CCD Trial

Oh Dear.

She got 21/30 for her heelwork - started off a little rough and missed her first position but she settled quickly after that and worked nicely - her figure 8 was almost perfect - i was very proud of her and once back at the starting peg after the exercise i realised i had held my breath nearly the whole time - must work on that!!

Then she did an almost perfect stand for exam - i think we lost one point - and a nice recall, too - so then it was the stays.

For the stays the CCD dogs were lined up facing the UD ring and it was just our luck. The sit stay was fine, Eepie looked around a bit but stayed put. On the two-minute down stay at about one minute twenty seconds, the judge in the UD ring started his next dog with LOUD commands. My heart began to sink as i notice Eepie listening intently to the commands for the heelwork/retrieve lost article exercise. The handler shouted SEEK to his dog and then i watched Eepie's eyes following the dog in the next ring - up and back, up and back.

At about 1 minute 30 seconds she popped her down-stay and sat in position watching the dog in the next ring. My heart broke.

She had been coming second. The dog who came first was trained and handled by a judge and had done a fantastic job with the exercises with some beautiful heelwork - coming second to that dog would have been an honour.

Sigh...

She maintained her position though - didn't race around and leave her place - so i was pleased about that - at some level she knows what it means when i tell her to "WAIT" - but we need more distraction work.

I am pissed off at the judge in the next ring. If he could have been thoughtful and waited one minute more, we'd have gained some good, positive ring experience, earned second place and a qualifying card.

Our judge in the CCD ring was genuinely disappointed for us - which was nice - He said "What HAPPENED? You were doing so WELL?"

Sigh again - 30 seconds can make a big difference to the outcome of a trial...................

Australian Champion Ieper-Rilla vd Arkiv (Imp USA)

Australian Champion Ieper-Rilla vd Arkiv

Well - here in Australia its the Queen's Birthday long weekend - 12,13 and 14 June

The weekend is a significant milestone in Eepie's life with us Down Under.

Saturday 12th she went BoB, she got a second run in the Working Group line up and she was awarded Best Intermediate in Group. This left us competing in the General Specials at the pointy end of the show. I was thrilled to be showing this beautiful Bouvier among all the best dogs at the show. It was a huge achievement for a rare breed. Well done, Mz Eep!

Today, 13th June, is her second birthday. We had two other Bouviers to compete against today and Eep was awarded Bitch Challenge and Runner Up in Breed - we needed four points to finish her championship and we earned seven.

Well done Champion Ieper-Rilla vd Arkiv!

Tomorrow we have one more show and tomorrow is the first anniversary of Eepie's "Gotcha Day" - the day i picked her up from the quarantine station and brought her home after her long journey from Delta, Colorado.

Harpo and i love you to bits Princess Eepie........Many Happy Returns to my little darling the Champion

CCD Fun Match

The baby did it tonight - she came second in a CCD fun match at our club.

She had eyes everywhere for the first half of our heel pattern but then she settled down, her brains clicked in and she worked beautifully.

It was assessment night at the club - in the ring next to ours an instructor was putting out stations and distractions for her group. She wheeled out a pram full of stuff - umbrellas, teddy bears and footballs - then she started setting up stations with lots of signs and cones. Peep was **very** interested in all of this. Then the President's Kelpie started wandering around off lead and people were coming and going with their dogs. It was hard work for my little girl - but she managed a heel pattern with perfect figure 8s - she did a perfect stand for exam and a nice recall.

On the stays she had her head swivelling around to watch everything but me - :-( but she managed to do her sit stay and her down stay.....

Our judge for the evening was one of my favourite obedience judges ever. This was a great opportunity to practice our work together under true trial conditions - and she passed!!

Her conformation title is nearly completed and our first CCD obedience trial is in about a month. :::gulp:::

Scent Discrimination for UD

Eepie has come a long way in a short time with her scent discrimination practice.

Here's a video of her taken this week retrieving "leather #3" from eleven articles placed on a towel.

This is such a mysterious exercise to train because we humans cannot sense what the dogs sense about the correct article. We cannot smell nearly as well as our dogs so we have to learn to trust them. I think this exercise is harder for the human than for the dog to "get".

Usually we have been working off about seven "dummies" in training - but this week i decided to put the number up to eleven - and she didn't have a problem with it - not at all.

We won't be competing in UD for about a year - i'm guessing - so we will have plenty of time to proof this exercise and get any wrinkles out - i want her to be perfectly relaxed doing it when she's in competition.

Eep has a Great Nose!

Friday Training

This afternoon we went to the old parliament house rose gardens to train. The gardens are enclosed with a nice level mowed lawn. I was hoping we'd have some distractions - people winding down for the weekend - but there was nobody about.

Because this is a new training area for us, i went armed with yummy rewards for work well done and i had made up my mind to lower the criteria for success. Eepie and i are proofing her exercises now - and the lesson i want her to learn each time we work in a different location is "it is rewarding and fun to work in this new place".

So on top of the obedience exercises we have trained, i am now training Eepie for a happy response and flexibility when she's asked to work in an unfamiliar environment.

Turned out I didn't need to lower my expectations too much tonight - she worked very nicely on a "christmas tree" heeling pattern with all positions, all speeds, all turns and some beautiful figure eights.

We did a couple of easy recalls and then it was Harpo's turn.

Harpo is recovering from major surgery so i'm not expecting to be able to trial him this year - its such a shame because his work has never been better - he heels like a demon, retrieves with a sparkle and does his scent discrimination exercise at warp speed.........

Visiting Geoffrey

Yesterday we visited an old friend, Geoffrey, who is an artist. It was the first time since she came to live with me that Ieper has been in another house - and the first time Harpo, Ieper and i have been invited anywhere together.

It was a beautiful autumn day and a peaceful drive about an hour and half into the countryside to the little town of Taralga. Geoffrey lives on a few acres and says that it is fine for us to use his land for tracking practice. I couldn't track yesterday or let the dogs stray very far, unfortunately, because the grass is long and full of seed and the temperatures are still warm enough for brown snakes to be out in the middle of the day.....

Geoff doesn't have any animals and I was a little bit nervous about how the guys would behave in this new environment but i needn't have been nervous. He seemed quite happy with these two big hairy dogs sniffing and playing around him and the guys were incredibly well behaved.

What a relief! We will be asked back again!!

The dogs had a great time sniffing around Geoff''s house and when we went out to the studio they rumbled up and down in that nice big open space. They were pretty funny wrestling all over the floor while we talked about paint qualities and the problems Geoff was having with his latest set of paintings.

I was really proud of the way they behaved and i was very happy with Ieper's good natured curiosity and general acceptance of this new situation. I would have loved to see them racing around the paddocks at Geoff's - but maybe we can do that later in the year when winter has sent the snakes packing.

We did some "two on-two off" practice on some of the steps at Geoff's studio and we did some focus- and heelwork around the studio when a local couple dropped by to see his paintings. It was a good opportunity to ask Eepie to work in this new environment with new people around.

The training/exercises that came in handy yesterday were two simple, everyday 'household' commands - Settle (lie down now and relax) and Here (informal come to me and hang around nearby).

Agility Tunnel Arrives!

Our Agility tunnel arrived yesterday - it is bright yellow, 5 metres long, 600mm in diameter and both the dogs love running through it.

I'm really happy about this new toy for the dogs.  Our training yard now has twelve weavers, two jumps and a tunnel - and there is still room for a few more things to go in out there.  I'd really like a dog walk - i could put it over some of the unmoveable parts of the garden and make good use of that otherwise unusable space.

By the time she is ready to compete, Ieper and i will be very good at working small, tight courses.  Last night we played with the tunnel, the two jumps and right or left entries into the weavers - the angles are impossibly tight but she made a really good effort and i am learning how to move with her so i can cue her for a correct weave entry regardless of which side we go from.

History Page

I found some old pix in a file and had to put them here.

This is Percy, Stavast Gosta Grenda CD aged about eleven

Percy doing one of her favourite things in the world

This is Harpo, Stavast Gitta Harpo CDX, speeding up on the last leg of a track - the "lost" person is

in a bush just out of the picture

Percy getting her/our her first Novice pass

Two On Two Off

This vid shows Eepie learning a version of "two on-two off" which means that she is learning to stop with her back feet touching a specific area on agility equipment. Yes, i am concentrating on the placement of her front feet - but when we work on the stairs this has the effect of also controlling the placement of her back feet. You can't see it, but i am pointing to each step to show her where i want the "one" step to happen.

We ended up with the command "one" because i was asking her to do "one step at a time" - One is our shorthand for "take one step, stop and watch me"

When she's coming off the agility equipment, instead of leaping with Great Enthusiasm as her puppy heart loves to do, she must come off deliberately, taking care to touch the contact areas - we don't have a dog walk or an A-frame to practise on at home so the stairs are quite handy for this.

I am looking forward to putting this new skill to work next time we're in class.

Well done, Mz Eep!! This new trick has taken three x 2 minute sessions to shape and now that she has learned how to do it, i'm beginning to increase my distance from standing directly in front and blocking her 'flight path' to standing one or two steps away from her.

As i increase the distance - in effect taking the props away - it gets harder for her because she has to think and remember and behave in a certain way all by herself. Her reward for getting it right is her release signal that means she can BOLT the last step or two and go flying into her back yard where she loves to charge around.

If she forgets and charges down the steps midway through i just stop her and ask her to go back up onto the deck and start again.

We do two reps - that's enough - Bouviers do not do "robot dog" training.............

Extra distractions for this exercise are provided by people, dogs, kids on bicycles etc passing by in the park on the other side of the fence.

Target & Weave Practice

We had a better morning run today - there was nobody else at the club so Eepie just got distracted by racehorses doing trackwork across the road, some kangaroos in an adjacent paddock and lots of tiny little finches flying about catching insects in the early morning sunlight.

We did some targetting today - she needs to learn to stop on the contacts on her Agility equipment so today we took a plastic lid and practised stopping with one paw on the lid - she's amazing - after a few attempts she was doing a half playbow with one foot on the target, wagging her tail and looking at me with her cheeky grin.

At home we have been practising coming down the stairs off the deck out the back in a slow, controlled way. If i let her just "go" she flies down those stairs and lands with a thud on at the bottom - i don't like this because of the risk of injury and long term potential for arthritis - so learning to come down the stairs slowly and controlled is a good thing. Her command for this is "One" - meaning one step at a time - and she does this nicely as long as i am right in front of her insisting that she pays attention to the task.

When we got home she did a couple of runs through the weavers. This is coming along well and she's running twelve poles set in a V leaning out from a straight line - she's learning to lift her feet nicely and pretty soon i'll start straightening them up.

Harpo is still recovering from an episode of bloat (he ate some old leather and made himself very sick) so he's not working much right now. I am just happy to see him running about, playing with Ieper and wagging his tail, we came close to losing him which was pretty scary.

Fence Running

Really annoying morning - there were some people and their dogs at the dog club when we arrived this morning - i let the dogs out of the car and into the paddock and she was gone. From then on Ieper just wanted to race up and down the fence staring and barking at the other dogs and behaving like a lunatic. She would NOT pay me any attention, would NOT come she just ran up and down the fence getting more and more excited and more and more out of control. At one point i took Harpo down beside the club house so we were out of sight and called her. I hoped she'd worry that she couldn't see us and come looking - but nope - she just kept on behaving badly at the fence.

This behaviour makes me so MAD i don't know what to do about it. It is clearly very self-reinforcing, a lot of FUN, to race up and down the fence. I am wracking my brains to figure out what to do with her that is more appealing that her own special "naughty game". I caught my naughty little bitch, put her on lead and walked her away from the fence - she was immediately very well behaved.

I got my dear Harpo the Hooligan and put him in a sit-stay a little way away from the fence and Eepie and i heeled some figure eights with Harpo as a "post". She heeled beautifully with all that adrenaline from the fence running flowing through her - paid good attention, forged nicely into the cross-over point and sped up automatically on the outside circle till she was working the circle with a nicely flexed spine and, essentially, herding me with her shoulder - beautiful work...........thank you, Eepie!

Harpo used to do something similar at other dogs on the other side of the fence - he'd charge to the fence and puff up and bark and carry on as though world war three was about to break out and he was defending Flanders - it took a few years to train him to come back away from the fence and away from barking at or investigating dogs on the other side. He is seven now and, though he will still charge off to see who has just arrived, he comes back when called with a grin and a wagging tail, most of the time without even making it as far as the fence.

I am not sure how to begin this with Eepie and i certainly do not want it to take years - she has three modes at the moment - completely self-absorbed (when she's fence running), completely engaged with me (when we are working) and somewhere in between when she's working but watching something else on the other side of the paddock.

I guess the answer is partly in training attention and partly in being willing to let her grow up a bit more - she still has "puppy brain" and will have for at least another twelve months - perhaps i can set a goal for twelve months' time and chart our progress.

Fence running really annoys me. Sorry, Peep, it has to stop!

Lots of love

Mum

Heeling Towards a Championship

If you're interested in the higher levels of competition obedience, heelwork needs to be smart and precise.

It is just as easy to train your dog to heel well as it is to train them to lag or heel wide - so why not aim for perfection to begin with? .

For starters, WunderDogs don't wear a collar and lead to learn to heel because we don't use corrections - I can't "correct" something that my dog hasn't yet learned. So I start by teaching my dogs to sit close and square at heel. When they can do that, i move a little and ask them to come up close to me again - back into heel position. When they can do that reliably sideways and through 90 degrees clockwise and anti-clockwise, i ask them to take it around through 360 degrees in both directions. When they can do that and wag their tails at the same time, they're ready to starting working on some straight lines - both backwards and forwards.

When I teach heelwork starting from the static heel position, I don't have to teach an "automatic sit" because it is already there - the dog learns that heel means "sit square by my side unless i'm moving, in which case i want you to move square alongside me and resume heel position when i stop". So i teach heel as a backchained exercise.

The bottom line for heelwork with my dogs is - it must be FUN. I like to see my dogs animated and having a good time when they work - i'm not interested in producing another sad robotic obedience dog with flattened ears and a low-slung tail. In the ring, a wagging tail and a cheeky grin from my dog assures me that regardless of what the judge says about us, we're having a good time and that is the most important thing.

Working With Distractions

Today's exercises were directed jumping and some heelwork. Ieper gets very excited at the dog club when she sees other dogs and it is hard for her to concentrate. She pulls and wants to go talk to the other dogs. If she's off lead she wants to chase and play with them. It can be frustrating and embarrassing trying to get her back to me and paying attention. When she finds a dog to play with she is fast and furious in pursuit and her playmates need to be robust to withstand her herding and roughhousing - she's not nasty or mean in her play, she's just strong and boisterous, full of life.

Last week in obedience class, after doing a perfect recall, she wanted to run off and play chasings with a Cocker Spaniel. She started with a lovely play-bow, then herded the poor Cocker, shouldered it into the ground, tipped it on its back and left it screaming in fright. Wimps need not apply to play with my puppy - sorry - she's not aggressive or a thug but, like most Bouviers, she's not a dog for the faint of heart.

I'm not sure why she gets so excited by other dogs at the dog club when she manages to stay quite self-contained at dog shows - there are many more dogs at dog shows.

But this makes the dog club a good place to practice paying attention and working through distractions. It helps, too, that there is a mob of hereford cattle in a paddock at the end of the working ring - they are interesting for a young working dog - another good distraction.

At home in our training yard we have no distractions - so her work is wonderful and focused. How many times do you hear someone lamenting "but my dog does it perfectly at home"................

Today we had cattle at one end of our working area and two small dogs playing in the adjacent paddock. Excellent distractions!

We started with sendaways and directed jumping - eepie was watching the small dogs playing in the next paddock and i had my work cut out to get her attention back onto the job which was simply to go out to the box and sit - and then to watch me for the signal to jump either bar or solid on the way back to me.

I stayed calm even though i was nervous about letting her off lead. I didn't want her to run away and scamper up and down the fence line and rehearse "bad behaviour". It is important to learn to trust your dog - to expect the correct behaviour and set the dog up to succeed rather than fail. I have been training her to Watch Me - so i asked her to Watch as we headed out to face the box. And because she was so interested in the dogs playing next door, i shortened the distance to the box to make it easier for her to succeed at the sendaway. Once she was in the box i walked backwards to the full distance before asking her for the jumps. When she was in the air over a jump i added the command "Here" so that she would look at me and not be tempted to take off and run to the fence to investigate the dogs-next-door. When that worked i could praise her for getting it right. Little by little i will be able to remove these "props" and she'll be working happily with other stuff going on in the background. It is important to build her confidence and mine by rehearsing successes.

The extra work on my part meant she did well with a high level of distraction - i was surprised - and i reflected that her beginners Agility class is probably also helping her to handle the pressure of working to me and paying attention to me when there are a lot of interesting happy chaseable dogs close by.