New CDX for Spryte!

I am so thrilled to announce that Spryte finished her Companion Dog Excellent (CDX) title on Friday at the Red Deer Show.  She finished with a score of 196.  We lost a point for barking, which knocked us out of the ribbons. Oh well, the perils of running a Sheltie in Obedience!
     I'm just happy to have it done.  There were so many times over the winter were I thought it would never happen.  Her dumbbell issues always seemed to be getting in the way.  She didn't want to hold it, she would throw her head back, roll it around in her mouth while slinking back on her hind end, or she would just stand over it and not pick it up.  We had a whole plethora of dumbbell issues.  And it's not that she has ever had a bad experience with the dumbbell, I have used positive methods from day one with her. It's just she is not a natural retriever and the whole idea of fetching and HOLDING something in her mouth was her idea of sheltie torture. 
    We slowly worked through the issues with tons and tons of positive reinforcement for dumbbell work.  The two biggest training tools I used to improve the exercise (I can't really say fixed, because it is not perfect and will take a lifetime of work to maintain it) was resistance work and placement of reinforcement. 
   The resistance work involved trying to gently pull the dumbbell out of her mouth, if I could pull it out then no reward for Spryte. If she held on to it and resisted my pressure then she got a "yes" and a cookie.  This taught her to hold it tighter in her mouth and not roll it, otherwise I could pop it out and Spryte would miss out on a reward.  Very upsetting for a dog that loves food so much!
   The other tool I used was to always pull the dumbbell low and towards me, so that she was holding it almost against my leg and then I would reward in the same position. This taught her to keep her head forward and low, which directly interfered with her natural preference to hold her head up and back to roll the dumbbell around in her mouth.  Simple training theory: Teach a desired behaviour that directly conflicts with the unwanted behaviour and suddenly the problem is fixed! (ie teach the dog to sit for petting and you no longer have a jumping on people problem). 
   So now we can get back to training multiple skills again without the stress of an upcoming trial.  We will get back to training for Utility, definitely continue with our Nosework training, but mostly we can focus on agility again.  I really haven't done too much agility this winter with my obedience goals taking center stage.  I enjoyed the break from the sport and now I'm feeling refreshed and excited to get back at it. 
    Infact we had our first serious agility practise this morning, working on the skills from the Justine Davenport foundation course.  It went well and I got some great work from Spryte.  Backsides of jumps with me leaving,  multiple wraps around jumps, threadles and some really nice flappy tappy (running dog past obstacles). I'll have to record one of our training sessions soon and post it on here.
Now off to do some nosework!

 

Video of Open runs

Here are the videos of our two Open runs.

Camrose Show

This weekend Wendy and I took Spryte and Snap up to Camrose for their CKC dog show.  I was showing both shelties in the conformation ring and Spryte was showing in Open B in obedience. 

This was Spryte's very first time in the Open ring and I was nervous!  We have had some pretty rocky moments with her dumbbell retrieve over the last few months and there have been several times were I really wondered if she would compete in Open at all this year.   I was worried that she might not be ready.  But since our practises lately have been going really well I decided to go for it and see how she does.

Well I couldn't be happier with the results from this weekend.  Spryte qualified in both her Open rounds with very nice scores of 198 and 197 and a third and fourth place finish.  Spryte showed like a super star!  She was confident and happy throughout her runs.  I didn't have any issues with her dumbbell retrieves and we didn't loose any points for mouthing.  I was so pleased!  Wendy videoed the runs, I'll post the link on here when they are on line.

Unfortunately conformation was not kind to us this weekend.  Neither dogs won anything and both got dumbed both days.  Frustrating but that's how it goes.  Spryte showed well.  She amazed me with her versatility.  One minute she was in the conformation ring gaiting beautifully and perfectly stacked, and the next minute we are racing to the obedience ring were she gives me a stellar performance.  This is a dog that knows her job!

 Snap handled her first show very well.  She patiently stood on the table and endured all the fluffing and primping only requiring the occasional cookie to keep her spirits up.  The ring was a little more  intimidating to her and she was reluctant to gait out for the go arounds.  However when it came time for the table she stood beautifully, and she stacked very nicely during the lineups.  For such a young puppy she handled her first show very well. 

After each day we took the girls out back to the field to run and play.  Here are some pics of them just "being dogs"

International handling lesson

There is this great agility group in Edmonton called Blast agility.  They are a group headed by Justine Davenport, an amazing agility handler that has been on the world team too many times to count!  The club prides themselves on their ability to handle the hardest of the international courses.  They live for threadles, backsides and all sorts of tricky handling moves.

I'm up in Edmonton this weekend with the Shelties for a CKC agility trial. While up here I decided it would be great to get a training session in with one of these ladies.  I booked a lesson with Jessica Patterson,  a very talented agility handler and a member of this years world team.  I wanted to work on international skills, the type of stuff you don't normally see in our AAC or CKC agility courses.  But they are fun skills, challenging and worth learning how to execute properly.

It came down to 4 skills that the dogs need to be able to do independently:

Wraps, from any angle, with minimal support from me. I should be able to send my dogs and run away.  Luckily wraps are something that we do work a lot.  The only difference is that I need to work more on the multiple wraps that Sylvia Trkman does around a pole. My dogs need to keep on wrapping until I stop cueing it.  This should tighten up my turns and teach Spryte how to bend her body.

Backsides of jumps. Again this is a skill we have been working on, and Spryte made me proud showing off her awesome backside abilities. I need to work more on having her do it across the face of the jump, and I need to be able to leave and have her complete the job no matter what my body position or motion is saying.

Running past obstacles while I call her name. Wow is that a hard skill!  As a lot of you know, snooker is not our game! Having Spryte run past an obstacle and not take it is just not in her nature.  But it is a skill that we are just going to have to learn. So from now on if I want her to take an obstacle I am actually going to have to name it on course ("over").  Where up until now I only speak if I need to get her attention and call her off an obstacle.  The international style handling is almost the opposite. If I name the obstacle she can take it, if I'm calling her name, run past it too me.  This will need work.  LOTS of work.

Lastly I need to work on my threadle skills. I don't enjoy threadles. I would rather push my dog through a gap than pull her.  It just works better for both of us.  But now I need to work harder on those threadles.  And to top it off  I am supposed to do it all on one hand!  Yikes, that will take some adjusting to as well.

We did some blind cross stuff too.  But I was surprised at how little they use it.  I was expecting most of the lesson to be on blind cross skills as that seems to be the rage right now.  In their system they will use blind crosses when an obstacle is turning the dog already, otherwise they just stick to front crosses. The theory being that the dog notices it sooner and isn't caught off guard. Ensuring that tight turn and confidence from the dog.  I was fine with that, as I still prefer front crosses on most turns.

Oh the other difference was that they avoid rear crosses whenever possible. I'm ok with this too as I prefer to be in front of my dog and have my dog follow me around the course. Their theory being that the dog should chase you around the course. This leads to faster dogs and more efficient handling.

So all in all it was a great lesson with lots of information, drills to practise and skills to perfect.  Justine and Jessica are planning on coming down to Calgary for some lessons in the near future. I will definitely have to get in on those and try out my new skills on some tricky courses. 

More Nose Work

I did another Nose Work session with the Shelties this morning.  The nice thing about this sport is I can do it at home, and it takes very little time.  Most of my session are between 3 and 5 minutes long. 

Today we were working on several new things. For one we were in a different room in the house that I have never trained in before, second I set up some "obstacles" for them to work around.  A suitcase, a bag, and a couple of box type items.  Third I started to see if the dogs can stay committed while I circle around them.

Below is Strider's session.  In the beginning Spryte was doing better than Strider, but now the old guy has figured it out and is doing well too. He still wants to indicate to the food containers, but has realized that it won't pay off and to keep looking.  There is a great moment in this video at about 41 seconds where Strider goes to move past the correct container and then catches the scent and his head whips around to indicate the item.  I love watching those "ah ha!" moments.

AGDC for Spryte

Spryte earned her AAC Advanced Gamers Dog of Canada title on Saturday.  We finally got that last Snooker Q!  I have decided to play it safe for my snooker runs for a while. I want the Q's and snooker is a hard game for Spryte.  Having to run by equipment and not take it is practically impossible for  her.  So now my plan is to have as direct a route as possible where she is only ever looking at obstacles she is aloud to take and never gets a chance to look at an off course obstacle. I don't care if the  point values are low, as long as it's enough for a qualifying leg. 

Spryte and Strider both earned a team leg on Saturday too. I'm sure it's been at least 6 years since I have played Team in agility.  It's something you just never see anymore.  I completely agree that it shouldn't be apart of the ATCh, but it would be nice to see it a little more often at trials. It was a ton of fun and both my partners were great.  Strider was paired with a Bichon Shitzu named Tessa and Spryte was paired with Flash.  The Spryte/Flash relay video is below.  It's neat to see the two shelties together on a team, the Super Sheltie couple did great.  They even managed to not flirt with each other during the run.  I ran first with Spryte (you'll see me pause at the Aframe, expecting my dog to stop! and then rushing ahead when she didn't, bad girl) then Dave ran with Flash. Enjoy the video.

All in all we had a great time at the CAA one day trial.  The Fez Dome is my favourite barn to trial in. It's warm, very bright, clean and has a really good surface.  The trial was very small and was attended by a great group of friendly agility enthusiasts.  Fun was had by all ;)

Catching up on my blogging

I have been terrible with my blogging lately, it's been a full month since I've posted anything.  I have been busy training my dogs, organising three trials for 2013, forming a nose work class and trying to form goals for myself for 2013.  So there hasn't been much time for this site.

So what's new with the Shelties? Well for starters we have been diving into the sport of Canine Nose Work.  I am loving it!  In fact when I should be out training agility or obedience with the dogs, I find myself placing "hides" for them instead.  The dogs think this is a great game too.  As soon as they see the containers they get straight to work searching the area.  At the moment the biggest things we are working on is finding the correct container (the shelties are going through a phase were they think nose touching any container is acceptable), and then when they find the correct container stay committed to it until I call them off it.  I am really enjoying the proofing portion of the commitment training.  Things like "can you stay committed if I walk past you?"  "What if I kick the other containers around?"  "What if I throw food on the ground?"   It's really no different than proofing for any other obedience behaviour and since my dogs have been exposed to a lot of proofing in the past, they are catching on quickly to this step.  So we will keep training in this sport eventually working up to having "hides" indoors, outdoors and on vehicles. Below is a video of Spryte during a training session. Strider is doing it too, but so far I haven't had time to upload his video (takes like an hour and half for 3 mins of video).

What else have we been up to?  Well Spryte and I continue to work on our open exercises.  I am really happy with everything except her dumbbell retrieves, she continues to mouth them despite all my efforts to teach her otherwise.  Some days she's great with very little mouthing, other days I feel like I'm back to square one.  This battle will not be won this year, in fact it could take several years.  So we will just keep training until that day comes.  I won't wait until its perfect to show her, but I won't give up on trying to fix it either.

 

 So lastly I'm trying to figure out what to do with the dogs this year.  I like having a goal in mind to work towards.  First Strider is only three standard Q's away from his CKC agility championship, so I have to make that a priority.  Second the AAC agility nationals are in Alberta for 2013, so I really want to qualify to go with both dogs and do well. So looks like a lot of my time will be spent training and showing in agility.  Third, Spryte only needs two more points for her CKC conformation championship, so I better hit some shows too.  Oh and I would like to breed Spryte in the summer/fall.  So it's not looking like I will have time for showing in obedience this year.  If I can make it work I will, but when I really sit down and think about it I know that it is just unrealistic to add obedience to this year's goals too.

 

Pictures are from a play date that Snap and Quinn had about a week ago. Puppies are now 5 months old!  All the puppies are doing really well. 3 of them are in classes with me doing pre-agility training and rally obedience. They are catching on quickly to all their new skills and having a great time while learning!