Jumping technique video

Rapid reinforcement

Yesterday I read through some of Fanny's articles and noticed a section on high criteria - high frustration training. Since Orkan is the kind of dog that gets extremely frustrated by extinction I decided to try a session of really low criteria training with him, just to see what would happen. That was fun! I worked on heel position, and rewarded almost every go, except the really, really bad ones. I think the reward rate was at 90%, meaning I even rewarded the quite crappy attempts. He still improved, and it turned out to be a bit of a wake-up call for me, that I should probably count more of his attempts when I make my mental statistics on reinforcement rates.

When I help Sigurd with training Bris, I've told him a couple of times that he needs to count all behaviour as attempts, not just the ones that look like one. I guess I'm making the same mistake myself, I need to lower my criteria sometimes. There is such an enormous difference between training Storm and Orkan, in that Storms rate of offering behaviours is a lifetime lower. So when I let myself get stuck in rewarding every same number of seconds with the two of them (not literally, but still it is a patterning of what I consider rewarding often or seldom), I actually have a much lower reward rate with Orkan than with Storm. Not that I've ever done that conciously, but I think I've been missing out on how many attempts I have NOT rewarded, just keeping track of the ones I did reward...

Now that's too much thinking for my tired little brain right now - anyway we had a very nice session :-)

Plans

Today I found some time to make a training plan for the next couple of months. This is what I'll focus on, providing Orkan is well (this morning he seemed all depressed again):

March:

• Physical activity every day (at least a 30 minute walk) to get him in better shape and lose the last bit of overwheight.
• Heel position, both sides
• Sitting rear crosses
• Loose leash walking (I'm sooo tired of not having that settled, so now it's time to grab the monster by it's tail!)
• Jumping technique: distance, bend work and jump height.
• One jump: proofing and distance

April:

• Handling (according to the handling classes with Fanny)
• Start working on the running contacts (I have bought the planks already, but I'm waiting for less snow before I start working on it)
• Nose touch (for the teeter)

May:

• Handling (according to classes)
• Running contacts
• Starting weave training
• Teeter contacts

June: Hopefully finishing the "teaching" of contacts and weaving and start working on competition-like elements, getting ready for trialing.

Ok - now it's out there, I hope to be ready for our first competition this summer. Probably not june, but at least some time in 2009?

Finally some training again!

Yesterday Orkan seemed good enough to do some agility training, so we went to the horse arena (still don't know what the're called in english) with Lene&Susi.

Circlework: Orkan is impressing me. I did some long stretches of running with direction and speed variation, and he didn't fail once. I see that I can work a bit more on decel, but all in all I was really pleased with his performance!
Distance grid: 4-4-4- 11/12/12/10/9/8/10 feet (I think, will have to check the video to see the distances, but right now I'm at work and the video will come later when I'm home and have the chance to edit it). Orkan easily bounced 8 feet, and it took quite a distance to make him feel comfortable adding a stride. Lots of messing up, but I guess this is the kind of exercise that gets better the more we just keep working on it, nothing special really. At least he tried different strategies every time, and when he succeeded, it looked really nice and balanced!
Tunnel: Worked on the difference between silence (sprint ahead) and digging (turn when you exit the tunnel), and he really seems to get it. I look forward to proofing that with jumps and more difficulty! It's a bit hard to work on it in the riding arena sice it's extremely dusty and Orkan doesn't really want to pick up a thrown toy and get his mouth full of sand... Maaaan! I long for summer! We also worked a bit on rear crosses. That works well as long as the tunnel is straight, so I'll add an angle on it next time.
One jump with height: I think this looked quite good both on 20 cm and with crossed bars at the 35 cm cup, but again - I want to see the video before I decide :-)

All in all a good training! Was really nice to only be 2 people and 2 dogs, but I think the woman who owns the place was a bit less pleased (less payment for her, since we pay per person), so I hope the rest of the guys will come next week :-)

Dog gear - in lack of training to write about...

Like many of my fellow agility-addicts I am a bit of a shopoholic on behalf of my dogs. So.... In lack of any recent training to brag about (remember, Orkan isn't feeling well), I'm posting pictures of some of the latest dog stuff:

Both Storm and Orkan have gotten new leather collars! Storm's one is exactly like the old, only his old one was completely worn out... I love the design, and was SO hapy to find a new one, since they stopped making them more than a year ago!I got Bris a leather collar at Europris, costing 20 kr! (like 3 dollars) At that price, I can live with the fact that she'll outgrow it soon :-) She also has a grown-up collar waiting for her. All girlies need to have some "bling"! (Sigurd didn't really agree on the pretty colour and 'diamonds')
And then they all got new leather leashes, also costing 20 kr at Europris. Really nice quality, and it's great to have the same length when walking three dogs at once, to avoid the mess of some leashes hanging too low, getting dirty or tangled up in dogs legs etc... Notice that they match the collars!I got a new skiing harness for Orkan (the one to the left). I put yellow reflective straps on it and like the new look! After trying it on a skiing trip I decided I really liked the design. It has the same front as a Nome harness, but is more simple in the back, and comes in small sizes (I have tried to find a Nome for my small dogs, but never succeeded in finding anything that really fit them). The only thing I have gotten to work on my little ones is the webmaster harness from ruffwear, but they have a tendency of sliding to the side. This one has such a loose fit that it corrects its position even if it's dragged to the side. Storm wanted one too, but since it was really expensive I made one for him myself (the red and grey one). Not as goodlooking as the other, but it saved me a log of money. I almost consider being a tiny bitty bproud of that one ;-)
I've made a lot of dog toys lately, but I have sold most of them, so this is the only one I have left to take pictures of. Not the best looking one, but it's loved deeply by all my dogs, the combination of sheepskin and a squeaker is a sure winner Too bad I didn't think of taking pics of the others, some of the bungee ones with black and lime-green handles were really pretty :-)

Eye problems?

Orkan has had this everlasting eye infection for several months. Once, it got really bad, and we had to treat it with antibiotics (ointment). We got rid of it with the ointment, but it came back after a short while, but as long as it has been quite subtle (some pus in the eyes in the morning and maybe a bit through the day) we have (after talking to a vet of course) treated it with cleaning and rinsing, to try not to get resistant bacteria, as you sometimes get if you treat frequently with antibiotics.
But yesterday I decided I had to do something about it, since it is one of the very few visible symptoms Orkan has (along with his tiredness and depression - he acts like he is in a lot of pain, but we can't find anything). I still had the ointment in the fridge, so I'm going to use it three times a day for ten days, to see if the eye infection can have anything to do with his problems. It's a long shot, but last night and this morning he suddenly seemed happier! Maybe, maybe, maybe, the eye infection has been causing him some pain? I really hope he continues to get better! I'll keep treating it for ten days anyway (NEVER stop in the middle of antibiotics, that causes resistant bacteria!) and by then I'll know if he's better, and then if he's better because of the eyes or because of the food...
I really hope we can figure this out soon! Hate to see my sweet baby unhappy!

Update...

Ok... I realize I've been a lousy blogger lately. Apologies for that!
So this is what's going on:

Bris: very cute, very crazy, very big! All the usual puppy stuff, lots of training. My goal with a new puppy is always that they get to visit a new environment every day if possible, I have a list of places they should visit before they turn 12 weeks. I also have a list of dogs to meet, and when to meet them. Bris is coping nice with every challenge we have thrown at her. Mostly we work on it's your choice game, a bit of crate games and simply behaving. She has some stress tendencys I don't really like (not settling down in her puppy pen after a round of playing with the other dogs, barking like crazy etc), but we're working on those, and I'm confident she won't grow up to be a stress problem as long as we deal with these things while she's still a puppy.

Storm: has learned to live with the puppy! He even seems to like her a bit, sometimes running aorund chasing her like a true friend :-) I love it when they play! Since his back has been good for a while I've started to look at different options on what to start working on with him. Since he lost a lot of muscle this summer due to all his paw injuries and finally the back problems, we are working on some muscle right now, but soon I'd like to start taking him to trainings as well. I'm not so sure I want to do agility with him, since there's no way I'll ever compete with him again (or even have him jump over anything higher than a stride regulator) so I've been thinking a bit about refreshing his obedience skills. Still, we don't have much chance of getting anywhere near a good score in obedience, so I think we'll stick to some livingroom training until (If I do) I change my mind.

Orkan: still very tired. He acts just like he is in a lot of pain, but his x-rays came back with an A, and there is nothing else to be found either. Today I changed his food again (the time he started to feel bad corresponds sort of with the time we changed his food), this time it's back to what he got before, mixed with a different brand of light-food. I don't really train a lot with him, exept he gets to work a bit physically. He has been pulling on some of our ski-trips, but only as long as he wants to himself, and only in light conditions (not in deep snow etc). I really hope we figure out what's bothering him soon! It really bugs me to see that he isn't feeling well... Poor little guy doesn't even get up to say hello when I open the door. I know he is getting over his puppy-ness, but he seems to be 15 years, not 1! He really looks like he is feeling terribly awful... If you have any suggestions on what to do, I'd love to know!

HD: A???

Today I got the reply on Orkan's x-rays: he got an A! I don't really get that, since both Laxmi, her colleagues and the vet who took the pictures said there was something with the right femoral head, and we have seen pain in his right hip too, both when Laxmi examined him and when I have stretched him at home.
Still, an A has got to be a good thing? I hope this means his pain comes from something else, and that the expert saw the irregularity but figured it isn't as baad as the others thought. But it makes me wonder...
Congratulations, please?

Dog spinny

Today I had some fun watching our dogs figure out the Nina Ottoson "Dog Spinny" puzzle. If you haven't seen it, have a look at the picture. The dog has to spin the top disc to get to the treats in the holes. We borrowed the puzzle from Raiku, who's already a bit bored with it since he figured out how it's used and eats all the treats immediately. My dogs had quite different approaches:
Bris went completely crazy with it, scratching, barking, sniffing, licking. She got the treats out pretty fast (I had to refill it all the time), but still she didn't have a clear strategy, just vast amounts of activity that coincidently made the disc move. Pretty puppy-like I guess :-)
Storm did what I think dogs are supposed to do with this, he stuck his nose in the hole and moved it around. When he had eaten most of the treats, he tried a different strategy, sniffing around the edge, where he could smell the treats. That didn't really pay off.
Orkan has no patience for figuring out anything at all as long as we're speaking of food, so he decided the only reasonable way to get anything done was to stick his lower jaw in the hole, bite around the edge, pick the whole thing up, run and shake! Hahaha! Not that it was a very effective strategy, it's just so much like Orkan :-)

B or C

Not exam grades (those I'm not planning to talk about here!) but hip predictions. Laxmi thinks Orkan's right hip probably has a grade B or C of CHD. Not very bad, but still it bugs me... I know that his breeder probably didn't mean to withold any information, but if I knew his mother had CHD grade D on the right hip, i probably wouldn't have bought the puppy. Let's misunderstand this the right way: I love Orkan and would never get rid of him, nor regret that I got him, but my mind won't let me rest with the fact that he was born with a structural problem that's probably already causing him pain (remember that whas why I checked this in the first place)...

Hip x-rays

Orkan is waking up from the anasthetic right now. We just came home from the vet, after taking the all so famous CHD (canine hip dysplasia) x-rays. I took pictures of them and sent to Laxmi immediately, and she says the right femoral head isn't perfect, but it doesn't look very bad. I don't really know what to make of that, but at least it can't be fatal :-p
Here is one of the pics (click on it to enlarge):

Tireing weekend!

This weekend has been very hard...
We are watching Sigurd's parents' dog Raiku, since they are in China for 10 days. In addition we have our own puppy Bris, and our two other dogs, and we were working at the farm (as always, every other weekend), so that is four dogs and about a thousand pigs.

The pigs were as they usually are, messy and smelly, but ok. Our dogs were as usual, happy and always ready to steal food if you happen to have some in a pocket or a backpack lying around. The puppy was exceptional - she copes so well with being left alone! The one that surprised us was Raiku. He made so much noise and fuzz! He couldn't be with our dogs because he has no respect for them whatsoever, and when they try to tell him that it's enough, they can't bite through his thick furr, and so he just keeps on bugging them. The whole situation got him over-stressed, and as you might have heard about, our landlord goes crazy if they hear a dog bark. Let's just add to the equation that I have caught a nasty cold, and I'm just curling up on the couch, almost invisible, with Orkan by my side...

I am so happy I have my wonderful friend Lene! Raiku stayed with her (go to her blog to read about how Susi helped teaching "it's (not) your choice game") from saturday 'till sunday, and that really saved our asses! Now Sigurd has left for Horten, to stay in his parents' house with the crazy, happy monster until they come back from China. I miss him (and all the noise he took with him, since everyone exept Orkan went with him), but I guess that's the only solution... I even have to go to some of his lectures that he's missing because of this. That will be interesting!

Sad message...

As I mentioned before, I was going to Laxmi yesterday to get Orkan checked because he's been a bit out of his ordinairy self lately (tired, not wanting to do anything). Turns out he probably has hip dysplasia... Really sad...
We're doing x-rays as soon as possible, then we'll know more. If it's only a mild degree, his agility career will probably not be affected, but yesterday it was obvious that his right hip hurt when stretched... The good thing is that he has no patella-problems or anything else... But still... We're sad and anxious to see the x-rays!
Is it supposed to be like this? All my agility dogs turn out to have a physical problem? Maybe I'm not meant to do agility at all... Sigh...

Blog challenge thingie:

pick out the sixth picture in the sixth file in your computer. Explain a bit about it.
Some border collie at an agility trial. Don't really know which dog this is :-p

Crazy puppy

Sigurd is playing a floorball match tonight, so I'm the lucky babysitter. Try to explain to a crazy, little furry firecracker that she's supposed to be tired, and that her pituitairy gland may grow too big due to too much stress at the developement stage she is right now?
Let's just say that she doesn't agree... I'm trying very hard to ignore her right now, but she is keeping up a good fight, her wheapon of choice being as simple as a lot of noise... I think I need to go rob the fridge for all cake-like substances to survive this one!

Happy birthday!

Today (february 12th) is Orkan's one year birthday! The tie and crown had to go pretty fast, but he liked the cake! The video is a collection of pictures from the time we have had together so far. I hope this is just the beginning... Happy birthday!

Nice training with Orkan

Yesterday Orkan functioned very well, after a while of not really being himself (tired, not wanting to do anything). We're still going to Laxmi tomorrow, but I feel a bit better after a session of Orkan being "on" again. We still had some cases of running to another dog, but let's blame that on puberty ;-)
I was planning to proof some one jump exercises with more distance etc, but it worked so well, that I decided to add a tunnel in the equation. This is what it looked like, and the distances was a lot bigger than we have done before, like 20 meters from the far tunnel entry to the jump.

D-A was easy, just a lot of running. Then I got to do some tunnel exiting (calling his name = turn to me to get your toy, no calling = run ahead to get your toy). His turns were not exactly tight yesterday! We need to work more on that, but it's hard since the arena we train in now in the winter is so dusty, he doesn't really like picking up a thrown toy.
C-A more or less the same.
A-C was also a lot of running, not much else to say about it.
B-D (sending on refusal plane) was easier than I thought. I guess all that one jump work is paying off! Still, when he got a bit tired (one of the last sessions), he tried to do C instead of D if I didn't support his line. Needs work.
B-C with a front cross was easy for him, as long as I got there in time for a proper positional cue. If I was too far up and to the right, he didn't see the jump when I executed the cross, and he lost speed.
A-D we didn't try, need more proofing of refusal plane first.

Distance was definately a challenge, but it was just as hard as we needed to have the right success rate. Fun training :-)

One jump with Storm

I got a bit inspred by Justine Davenport's headline "Teaching old dogs new tricks". Storm has seemed a bit down the last week, and I was suspecting that his back was deteriorating again. But yesterday I took him out to work on a bit of one jump, and he was so much fun! He wasn't trained by Greg's handling system, so these exercises were greek to him. I loved his attitude! He really wanted to work, and was happy to get some attention :-)
Here is the clip:

Photoshoot: Bris

Today we had a little photoshoot with Bris in the snow. She enjoys being outside, and loves to explore. She has a lot of energy, and it's not always easy to get her to calm down and sleep as much as we would like her to :-p
She came with me when I was running some errands, and since she was a bit tired, I tried leaving her in the car when I went in to do my shopping. First I just took a few steps away from the car, to see if she started to cry or something. But she just lay down, and went back to sleep. Pleasant! I've never had a puppy that coped so well with being alone! Of course being very tired contributed, but with Orkan I could still never have done the same. With him, I couldn't even go to the bathroom without him.
Here are some pictures from today:

Daddy's girlI'm gonna get'cha!More treats, please?Pretty!Who don't love a cuddle?Exploring the white worldFloppy ears...Long tail :-)She is the first puppy I've known who instantly loved the snow!

Handling seminar with Bø og Sauherad Hundeklubb

Right now I'm very tired, (had to get out of bed early to be with the puppy since Sigurd had early classes) but I thought I would write down some words about the weekend before I fall asleep on the couch.

This weekend has been in the name of agility, but for once I didn't pay to do a seminar, I got payed. Nice transition :-) I try to teach a little to keep up with the costs of the seminars I go to myself, but I had never done a whole weekend seminar alone before, so I was a bit nervous. No reason to be nervous! It was nice. All the feedback I got was positive, even the stuff that my contact person (key person in the club I was teaching for) told me second hand was nice. The only thing (which I already knew) is that I sometimes tend to talk kind of fast. I'm working on that! :-)

The handlers were quite new to agility, and their dogs were very unexperienced. Some of them had done a beginners weekend-class, some had been taught by the others, but all the dogs were at fairly the same level. The dogs had been lured to jump (no shaping), had very little independent understanding or value of the obstacles, so we worked a bit on that. We went through the basic one jump exercises so that they can keep working on independence and value for the obstacles. The dogs also got to do some easy sequencing, but the double boxes and other more advanced stuff was done mostly by handling each other (or handling me). I had a lot of fun handling them through manouvers I hadn't taught them already! Since they (acting as the dog) understood the manouver anyway, they got to see how logical the system is! Basicly I left them with an understanding of the system, knowing what to work on, and what to do after progress (moving on to the things we did handling each other). Since it was very, very cold this weekend (-15 celsius) the human handling was great for keeping us warm too :-) Another thing we did was analyzing a world championships course and then watch a video of Susan Garrett handling it.

Orkan was my demo dog this weekend. I am very pleased with him! I wasn't sure how he would respond to staying in an open crate when I was working with other dogs, but he was an angel! I even left the room for five minutes to go to the bathroom, and when I came back he was asleep, still with his door open. Bestest puppiest evvvvvver! On saturday he was a bit sleepy and out of focus, so some of the things I intended to demonstrate didn't work as well as I would have wanted, for example the circlework. He has been a bit wierd lately, not as energetic as he usually is, so I'm taking him to Laxmi just to check that there's no painful explanation to it. She is the only one I trust to find it if there is something. If she says he's ok, I trust he is. He also had issues with other dogs coming to his crate (trying to make them go away), that is a completely new thing from him, I've never seen him mad at other dogs that way before... On sunday he worked better, but was still tired, so I mostly demoed shaping tricks, 2by2 weave training (a little bit about the method) and some one jump. I had planned to do more sequencing with him, but since he's not really himself right now I let him sleep... He also turned out to be too experienced with shaping to show them how I would shape a dog to get on the dogwalk without luring (one of them had a dog that was afraid of the dogwalk and I suggested to build some value through shaping since their dogwalk couldn't be lowered). He figured it out on the first try, not too much shaping when they give you the final behaviour on the first try? Haha!

All in all I'm happy with the outcome of the weekend! I'd love to see them again in some months and watch their progress, because they seem to be ready to put some work into the foundations (one jump, circlework, reward control/it's your choice, etc) and I think their progress will be huge as long as they stick to the good attitude and keep helping each other. By the way, it was very nice to see how prepared they are to help each other!

Puppy!

We went to see the puppy yesterday. She was as good as the breeder had told me, and she came home with us. She seemed very happy, curious and confident (and still is, here in our house). When I tested her, she was crazy about food and would work for it almost forever, and she loved to play, especially with the sheepy squeaker toy I had. She didn't have the urge to come back to us with the toy, but considering everything else, I think she'll be a good old great happy tugger! She coped well with the car ride (almost seven hours), and Sigurd at least got some sleep this night. Now she has played herself tired with Orkan, and is about to go back to sleep.

The only issue we've had is that Storm is very anxious of her, and gards his toys, his crate and his chewing bones with his life. He's had some history of dogs he didn't know attacking him for no reason, so he doesn't really welcome new dogs into his home. I think it will solve itself as soon as she settles in a bit and he learns that she isn't a threat, but we'll do some counterconditioning and other stuff with him just to make the process go faster. He coped well with sitting with her, being given one treat, then she gets one, and so on, it's only a problem if he has a pig's ear or something and she comes bumping into him.

That's the current status update. We did some filming yesterday, and I hope to post the video soon, but since I'm leaving for Telemark tonight it might take a while to get it done.

Arrivederci!

Fatsoe

Orkan is a bit fat. Has always been... He has this tendency of loosing wheight until he's perfect, then somehow gain it all back in a matter of two days. So this week I decided to buy him light-food to see if that can help us stabilize him in better shape. At least it will provide small pieces of low-fat treats for shaping (he usually gets all his food through training, and a lot of training then means a lot of food).
Yesterday I think he figured out what I wanted to do... He broke into a bag of candy! Seems like he REALLY doesn't want to lose his fat. I want a fit agility dog! Sigh...