So I found out that if I ran along side of kenzie, she would jump due to added drive. Also, if I were on her right side, she would almost always jump. If I were on her left, she would give the perfect running behavior. So I decided to: change the dirction of the board, we were running east to west, so now we run north to south, and then also take away the board, so that she is just running between the gates (still 10' apart) on the grass. She has absolutely no reason to jump now! So I ran her this way for 3 sessions, with her running beutifully every time. I made sure that I was sending her, recalling her, and running with her HARD, so that she understands that she is to run no matter what I do. Then I put the board down, still going north to south...and she ran it BEAUTIFULLY!!!!! Perfect 100% of the time....and she was quite a bit faster than she had been going before =)

This is her running last week (before our one step back and two forward)



Here is a video of running on grass only


And here is the first time running her on the board again...much faster!

So yesterday we had a good, horrible, and great practice...weird. The only thing that was different about the last practice was that it was later in the evening when it was cooler, and she seemed to have more engergy than in the afternoon practice when she was really really hot. She had a 70% in the am, less than a 50% success rate in the afternoon with lots and lots of jumps, and  100% perfect runs in the evening. This afternoon she did the less than 50% again, but it was also pretty hot, so I am going to wait until it starts to get cooler tonight to practice again to see if she has another good evening practice. I do not know what I can do to get her to stop jumping if she continues to do so, because the board is already flat on the ground... = /

So as you can probably guess by the title, our training has not continued in a positive manner completely. I take fully responsibility for this. I am just having a hard time marking only what I really want. Well, I guess it is more a case of clicking before I have fully comprehended what she just did, and therefore mark it if it is correct, or not mark it if it is not. I have a tendency to guess whether it is going to be a good one or not. Yesterday morning I clicked twice when I should not have, and in the evening, I clicked the wrong thing FIVE TIMES!!!! Ridiculous. Not only did I keep clicking her jumping, but it caused her to offer jumping more and more often, so that I ended up with 8 jumps and 5 runs in the contact... =(  So I just ended the spiral downward, and played with her without agility equipment. This morning as I was reflecting on how sad a trainer I am (lol, poor me) I remembered that a few months back, I had felt led to pray before each dog training session. You know, "Let us have fun, not get stressed, and use what we learn to Your glory" type thing. But I never did. I just forgot all about it. So, now that I know that I need help, I decided to try it. I prayed for clarity of mind, that we would have fun, and that whatever happened in the practice, that it would be used for His Glory. Well, guess what....I did not click a incorrect behavior ONE SINGLE TIME!!!!! I cant believe it. But not only that, we actually enjoyed practice, and I was not tense and worried about clicking the wrong thing the whole time. It is true "My grace is sufficient for the, for my grace is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9)". Thank you Lord!

So, I am so excited, I finally feel like we are really doing Running Contact training. Up until this point, I was really just doing prep work; getting her confident in running quickly down the board. I knew that in order for me to be able to withhold reward when she misses the target spot, she would need to be confident enough in the behavior for her to be willing to try again. Now, in the last two days, I have added some height, and changed my criteria...this is where the REAL challenge comes in for me. Now I have to actually watch and only click what I WANT. Two days ago I had two sessions on the height change only (no change in criteria). She gave me 100% in the contact zone and what would be my new criteria. Both were GREAT sessions, and helped me decide what my new criteria would be, what looked to be natural for her. So yesterday I decided that is was time for the real training to begin, and start only marking and rewarding the behavior that I want. Her new target behavior is to have two paws at or below 30" while running FAST. So I painted the 30" point, and started practice...well can you guess what she did? She jumped the painted part! It was the first real jump she had ever given me =P. It took a little bit to get her over it , she jumped it a total of 3 times before I ended up going back to having her just start at the middle of the board, and she ran it no problem. I was able to mark her feet landing in the target spot, and then she finally got the reward (which had been withheld up to this point since she had been jumping). I was very happy that she continued to try to get it right, rather than shutting down because she did not. Once I had her start from the middle four times (twice with me on either side), I started her from the back again, and she gave me 7 really great ones, then the jumped, did not get marked or rewarded, and then two more really great ones. I think that she is starting to get it!!! I have found that if I run with her, she is more likely to jump it. I worked on sending her and recalling her over it. I do still have 3-4 gates up on the board. I think that once there is more height, I will be able to take them off and it will not be a big deal...at least I hope so =) I have not seen anyone else using any sort of gate, so I am a little nervous about that. But I do feel that this is what my dog needs to be successful, and I am confident in my knowledge and application of dog learning theory, and I do not see why this would not work...please Lord!

March 28th
So it has been a full week of running Kenzie over the 10' board with slats...unfortunately, every session has been different, as I am still trying to dial-in how she best learns, and how to set her up for success while still going at the speed I want, and still being able to learn, which is a lot harder than it sounds. If I use a toy, she has a hard time thinking. I teach very very few new things with just the toy, as she cannot think while the toy is around. I have to teach it with food first, then she can do it for a toy. BUT, I need her to go at the necessary speed (fast) while doing this, which she will not do for food rewards.  SO, I am trying to set her up for success, so that she does it successfully enough times without really thinking about it. Then I start being more picky about what she does to earn the click. Her criteria right now is: run the length of the board, FAST. I click when she gets to the end of the board, whether she steps in the contact zone or not. She is pretty consistently in the contact zone, I would say 80% of the time. When she does miss, I still click her because she is meeting my criteria right now: running the full length FAST. I have found that any movement on my part pulls or pushes her off of the board. She does not know how to run with me, and run the board.  I have not decided what to do about this yet.

So, I did go back and try the gates on all four corners of the board, and it worked GREAT! I was very happy with it. BUT, after doing a lot of reading on Silvia Trkman's website, I decided that we have not done enough speed training. The way I see it is; if you cannot describe your dog as a bullet ready to be steered, then you have not done enough speed training! So this is what I am going to be focusing on for the next week or so. I know that she has it in her...after just one 4 min session of speed training, I saw a HUGE difference in her speed, just running after her ball in our yard! I am also going to be working on the "bang game" with the teeter, and shaping the wrap of a jump wing, then working that into a send. Once I have the send/wrap, I can further my speed training and will be able to do a lot more "practicing" running her fast on an actual agility field...so fun!
So what kind of speed training are we doing? I am going to keep her play sessions short, but very intense. I will put her in a stay, then take off running at full speed, then release her with a toy and clicker in my hand. When she is running at full speed, I will click (or say a breathy "yes") and then throw the toy as far as I can. I will continue running in her direction until she slows to get the toy (this is teaching her to still watch my body language), then spin and run the other way, hopefully she will chase me (she has not done this full speed yet, so I hope it will come soon). No more half speed playing...it will be all or nothing (though I have a feeling that will be easier said than done).

So yesterday was our second and third running contacts training sessions. I pretty much spent the whole time trying to figure out how to get her to run FAST across the board, while also staying on it the whole way. I figured out that I can put her in a stay on the board, then throw the ball straight and she will stay on it, but if my throw is off a tiny bit (which it usually is), she does not make it to the end. I have to figure out how to make her successful. Whether that is preliminary work, or setting things up so that she cannot fail, I am not sure yet. Today I am going to try putting gate up on either side of the board at beginning and end, and then just sending her through it kinda like a tunnel: go, then throw the ball. I hope that this will get great speed out of her, and also set her up for 100% correct behavior.

So yesterday I moved to the pvc jumps to practice the set point drill, and got her up to 16"!!! I then lowered it and rewarded her for working so hard. We came back to it a little later and tried it at 20, but since it is a little above her head, she said "nope!" and went around it. So we went back to 16 and ended on that, then went back to 20 and did the shaping the jump exercise we started with: I just stand there beside the jump with the clicker and wait for her to take the jump, then reward. She went under the jump a few times, then jumped it! She jumped it twice, then we called it a day. I needed her to look at that jump at 20" and say "I can jump that".

So after much much much thought/consideration/research/nail chewing =)  I have decided to take the plunge and train Silvia Trkman's running contacts! Since it is a lot of work in the beginning, but less later on, this is the perfect time to start training. From what I have heard, I can always train a 2o2o if this does not work out, so what the hey? Why not? I love the idea of it, plus it would be easier on her in the long run (since I am not planning on running her over contact equip all that often once she understands it. Plus I love the idea of not having to redo all of the training I do on the 2o2o after every trial. Basically, every time you trial and release your dog the second he reaches the 2o2o, you are undoing all of the STOP training you have been working so hard to instill in their minds...which really is not what you want in the first place.
The Trkman method is pretty vague is the only thing, so I am going to get the dvd and see if she is any more clear in that than she is on her website.

I want to do Trkman RC's for the Dog Walk and A-Frame, then I want her to drive to the end of the plank, then wait for the sound of the plank banging to release her from the Teeter. I dont know if anyone has ever tried teaching this before, but it makes sense to me, so I might as well try! Right now I am trying to decide whether I want to keep going on the teeter training first, or move on to the running contacts while continuing the wobble board exercises. I do not want her to get confused between the board running and the very low teeter, so I cannot do both at the same time.

Right now we are working on:

Circle work: I have a video of this I took last night that I will post. I dont know how we can progress in this other than just doing it in other places (which we are doing). She is great at outside circle full speed, inside circle full speed, 360's (whirl and hurl), front crosses, and deceleration/acceleration. My Good Girl!!!

The point set drill: (Susan Salo's foundation jumping dvd set...SO interesting!). Kenzie is not progressing as well I would like. She goes around the second jump if it is above 12".  So I am just going slow, keeping the sessions short, and today instead of using my steel jumps which go from 4", 8", 12", 16", 20", I am going to move to my pvc jumps which I can slide the jump cups up incrementally 1/2in. at a time, which will hopefully be setting her up for success.

Ladder: she goes up and down it as I walk beside. If she steps out before the end, I do not throw the toy and circle back to try it again. I am not going to do this much longer, as I think that it is practicing going slow, which is not what I want my dog to do.

Chute:I have my chute barrel without the chute on it to introduce her to tunnels. Kenzie is pretty skittish with new things, and I knew that this was going to be touchy to introduce. Since the chute is stationary and not dark, I thought that is would be a nice first step to introducing tunnels. Unfortunately, I first introduced it the "old way", which is to hold the dogs collar right in front of the tunnel (or chute) and call the dog through. Well, I threw the toy through instead, and while she did it one or two times, she then decided that she was never going near that thing again, because I was going to force her to go through it...now, while in my mind I never forced her to do anything, she saw it that way...so she not only became scared of that while thing, she also lost trust in me =(((.   As soon as I realized what had happened, I did not go near the chute for a good week to give her a chance to recover. If I even looked at it, or started to walk in the direction of the chute, she would drop her head and go lay down on the opposite side of the field. Poor girl!!! So now I know that I have to be VERY VERY careful when I introduce her to things. She cannot know that I want her to do them, I just need to set things up so that if she decides to do them, she is rewarded.

After a week of not going near the chute, I decided to put it in the gate of our agilty field (which we go in twice a day to play fetch, catch, running circles, etc. She sees is as a very very fun and rewarding place to be. I have trained her to wait at the open gate for verbal release that she may enter. So I put the chute in the opening, closed the gates around it, then gave the release cue. She shot through the chute and said "Okay! Throw the ball!!!". So I did, but I bowled it through the chute and then did not call her back to me once she ran after it. I just let her decide to go get it and bring it back... and she did! I did the for a couple of days, until she seemed to not be afraid of it any more. 

While I was getting her used to the chute, I was also teaching her the "go ahead" signal of my dog side hand signaling for her to go ahead. I would give the signal while throwing the ball/toy with my other hand. She picked it up no problem. So then I starting giving the go ahead motion to the chute that still had gates on either side. She picked that up right away as well, and then I would throw the toy over the fence for her to go get, always marking (yes!) when she took the chute. The third step was to take the tunnel out of the gate entrance and just have it in the middle of the field. I gave the motion as always, and she took it!!!!  She now loves to run through her chute!  I am now getting ready to change to my tunnel, I just have to figure out a way to stabilize it as well as possible so that she does not get scared by it moving on her.

Running the board: I tried to get her to run the board on the ground last night, but we still have not quite figured out how to make this all work. I want her to be running fast, not just kinda giong for her toy, so that means that the toy must be in motion to get that kind of speed. So I am doing the whole: hold her collar, throw the toy, wait a split second, then release with a "get it" cue. With a wide board, she is staying on it until the end as long as my throw is right on and straight ahead, which should be a given at this point.  

Warning, this is long, so if you want to just read the first and last paragraph you can =) 

 

So, Kenzie has been way too reactive for me to take to any of my regular dog training classes (I am a trainer), so instead, I have been taking her a private lesson I do with a friend, which we do next to a very big field. I work with her way out in the field as the client is getting set up and warming up her dog. Each week for 3 weeks now I have been working my way closer and closer, but Kenzie has never been able to actually relax while seeing the other dog. As long as I have had her (4mos), I have never seen her relax while in the presence of strange dog (any dog not in our family).

 

Well, this past sat I brought her crate and set it up on the other side of the patio where the dog was going to be working, with a blanket to block the visual if needed. I also came prepared with stuffed kongs and a big bully stick, which she has never seen before. I did my usual (get her used to the dog far away, work closer if she looks ready to, which she did)and then put her in the crate with the blanket covering the side the dog was going to be on (the dog is a good 40ft away). She was too stressed to be interested in the kong or bully stick, but she would take treats. So I then started doing something similar to the Relaxation Protocol we have been working on lately at home: I took a step away, returned and dropped treats in. Took two steps away, dropped treats, 5 steps, took 10 steps and paused etc. I acutally went pretty fast until I was walking quite a distance away, and pausing, and she still looked calm, just watching me, waiting for me to come back with more treats. I then proceeded to teach the class, periodically going back to give treats and quiet praise. She looked pretty calm, and I would have said relaxed, except for the fact that she still was not interested in the bully stick or kong. After about 20 minutes of calm behavior, each time I returned to treat her, I lifted a side of the blanket a little higher, giving her a little more stimulation visually. She did not seem to care in the least! Well, about 30min into our lesson, the other dog got riled up about a stranger that walked through and barked quite a few times at him. Each time the other dog barked I briskly walked over to Kenzie, praising her the whole time, then dropped a jackpot of treats (similar to the sound desensitization we had been doing at home). The dog timed it perfectly...each time she barked she waited until i had treated and returned before barking again =))))  Once the other dog stopped barking, it was a good 10 minutes before I went to treat Kenzie again...and she was laying down with her back to us, chewing on the bully stick!!! She really hardly even cared about me coming over and giving treats! She was actully RELAXED!!! She was not interested in watching that other dog at all! I just could not believe it. Since she looked so relaxed, I decided to end the session with some "Look At That!" (Control Unleashed game, look up www.controlunleashed.net), which she still does not really "get". But it was wonderful, it was the best session of LAT we have had yet, and I think that it was because she was well below her threshold.

 

So anyway, all of this to say that I can see the RP and LAT working! I was starting to get discouraged because it seemed like she was not improving...but this marked improvement that I have to share!!!

 

Last week we focused on getting her obstacle focused: walking up perpendicular to the ladder and swinging hips and all four feet into ladder. Bringing a jump into the house and shaping her to jump it. Starting out very low, then making it higher and higher. I did this for two days, then moved it outside and did the same thing. Putting her in a sit right in front of a jump bump, which was right in front of a low jump, then putting the toy a dog's length from the jump on the other side, then releasing her to it.  We did the ladder work and the jump bump drill for a week, and she really did not show any enthusiasm for it at all. It felt like work to her...why cant we just PLAY???  I brought the ladder closer to the house, rather than in the big agility field (less distractions), tried upping the value of treats used, and kept the training sessions very short, all of which did seem to help, but it still did not seem fun to her.

This week I pulled out the LIVE toy! (me throwing the ball/toy as a reward, rather than it just sitting there).I knew that I wanted to up her enthusiasm, but I also wanted to keep her obstacle focused. So last night I combined parts of the two jump drills, and actually had a great session! I just stood right next to the jump (not looking at her) with her toy in my hand. When she decided to jump it, I threw the toy ahead of her, and she ran after it with vigor!  We then did the same thing with the ladder. She had to walk up or down the ladder all the way to the end without coming out, then as she was making the correct exit, I marked it with a yes and threw the toy ahead of her. She was pretty clumsy with both drills, but there was a marked improvement in her attitude toward them. Then today, when I went to do the same drills, she floored me with her very first SAIL over a jump with a grin on her face! She actually looked as though she were enjoying herself =)  The same thing went for the ladder. While it was not as much fun as jumping, she was willing to keep trying until she got it right, kinda like it was a game. It was a badly needed jump in progress, one that gave me great hope for us as an Agility Team!