6 weave poles, day 2

And here she is on day two of being able to do six poles - - happy, skipping and getting more fluent..........

Clever method, Clever dog!

And For My Next Trick - Six Weave Poles!!! TaaaDaaaa!

Suddenly we have had a breakthrough with our weave training. Most of the problems we were having came from a combination of (1) having very light equipment, (2) having very wet soil in my training areas which meant that (3) being a solid, energetic dog, Eepie was knocking the weave poles out of position as she went through them - so she wasn't learning to W-E-A-V-E

First, a friend at work made me some beautiful, solid 2X2 bases (thanks, Michael!!) and then a friend at the dog club lent me her Susan Garrett 2X2* dvd (thanks, Barb!) and when Eepie and i were able to work the 2X2 method for a couple of days on proper equipment - almost overnight she could do four weave poles easily.

I noticed, though, that she didn't like stepping over the bases when they were sitting free on the ground - so i got some nice long deck nails with flat heads and hammered them in securely - suddenly the bases didn't move or wobble At ALL.........

and now she's getting the hang of it nicely -

So here she is doing her very first runs on six weave poles. She was zooming through four poles confidently and its clear on these first attempts at six that she's a bit worried and has slowed down - but this is after about half an hour of sporadic 2X2 training spread out over several days (with major breaks for tracking weekends and a sore foot!). We'll iron out the wrinkles and she'll be zooming it again soon enough.

It seems to be an excellent method of weave training and she clearly understands the task. My early observations are that the 2X2 method makes sense from the dog's perspective and it combines two of my favourite training concepts of shaping and back-chaining...(so it makes sense to this trainer, too :-)

At the end of this little vid, she also shows off the clever trick she learned for stopping on the target areas of agility contact equipment - (dogwalk, A-frame and see saw/teeter). She is such a fast doglet and she loves to FLY - so learning to control her speed (and her aspiration to be a bird) is really important.

But we don't have any contact equipment at home and we had to 'make do'.

So Eepie began her contact training on the five broad wooden steps off the back deck (not the steps in this vid). I wasn't happy with her slamming into the yard off the deck steps so her contact training had a useful spin-off - it was an opportunity to encourage her to come down into the garden in a nice, controlled manner - and to put this steady, controlled behaviour on command.

She learned to come down the deck stairs one at a time - hence my verbal cue "One". (i guess i'm not very imaginative with verbal cues :-)

Take a bow, Princess Peep - You're AMAZING!!

[Oh - by the way - her foot is much better today - for the last few days we haven't done much other than rest - and i think tomorrow we will be able to get out walking again...]



*2X2 method is the brainchild of Susan Garrett -

Injury Time

Last weekend the dogs and i went to a tracking workshop at Suzy's - it was brilliant fun being out with the dogs laying tracks and soaking up the winter sunshine.

Mz Eep wasn't too sure about the game of "Find Your Mommy". Her first attempt was a "free track" where she broke away from the person handling her, raced up the hill after me and FLUNG herself on me as i lay in the grass. It was funny looking up to see a flying Bouvier with wide eyes bounding over the tussocks towards me - her little face was saying quite clearly "Mum, what are you DOING? and why did you LEAVE me with that person?"

On another starter track she stood still a few yards away from where i was hiding on the hillside and barked for me which was a bit heartbreaking - but i could tell she was thinking things over - on her last attempt she put her nose down and started to use her natural skills to solve the problem. I think she will take another couple of startup sessions to get the hang of it and then we can shift over to working together on tracks i have laid.

Its complicated tracking alone at the beginning.........

My beautiful Harpo boy has had a lot more experience and when it was his turn he knew exactly what to do - he LOVES this game and i was thrilled watching him with his head down reading the tracks i laid and hauling along nicely into his harness - its a fine thing tracking with a Bouvier on a perfect winter day on perfect ground - Thanks, Suzy, for a wonderful day out!

Yesterday Eep wasn't interested in anything and kept taking herself back to bed which is just not like her so i knew something was up. I went over her thoroughly and finally discovered a sore-looking left back foot. On the underside and between the pads the skin was all pink with one curious paler welt. I put some cream on it (antibacterial, anaesthetic etc) and watched her for the day - she was subdued - So this morning i figured it was time to go to the vet for some professional help.

We saw Dr Ben who pronounced the foot infected and said "looks like there has been a grass seed in here, but there's nothing in there now" - that was the pale welt i noticed. So she has to take antibiotics for a week and i'm hoping she'll be back on all four feet next weekend when we are entered in two more CCD trials - this time at Nowra on the south coast.

Its funny - my usual request in the early mornings is "Eepie, stop being so enthusiastic - please" because she bounces off the walls in her enthusiasm to get out walking. Now with her sore foot i miss her bouncing off the walls and i'll be happy to see that crazy enthusiasm back again.

Meanwhile - here are some pix of the dogs on their tracking holiday - both of them "tracked" the resident Wombat to his beautiful burrow in the ferns and thought he smelled wonderful. :-)

Lessons about Winning

Well - it was fun to win last weekend - 97/100 is a good CCD score. It tells me that when the Peep is ON - she's ON. Winning was a lot more fun than popping the stay and not qualifying at the trial the weekend before - but what lessons can i learn from a win? And - where did we lose those three points?

First - i learned the useful lesson that We Can DO It! its good to know that we can - one of the keys to competing successfully is "appropriate training history" - i can store this successful trial as a reminder that we can, indeed, do it at a high level of accuracy.

Secondly - i need to ask, What did i do that helped us get it right on the day? and what can i do to shore up the weak spots in our training? Where can i practise a down stay with a dog doing a fast seekback twenty feet away? Where can i practise precise heeling with dogs being interesting just - over - there???

I couldn't rehearse/train on the Q&DDTC grounds because we are not members of that club - so i went early to the trial and walked both dogs around to let them read this new area and get familiar with it. By the time she was due in the ring she had met and spoken to a few dogs, walked around with Harpo and just with me and she was relaxed, alert and ready to work.

She didn't have breakfast but i took some lean braised 'roo steak cut into tiny pieces and while we were familiarising ourselves with the grounds i rewarded her for checking in and paying attention to me.........i paid her for working - that was the only way she was going to get food that morning! (of course i'd have fed her if she didn't trial well and qualify - but i didn't tell her that)

At home during the week i asked the Peep to practise her stays all over the place because i didn't want another POP - this was a good strategy because in the sit-stay last weekend, the Dalmatian bitch next to Peep got up and walked at snail's pace towards her handler. It was the longest sit stay of my life and i found myself standing there breathless watching the Dal and just WILLING my pup to sit still while the Dal crept forward. It was a very long minute.

So we have reinforced our Wait command (i use Wait and not STAY) in lots of places and with all sorts of rewards - Wait sitting while i put Harpo in the car - reward is its now YOUR turn to get in the car and go out. Wait down while i fill water bowls and prepare dinners - reward - hopping into your crate for dinner - YUM, Wait down while someone interesting goes past the backyard fence - reward for quiet attentive waiting in a down is "Aff - GO!" and she is free to run again

This week i have also asked her to wait in a down while i play with Harpo - getting him to be bouncy and happy while she has to lie still and watch. This is a handy skill to develop - as it seems lots of CCD dogs have trouble on the stays........last weekend one ran out of the ring before the judge had finished giving his orders for the sit stay - and a couple more just bolted off the downs - we need to be able to ignore such behaviour, Eepie!!!

Eeepie Wins CCD!

Today my clever girl won her CCD class at the Queanbeyan and District Dog Training Club trial. Our judge was John Green. This is her first qualifying pass, her third trial...she was so close last week - and this week she nailed it.

We hadn't been on those grounds before so i went a bit early so she could have a good look around - it worked and she was able to focus when we were heading into the ring - We got 27/30 for our heelwork and full points for the Stand for Exam, Recall, and Stays (sit&down).............

Lessons From Yesterday's Trial

First lesson - i didn't lose my patience with my beautiful girl when she popped her down stay.

Second lesson - she worked beautifully except for that one glitch - so she did very well for her second outing in an obedience competition - there was a lot to be happy about.

Third lesson - i came away from the trial somewhat annoyed that the trialling environment is not structured to help dogs succeed - but more to test them to the limits of their patience and training. This is not a rewarding environment for the dogs and it seems to have a very poor effect on the humans. I saw some dreadful Primate > Canid behaviour yesterday.

I saw one handler slapping his dog in the face during his warmup work - and i mean really slapping his dog in the face - i thought "if that is what he is prepared to do in public - what does he do to this dog when he thinks nobody can see him?" and my heart broke for the poor dog.

I saw one handler storm out of the UD ring with a grizzled older bitch in tow - the dog was shoved into her crate - a bowl of food shoved under her nose and the handler said "there - see that? You're not getting it" and threw the food down on top of the crate and slammed the door shut. Then the handler proceeded to complain loudly about all the "mistakes" the dog had made in the ring......

again, my heart broke for the poor dog

Yes, i was annoyed yesterday that the judge in the next ring couldn't wait for one minute to let the young dogs doing pre-Novice do their stays in peace without distractions. Yes i was disappointed that we didn't qualify and earn that second place - but i am SO GLAD that i left the ring happy with my dog - that i didn't take out my frustration on my dog. Thinking slowly about it i am SO GLAD that i didn't leave the ring thinking that my dog had "let me down" or "failed"

Its like this - if your dog learns that a consequence of going into the ring with you is that you will abuse him/her and be upset or angry - why would you expect your dog to do well in that unnatural and stressful situation that is an Obedience Trial??

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