So, I took Kenzie out for a walk in a neighborhood in the nearest town last week. I was planning on walking her there since there was very very little chance of a dog being free to come into the road (since it is a subdivision they all have fenced in yards, as opposed to the country roads around us, where dogs run free). Unfortunately I underestimated how big a deal it was that in the past 3 months (since I started working 80hrs a week), the only Reactivity training I had done was to do an occasional sound desensitization exercise. So, she was very stressed when I got her out of the car, but she was able to be redirected by the toy. We went with a friend (a mistake, as I was not able to give her 100% of my attention as she needed and deserved), and in the 30 minute walk, we ran across three dogs that were free in their front yards, none of which were aggressive, but one of them did follow us down the street a ways. I did NOT mean to put this much pressure on her and I felt SO bad. By this point we were on our way back, and she was no longer interested in the toy.I did not know just how bad off she was until I put her back in the car, and she just curled up into a tiny ball in the floorboard of the back seat. She only does this when she is REALLY scared. Poor puppy! As if all of that is not enough, as soon as we got home, she was so highly strung from our outing, that she was all of a sudden very scared of things that normally would not bother her. Over the next 24hrs and multiple reactions, she had gotten so tense that even the smallest triggers that had either never been a trigger, or had not bothered her for 5 moths...cow mooing, horse neighing, cat meowing, someone whistling (that was a new one), caused her to react to matter how quiet, even if they were on TV. When she heard one, she would JUMP up barking her head off. She would be inconsolable for the first minute, then calm down enough to stop barking, but she was obviously tense and "waiting" for it to happen again. I could not let her outside off leash, because she would run to the fence and bark at whatever was out there: Birds flying above, or some other animal that I could not see (it looked like nothing).  I was no longer able to redirect her frustration (with a ball, toy, food or treats), which is how we had been dealing with reactions all spring. The more she reacted, the more tense she became. By the morning after out outing, the light bulb had finally gone on, and I knew what had happened and what I needed to do: stop her from reacting for 5 days minimum, by any means humanely possible, and give her lots of exercise, to give her a chance to "work out" the stress hormones, without giving her the opportunity to be flood with more. So we put her on a strict "on leash" policy when outside. I did not take her out of the yard/agility yard for any reason. We did not watch any shows that might have horses cows or dogs in them. We got up early to get extra exercise while it was still cool...which was made more difficult, because we were often kept up nights by her reacting to the cows coming to settle beside the house and of course...Moo moo moo-ing. Every time a cow mooed she jumped up barking frantically. I finally turned on the TV and played a 2hr musical really loud for her. It drowned out the cows enough for her and us to be able to sleep. I then just got up every 2hrs to restart it (I couldn't just put the TV on because commercials too often have sounds of dogs, cows or horses on them). Even though we have yet to have a day or night without reactions, she is making progress in that yesterday she only reacted twice, and last night only twice, and this morning only once, as opposed to 20 times a day in those first few days. Her eyes are still very big, which lets me know that the stress hormones are still very much present. Every night I massage her do calming T-touch. This morning we started a relaxation protocol which we will do once a day, every day, for fourteen days. Max is also on a leash mandate for now, since when he rushes the fence it causes her to react. The radio or TV is also always playing, 24hrs, and very loudly. The only time she gets the "hard" look out of her eyes is when I am doing t-touch on her.

Talk about a high price for one mistake...but it is my poor dog who is really paying the price. We may have lost some sleep and be wound tight from all of the sudden barking, but it is nothing when I think about how emotionally stressed my poor little dog is. I feel horrible, but as I tell my clients: "You can only do your best, and forgive yourself for the rest". There is no point in beating myself up over this: I feel bad, and will do everything in my power not to do it again, but that is as far as I will let myself go. I am not perfect, and never will be.

So, a few lessons learned from this:
Scout your areas out well and in advance
Whatever you do, do not push your dog past his/her threshold, but if you do, stop right then and call it a day, no matter what.
Do not take a friend or any other distractions with you when you are working with a reactive dog.
If you go more than a week without doing reactive training, you need to evaluate your dog, with no agenda in mind. 

Yay! We have made quite a few leaps forward since my last post 9 days ago (and I was out of town for 5 of them!). Kenzie did her first purposeful (I think, hope, pray) stride extension on the down plank to hit the contact zone. I have been running her down the down board only for about a week now, starting her in the one spot that I found made her naturally hit the contact zone most of the time. This made it so that she was constantly getting marked for the right behavior, and the few times she did not get it (usually at the beginning of a session), she would not get marked, and then she would hit for the rest of the session very consistently. So yesterday I decided to test whether she really knew what she was supposed to do, by moving her back 1ft (all four feet on top plank just before down plank). If she still put her feet in the spot on the contact zone that she has been clicked for all of this time, than I know that she is doing it on purpose, because I know for a fact that when she is started with all four feet on the top plank, her stride will not naturally take her into the contact zone.  The first stride she jumped off the side, the second was high and about right for starting off where she did, the third was lower, right on the line for the contact zone, and the fourth and fifth were exactly right, with back feet in the middle of the contact zone with feet spread nicely! Someone came along to talk to us then and broke the concentration, and when we went back to it she was missing again, but I was happy with what I got and I am hoping that it was purposeful. Today when I tried again to bring her back further, she missed and jumped and tried all kinds of things. I then moved her back to four on top at the edge of the down plank and she missed that as well. So now I am hoping that she will remember what gets her that click so that we can get back into the RC groove again. It was all my fault for pushing her too fast, so I will take it a lot more slowly after this, moving her back gradually as I also increase the height of the dog walk.

Another area of improvement is with Kenzie's rear cross! She can do it!!!! I just had to get her to realize that turning away from me was a possibility, then cross early while giving the verbal command to jump, and she got it no problem!!! Once she realized that this may happen, she started watching for it, and it now picking it up quite well. I am so very excited, because now we can continue in our one jump two jump work.

Kenzie has also improved in the teeter. We are at 16" and she runs the length of the board with me just holding it for a split second before letting it drop and her go into the 2o2o. I am now waiting for steve to finish my spec teeter, because the one that I have now has a plank of only 9ft, as opposed to the 12ft it is supposed to be.

Kenzie has also just figured out the "gymnist" trick! I have been thinking of ways to do this for months now, but finally decided to just go with it, and it worked!!! So the gymnist trick is when she climbs the wall with her back feet, ending up in what looks like a hand stand with wall support. She also drums with her back feet when in a 2o2o, which I really like because i know that she is concentrating on her back feet on the board, as opposed to her front feet which are on the ground. I then started having her do the back feet drum on other surfaces, clicking higher and higher taps, having her do it on something that was leaning against the wall (folded crate) so that she ended up climbing up it with her back feet. I then backed her up to a dresser which has little ridges that she can rest her feet on, etc. It is really cool to watch, but I am sure to keep these sessions short or move on to something else, because they do take quite a bit of muscle strength, and I want to work her up slowly.

Kenzie is also perfecting the "go hide" trick where she hides her face under a pillow, and "shy" trick of hiding her face under her paw. She is also getting "bang" down pretty well and she loves cleaning up the laundry, her toys, helping me bring in the groceries, and closing doors, drawers and cupboards when needed. I need to take a video of her tricks. I am now taking them outside to get her used to distractions. We did them in front of the cows today, and she did pretty well considering how much she hates them  =)

Okay, so that is all for now. Happy Training!

So it has been a month since I last gave an update on here, and lots has transpired! I am now up to 24" on the dog walk, and she very consistently runs without jumping at the end, BUT, her stride is such that she lands halfway down the last board and then stretches her next stride to land on the ground, effectively missing the end of the board completely. So I wrote and asked Silvia about it, and she thought that if I played around with start points, as well as did some just one plank work, that I could get her hitting again...and she was right! I am now just running her on the down board, and with the lessened momentum, she is hitting the bottom of the board pretty much every time. She is missing just often enough that I have hope that she will figure out what gets the party and successive throws, and what gets just another try with a few positive remarks. lkdfj

Now, what else have we been working on? Well jump work of course! We have moved on to the more advanced susan salo jump grids, as well as Sandy Roger's One Jump Two Jump DVD work. I have also been teaching a version of Silvia Trkman's Kip and Cap. I taught her a send to that jump and wrap it towards me command, which makes running a course really really fast, since she has a very clear message of "jump wrap that toward me while I get in place for the next jump"  and since it just on a verbal, I am not falling into that trap of early cueing, teaching the dog to ignore my body cues. I am still teaching all of the Greg Derrett handling system, I am just adding in this verbal jump wrap cue. Now, one problem I have run into by using this new method, is that getting a rear cross is extremely difficult, since she is so used to jumping toward me(which while this SHOULD be her default, I have to be able to get her to go the other way when needed). So I am now teaching a "hook" command, which means "turn away from me", and then putting that onto a jump. She still has not quite gotten it, but we are making progress. I am just trying to keep her from guessing, which is what she is doing now. 

Teeter: So, we have also been doing a lot of work on the teeter. I got her to where she was playing the bang game into 2o2o position from about knee height, then I moved it back down and started teaching her to run the length of the board, all the way to the end, even though it was at an angle. Once she got to the end which I was holding firmly with my hand and had my knee under it, I would feed her with my free hand, then give her the bang command, and slowly drop it, so that she could get into her 2o2o for the rest of the food in my hand. I put the board down after my bang command more and more quickly, then moved it up and started over at a slow drop again. Once I am happy with the almost full speed drop, I will start varying when I give the treat, whether at the end of the board, or just once she gets into 2o2o. I also make sure to do lots of stay work once she is in position, so that I am getting her ready for when I am running beside and I need her to stop.

So, it has been quite a while since i posted, but I have been taking videos, so I just need to post those so that you can see how we have been progressing. We hit a bit of a snag when I tried to raise the height last week and the middle extension part started to feel a bit unstable, causing her to lose her balance and not make it all the way to the bottom of the board. So I just took the extension part out, and just did not worry about the board being too short for her to get the two strides in. Her feeling confident in the board not to move, and making it to the bottom, and still running full speed I decided were more important than hitting the contact zone for right now (since what I am really supposed to be watching for is running not jumping behavior). I got the apex of the two boards to 12", and now have taken my dog walk apart and lowered it to 12". Since the dogwalk boards are 12ft and the one that we have been using on the ground is only 10ft, then the angle is less now than it has been for the last few days, which should make it easier for her to keep the behavior of running and not jumping. 

Here is a conglomeration of the training for the past 2 weeks or so.

So we were doing wonderfully with kenzie running through the tunnel and then down the board, but then when I reversed the tunnel so that I would run down the other side of the board, she started jumping and doing something weird with her gait. So I lowered the board down to flat on the ground again and then had a shaping session to the end of the board once more. Since I had lowered it back down to flat on the ground, I decided that it was the perfect time to switch to the skinnier board (the one we started with that she was jumping off). I did the same shaping exercise to the end of the board, but then when we got to full speed, she started jumping off the end, grrr. So I actually buried it in the ground on one end, so that it looked as thin as the wide board (as opposed to the ridiculous 4" thick it is), and that is was just at an angle already. This definitely helped, it made her stop jumping, but I was not getting that really great stride that she was consistently giving with the wide board. Then I had a "DUH" moment and realized that the skinny board was 4' shorter than the wide one, so no wonder she was giving me a different gait!!!! So I added a 4' section to the skinny board, and BAM! Perfect runs since then =) I am making sure that I am running both sides of the board multiple times per session, even if it is awkward with the tunnel.

I have given up on trying to watch her feet at all, I now just watch her top line. If she is running the way I want, it will be perfectly flat all of the way through the board. This is guaranteed not jumping, and therefore what I want. When I see this I mark it and reward. When I see a lump in her top line (ie she jumped), I just do not mark it and either throw the toy but not very far, or I do not throw it at all. I think I should still be throwing it, since I do not want her to lose speed/motivation. Since I am still shaping behaviors away from the field, I feel like the click holds enough weight to let her know that that was not perfect.
I am LOVING running her through the U shaped tunnel then getting a head start. She comes out roaring fast and focused on the board. It also allows me to be ahead, which is very nice.

So, as I was telling my Agility instructor Mary Van Wormer, I can now see why they say that Running Contact training is not for everyone...after I decided that I needed to start at square one after three weeks of hard training...I almost gave up. I actually thought about it, but then I went to church and felt that the sermon was written just for me, telling me not to give up on God, but to keep up the good work, trusting that He would bring a harvest. SO...if it were up to me I would have given up, but God told me to keep going, and to trust Him that it would not all be in vain, so that is what I am doing. Things are going much better now, I put up the tunnel at the start end of the board yesterday, and WOW, she came out of there like a bullet!!! And she was going wayyyy too fast to be able to jump at the end of the board, so she got 100%!

We are having so much fun! Now that Kenzie is running through tunnels, I am teaching her how to run with me, but still have obsticle focus...and she is catching on very well! It is so rewarding to see her lock her eyes on the obstacle and go to it with confidence, as opposed to running watching me and always missing the jump, tunnel, etc. I got this by teaching lateral disctace with the curve drill:

So, yesterday's practices went great! Basically I had to decide to train my dog the way that makes sense to me, as opposed to the way that others have trained their dogs. So I just focused on shaping the correct end behavior, and then back-chained it, the same way you do a teeter. She did GREAT! Since it was really slow in the beginning when I first started shaping, it was very clear that the click came when she got to the end of the board, not the middle, and not the beginning. Then she got faster and faster getting to that part of the board, where she got the click and then food was thrown. I think that this is what we need. She needs to learn the target behavior slowly and then get faster and faster. Right now she is actually thinking while doing it, and that is what I want. I am not using any gates, just the board on the ground. Since I am shaping this behavior, I am trying not to say anything, and just wait for her to offer it. I did put her in a stay a couple of times and then release her, but I did not say anything after the release, nor did I give any kind of motion toward the board. Not a single jump, all striding through very nicely. Thank you Lord for showing me that I need to do what is right for us, and not be worried about doing it one person's certain way!

Here is a video of today's am lesson:

Ok, so I started her back on the board last Sunday, but she started jumping again on tuesday and wednesday. I decided that the difference between running her on the ground (which I did before running her on the board each time) was just too different from running on the board. The board was a good 4" off the ground, so I decided to stop practicing until I could get what I wanted to run her on. So I got a 1/2 in plywood board. I am now teaching her to put her feet on the last portion of the board, and when she does, I click and throw a treat. But I am SHAPING it, which means that I try to give her as little help as possible, and let her figure it out. I want her REALLY THINKING, as opposed to being in that play mind, where her mind is all over the place. Since she has been trained to put her feet on all kinds of stuff, this should not be too hard for her to figure out.

We put the decking on the dog walk this weekend...it is looking so good! We just have to put the slats on and paint it, and it will be ready to go!