The thing about Lizards is...you never can tell how things will go!

Well, class was overall TERRIFIC for Liz last night. I think I got a lot of good things to keep an eye on in future classes. These classes are LONG. They typically last 2-3 hours, so for some dogs that would be the kiss of death, but for Liz the longer she was there the better she did, by the end she was so totally spot on everything and working so nicely...for her I am thinking these long classes might be really good, enough time for her to get there and get settled and get her brain together, work through the first excitement, etc. When we got there Liz was VERY HYPER! I could not leave her in a crate while Deanna gave her first class speech about where the potty is, blah..blah..blah...LOL, a fine speech, but of course I have heard it a few times...

Liz was barking and screaming so I could not leave her in a crate, I must have went through a whole bait bag full of food and every trick we had even thought of to keep her with me and keep her head during the orientation stuff. I would have been a bit concerned but I stayed in the moment and did not think about what this might mean once we got started. With Liz you can never predict...so why stress trying? LOL

So then we started the exercises. Unfortunately we started with some wrap practice and the first exercise was just wrapping around one jump and Deanna does get pickier with me...she knows I really want to get good, but Liz was not happy redoing something so quick a few times over, so she took off for a minute, I had to go get her but not a real true zoomie, so partial victory? The next exercise was two jumps and Liz was a little frustrated and wanted to sniff in her stay and did take off when I tried to correct her not going over the first jump...but she got back on track after a tug game. By the longer sequence she did really nice except for not figuring out to switch from handler focus to obstacle focus and to drive ahead at the last two jumps, hey, I will take that!!!

The second set of exercises was a discrimination exercise, and Liz did very good, Little Lizards can do really well and stay on course and get all their weavies, each and every time. Our only problem is that Liz is what Deanna says like a kid with a Ferrari, she sees no need to take the food off the gas....decels are not our friend...yet,...so to get her to decel and not jump full force is not exactly happening too well, but she did terrific and stayed with me. I was even able to walk her back to the crate without a leash-HUGE for Liz.

Third was the reverse flow pivot, which I do not like at all, I can do them but I do not feel they are good for my dog or fit well in my handling system, I want a dog like Liz to always trust that I am not giving her mixed signals, but last night, well, what ever, of course by that time Liz was perfect and we do have a killer reverse flow pivot, LOL.

Wish us Luck!

Well, wish us luck, tonight is Lizzies first class at PawPrints, the local training club. Actually I am pretty excited to see how she is going to do. On the plus side it is close, so she does not have to be in a crate for a long time before class...it is later in the day, so maybe she will be winding down (but, that is silly this is Liz and she never winds down, LOL...), she will know one or two of the dogs but mostly they will be new dogs, the classes are long-so I am thinking if we end up losing some of her brain then I will just leave. I have been through these classes with the other dogs, and the last time I took this class Liz did some of the exercises, so at least it will not all be new.... I am afraid to bring Breeze because when I bring both dogs one always sits and screams when the other works, which does not make me popular...so I feel like this is my first time without the training wheels and Liz is going alone for better or for worse-no back up dog, hopefully she can pay attention through the whole class and if not we will evaluate again if I have to bring a second dog to work....

Can you tell I am a little nervous? Not really nervous but feeling like I want to really plan for success and give Liz every chance to feel good and have a good experience. No big deal if she does not do well, but I just hope she has progressed enough to pull this off and I am not really sure she has, so I am keeping my fingers,..... and toes... crossed.....I am packing up lots, and lots of treats...hummm, think I will head to Target and get a few more treats, would not be good to take any chances on running out especially since I might end up having to do a lot of feeding to keep her working and focused on me, hahahahahah, and I am packing the best toys,basically getting everything organized. I went over what is on the lesson plan so that I can devote full attention to giving clear signals and keeping on top of Liz without being distracted by figureing out what my part is. Liz is very sensitive to me and if I am unsure or confused that really wigs her out-so of course I avoid that!!!!

It is cool today, and the wind is blowing, YIKES, that always puts the dogs in a wilder mood, so we will see!

Bark in the Park-Lancaster, CA

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.....I took Breeze to a show n go at the Lancaster Bark in the Park...tons of dogs and lots going on. Breeze is really getting more and more excited doing agility and for so long I was having trouble with her not wanting to drive ahead of me and trying to run with her head turned backwards, LOL, little goofy dog...so based on what has been going on the past few weeks, I think...we can say we have conquered that problem and now Breeze just feels she is ready to run the course by herself, no handler needed, LOL. She does pretty good but she does look for and find lines that make sense to her, which is not necessarily the course, and like today going to the table she felt we could safely bypass that and go to the chute. She has always LOVED the table so I did not give really strong support to that because she has never needed it, but alas...now the table is not a favorite place, so guess a few table games are in order. Anyway, she no longer runs with her head backward trying to look at me--fixed that a little too well, LOL. Guess balance in all things is nice!

Bark in the Park had tons of things going on, lots of dogs which were mostly pretty well behaved (in my experience that is not always the case at those kind of events, but most of the dogs were really well behaved dogs), there were lots of people and Breeze did AWESOME. Soooo fun to have a nice, well socialized dog, I really appreciate that about Breeze. First she did the show n go agility run and really did pretty well, then she did the game where you let your dog run and they track the speed with a radar gun and she was the second fastest dog of the day, then we tried some dock diving. It was the first time we tried dock diving and she was soooo excited and wanted to go up there so bad, but then she was afraid to actually jump in. Breeze stood at the end and was half way over the edge, I so wanted to just touch her which would have knocked her in...but of course I did not do that. She did run in off the ramp they can use to get out so a few more tries and I think she might actually be able to do it.

The greatest thing is that Breeze was so relaxed with all those people for a change it did not bother her when people wanted to pet her. Usually Breeze wants to go up to people but she will alarm bark and scare the pee wad out of the potential petter when they try to pet her-so I usually try to watch and intervene but today she was totally relaxed and loved all the attention she got. Breeze even went up to some kids and was letting them say HI to her and she was great with the other dogs, she was a very good girl, and when there was down time she was able to lay down on her side and relax, she was really on her best behavior.

REWARDS-they are not all the same ;-)

WOW, I was reminded last night of a really powerful training tool that I picked up from some training tips Susan Garrett gave out last summer to her email list. The tip was that Susan said she uses a REALLY special treat, one that she never gives any other time for when there is an awesome performance that is well above the average, like say a dog working on contacts hits their contact really nicely, with a very quick performance of the obstacle, with a above average performance she will whip out a special treat and she suggested sardines-packed in water with reduced salt-that was the treat she suggested.

My first experience with trying that was with the Lizard. She was origionally trained contacts with the modified running contacts but I did not figure in the Lizard factor....and she quickly learned to perform the Aframe with a leap up past the up contact, hitting just above the yellow, leaping over the apex and landing just above the down contact and then leaping down to a gorgeous down with her butt touching the end of the Aframe. Yep, Liz figured out how to just hit the Aframe twice, miss all up and down contacts and still hit a gorgeous four on the floor position, yep she is talented. SO, I was back to the tried and true 2020 because I knew Liz did not have enough self control and needed more connection points then a running contact would give us. ANYWAY, Liz was VERY confident and LOVED her four on the floor and so she knew when I was teaching her that I was just trying to trick her and she was not going to be tricked and I could not get a 2020 on the obstacles. Anyway, so we worked it and eventually the way we got some great contacts was using sardines-when she would get into a 2020 and it was nice, she got sardines. It was a very concrete way for her to figure out what I really wanted, and it became the most fun, exciting behavior and we made our contact break through. I realized what a powerful tool that can be. My instructors realized how crazy I could be and had to suffer through when I needed them to treat with the sardines when I was not right there, LOL, and had to suffer through the smell that leaves on your hands-I have some really good sports for instructors and training buddies.

SOOOOO LAST NIGHT, this whole concept came into play again and I did not realize it was happening until the night was going way hay wire with Breeze and I could not figure out why. Breeze has always been a ball NUT. Lately I have taken away the tennis balls because her teeth are all being filed down so badly, you would think I had clipped her teeth as the canines are about half gone. I use a tennis ball material squeeky dumbbell toy for her when we train and I use rubber balls around the house. I have had to make sure the tennis balls are GONE, because otherwise she kept finding them so I was not even keeping a couple out for training. So last night Karen had suggested using a clip to hold the tennis ball to reward Breeze to help my timing. So I wanted to try that, which meant using a tennis ball-and I was able to find a squeeky tennis ball, and that was the reward for the night.

OOOH MY GOSH, I had a wild dog, she was so excited to see tennis balls, and at first I could not figure out why I had this wild, excited dog. Well, we were working out an issue with the weave entries.....I threw the ball for her when she got the weaves and we had a little party. YIPPIE, I still was not putting 2 and 2 together. Next we were working on some sequences, Breeze was supposed to go through the tunnel and come out of the tunnel turn away from the weaves...and toward me and continue through a jump box, blah, blah, blah. Well, she just kept ignoring my body position, my voice and just driving to the weaves, thinking she could make up a good course that included the weaves, LOL, she was really being a little turkey butt. Of course it hit me that the tennis ball was such an unusual, special, high value reward that she was willing to do just about anything to get it and quite a bit of the tennie ball's value had been transferred to the weavies, they were the big ticket obstacle at that point. Whooo hoooo, I guess I got a good lesson last night in the value of continually reassessing the heirachy of value of rewards and thinking carefully about how things are rewarded. So we worked through that and I used the ball for some of the sequencing too, and I am thinking of keeping that ball as a little more special reward.

The power of the tennis ball came into play again with the contacts. I have just not been able to get the 2020 with Breeze on the dog walk when we add in speed, she is doing terrific if we just go up or if we are just driving from a small distance, if it is from a further distance away, then she goes back to four on the floor. So I have been working the last week on setting a ball straight out in front of her and when she hits the position then I treat her on the obstacle in the 2020 position and then release her to get her ball. I used that to get her to go straighter and not turn sideways trying to look at me, but having the magical tennis ball sitting out in front of her let us get the 2020 with 100% accuracy last night in 4 sequences-WOW, that is HUGE! Breeze also got her four on the floor on the aframe really nice last night. All in all a good training session with lessons learned by the handler and the dog, what more could I ask for?

Liz was the awesome star, a new class, some dogs that were running off, she has not worked around other dogs for awhile and 2 hours in the crate before we got to class, could have been a recipe for disaster but Liz was a little distracted before it was our turn but never once left or was distracted while she was working. I even threw her toy bag at the end of the dog walk to get her going out straight, and held my breath because she had the prize and that was a real danger time for her running a victory lap and forgetting all about me. She grabbed the toy, shook and killed it, and ran back to me with it, YIPPIE, Little Lizards can make great choices!!! She was awesome and has never looked as good doing agility as she did last night, and she was with some dogs that were worrying her, a class she did not know, boy was a proud of that little monkey.