a stop in the middle!  I got a front cross in to block Gidget's obvious exit and we finished the course clean!  Gidget's first Q of the year!  What a great way to end the day!  She got 5 MACH points too!

Hmm... I haven't covered the antsy/stressed emotions yet.  I'm sure you can imagine how the day was stressful for me.  By the time I got to the JWW walk thrus, I was running them as much as I could, not for practice, but to try to get rid of some of that bad energy!  Ran to and from the car a couple times too.  Gidget qualifying really helped the stress dissipate! 

We are now done with the On The Run season and will start the Soccerblast season in May (hopefully, haven't heard the results of the draw yet)!  Gidget has one more AKC obedience trial for the spring and the CAT!  Summer should actually slow down for us with just agility and one CDSP/WCRL trial.  I'm loving staying busy with the dogs!  Happy agility!

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Something New

The girls and I tried something new today.  Gidget tried a CDSP Obedience trial, and Gracie tried a WCRL (formerly APDT) Rally trial.  Both dogs had one turn and both did really well!

Gracie had rally first.  I chose to do WCRL instead of AKC because it'd be a much smaller trial and you can give treats after stationary exercises.  Both were good things for Gracie.  This was her first non-agility trial and she rocked it!  She got 207 points out of a possible 210 (200 for the main rally course and 10 for the bonus).  We lost one point because of a slightly crooked front sit, one because Gracie looked away for a second right when we needed to turn left so I bumped into her, and one for a second of tight leash at a right turn - again Gracie looked away for a second right at the turn.  Gracie was happy and attentive for the majority of the run and I couldn't have been more pleased!  She qualified and took 2nd place (out of 4 or 5 dogs)!

Gidget had her obedience run a couple hours later.  CDSP also allows treats between exercises and encourages some praise while working together.  I thought Gidget would appreciate this change from AKC.  CDSP runs their Novice class differently than AKC too.  First there's on-leash heeling, followed by off-leash figure 8 (no general off-leash heeling), then a moving stand for exam, a recall over a jump, and finally an honor stay.  No group stays so Gracie could do this eventually!  Gidget's heeling looks a lot nicer than it felt, but only 1.5 points off for forging.  The figure 8 wasn't pretty, but we'd never done it off-leash at a trial or walk through and she only got 2 points off for lagging.  Gidget was distracted and forgot to move with me for the moving stand, so 3 points off for asking her to heel again.  The recall was the best she'd ever done in a trial and no points off for the stay either!  She qualified with a 2nd place (out of 2 dogs)!

We had a good time and I hope to do WCRL and CDSP many times in the future! 

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Obedience Trial #3

Gidget and I tried another obedience trial yesterday.  It did not go as well as our last one, but was better than our first try in everything but the down stay.  Gidget was lagging pretty badly for our heeling, so much so that she didn't complete an about turn with me during our off leash heeling.  She ended up crossing in front of me to get back to heel after I turned.  Her stand for exam was perfect as usual!  I was very pleased that Gidget didn't move until I called her for our recall, she's been standing up early a lot lately.  I did screw up a tiny bit there as my left hand was still in heel mode so I didn't have my hands at my sides when I turned to face Gidget.  Oops!  Gidget's front wasn't pretty, she was at more of a 45 degree angle off to my side.  Still a work in progress there.  Though it wasn't pretty, we had still managed to qualify up to there. 

Stays were up a short while later.  Gidget's sit stay was perfect.  She was between a giant stag hound and an extremely whiny border collie, so I don't blame her for being a little stressed out.  She did not want to lay down for her down stay.  I actually had to put my hand to the floor to get her to lay down while I was standing next to her.  Then she was standing as soon as I left her.  With repeated down hand signals she wouldn't go any further than a sit, and she did hold that sit for the rest of the 3 min. stay.  So more things to work on.

I'd love to blame the lack of walk through the day before (like our last trial had) and the lack of space to get a good warm up in (we did our best with the little space we had) for her not so great heeling performance.  Gidget did do wonderfully for our walk through a couple weekends ago at this location.  Our next trial has a run through the night before so that will help.  Not the best excuses, but they'll do for today.  As for our stays, we'll be doing more down stays while I'm walking courses and setting bars in agility class, that helped her sit stay.