TRAINING A DOG

The mistakes came when I was down on the side of the entry arc with dog on right that required a strong wrap around the first pole; she entered with the first pole on her right. She did this twice, but I held my ground and let her work on the problem. She wandered around the poles and still tried to engage them, which I thought was good. I called her back and on the third try she got the correct entry. We had a huge party.

I worked other entries and came back to that one. She missed it two more times, but still remained engaged with the poles. This is a huge accomplishment. We have transferred the value and these two poles are important. A month ago, she would have given up. This time again on the third try, she got it.

I went back to some easier entries and quit on successful attempts. She still had an 80% success rate, so I decided to add the second set of two poles in the afternoon session.

In the afternoon session, Devon was really curious about these other poles out there. I rewarded the first set, then the second time through I let her go. She hesitated for a second, then went through the second set to a great party reward!

I kept rewarding 50% of the time between the two sets. When I delayed the reward for the second set, she started driving toward the second set. After a few more tries, I decided to work down the entry arc. Just as she had in the morning session, she started missing the harder right entry which requires a wrap of the first pole.

This time I gave her a second to think about it before calling her back. Just like the morning session, she was staying by the poles trying to work through why she didn't get a reward. On the second mistake, she actually took her foot and pawed at the weave base. I wasn't sure if this was frustration or if she was offering behaviors! We've done a lot of clicker work lately with her pawing or smacking something with her paw.

Just like the morning session, on the third request she got it. I continued to work entries, and she was solid on all the other entries. I decided to move the second set of weaves closer to the first (about 7 ft.), and just ask for a couple of low challenge area entries before calling it a day.

A side note about toy rewards. In the morning session, I changed the toy we were using. This new toy was a fleece knotted tug with a tennis ball on the end. We did not have as good of results with this toy. Devon didn't seem to like it as well as the previous toy; she wasn't as "up" with it. She was also biting my hands very badly with it. At one point she grabbed my entire hand in her mouth and clamped down causing me a lot of pain and tooth marks (I yelled and she got the point)! Devon does occasionally get my hand when she's going for the toy, but she has NEVER bitten me that hard.

A couple of throws later, she jumped straight at my face when I took the toy. This was clearly frustration, and it could have been from the stress of the exercise. But in the morning session I didn't throw anything new at her other than upping the challenge of the entry and the new toy. In the afternoon, I switched back to the toy we had been using and Devon's attitude was much better. She tugged and played, and I didn't have any hand grabbing or jumping at my face, even though I put more "pressure" on her in the afternoon session with the second set of poles. I just don't think she liked that new toy at all.

Overall, Devon continued to have an 80% success rate in both sessions. Her only errors came on the entry I know we have problems with. However, she was getting entries in this right side arc that she would have never made with the previous methods we've used. It was only when I went very low into the arc to really challenge her when the errors happened. Clearly this entry will continue to be our biggest challenge, but she's already doing it better than before.

The weather is supposed to be bad tomorrow with thunderstorms most of the day. I'm disappointed we might have to skip another day, but the weather is supposed to turn very nice for several days after tomorrow. In our next session, I think I'll pick up with the two sets of poles back at 15 ft., but move them back to 7 ft. within a couple of repetitions. For Devon, I believe the next few sessions of moving the 2 sets of 2 poles together will be critical since her problem area has been skipping pole 2 and weaving 1, 3.

I remember that the DVD says to continue moving and don't stay at one place too long. I'm going to have to balance that with making sure she's solid. The 80% rule should help me with this, so I need to remain vigilant about record keeping.