WordPlay

by Doranna

With a title like that, you might be tempted to think I’m talking about the international editions of my books, or the cool covers that sometimes result when the book comes out in a different country.  But no.  Because when my life isn’t all about writing, it’s all about training the dogs.

Yup, it’s time for another Dog Agility Blog Event.  (One of the perks of participation is totally selfish–it spurs me to read all the other blogs, and to look at the subject a whole new way.  Check ‘em out!)  This month we’re pondering the internationalization of the sport, a matter which brought some puzzlement in behind-the-scenes discussion.  “I’ll never compete internationally, so…?”

I am pretty darned sure I won’t ever compete internationally, either.  Never mind being good enough…I don’t fly!  Boom.  Grounded.

But I have a very strong belief in the strength of options.  Options when it comes to training techniques, training tools, training theory.  In fact, I feel strongly enough about having options that even when I run across a technique that makes me wrinkle my nose, I check it out.  You never know when some little piece of information will crop up as useful later on–another dog, another situation, another task.

Just TELL me what to do. Really. Then we'll all be happy.

Once upon a time (she says, by way of illustration), I was new to the idea of shaping behaviors.  Not to mention I had a young dog (ConneryBeagle) who didn’t like shaping behaviors.  Connery wants you to define exactly what you’re asking of him.  Do this; don’t do this.  He doesn’t like being asked to suggest things.  Furthermore, if he thinks his way is valid, he will suggest the same thing over and over and over and over and…look at you in disgust and quit.  Whereas if he does suggest an alternative to a previously defined behavior and you say, “Nope, do it this way,” he will then happily do it that way.

Our experimenting with shaping behaviors was very short lived.  Now that Connery is much more seasoned, I can give him broad hints about what I’d like him to do and then clicker reward, but that’s really a different thing, and I fade the clicker as soon as I can.  But at the time, I read up on it, learned about it…watched other people doing it, and tucked it away.

Fast forward a number of years, and along comes adolescent Dart Beagle–who has flunked being a show dog because he forgot to descend both testicles (this doesn’t surprise me; he’s inordinately fond of them), and who couldn’t be placed in a pet home because he vibrates with intensity.

(The number of people to use the word “vibrate” to describe him, completely independent of one another, is no coincidence.)

So lo, Dart came to my house where I love him fiercely and am willing to be humbled by his antics in agility.  And obedience.  And tracking.  And where in spite of all that, he’s also taken on the mantle of service dog.  (That’s another blog.)

On the other hand, Dart does not love the flash on this particular camera...thus the squint. But he does love the bucket, which--with shaping--he not only learned to balance on in a single session, he also realized that in order to balance on it, he'd have to flip it back upright when he knocked it over.

Dart looooves shaping.  Dart loooves figuring stuff out.  He loooooves knowing he’s clever and proving it.  And Dart LOVES the clicker.  Dart loves the clicker SO MUCH that I use it as a reward during times when he seems stressy.

The point being, if I hadn’t explored both shaping and clicker use just because it wasn’t right for my dog at the time, I wouldn’t have had the option to grab those tools when Dart came along.

So no, I’m not going to compete internationally.  And I don’t particularly like what I’ve seen–safety-wise, fairness-to-the-dog-wise–on some sample AKC Masters C courses (although I also saw one that looked like challenging fun).

But I’ve been watching videos on some of the international techniques, and I’ve watched the videos of world competition, and if some of what I see makes me think “what the effing F is the point of THAT?” it doesn’t mean I won’t look into it, see what proponents of such maneuvers are saying, and see where such handling is supposed to be optimally useful.

Because you never know.  One day it might be the perfect tool to help one of my dogs understand whatever lesson we’re trying to learn on that day.

by Doranna
This is a Dog Agility Blog Event

Ten years after my introduction to agility, I’ve managed to acquire some equipment–jumps, some contact equipment, some tunnels.

And I’ve got a space dedicated to practice, such as it is–as long as I keep clearing the prickly pear, the yucca, the stick-tight burrs, and the stubborn juniper saplings.  The piñons, I run around.

But it wasn’t always that way–and even now, given that this area has a significant winter, desert adobe clay soil, and enough of an ongoing drought to kill all the stabilizing grasses, there are plenty of months when the agility yard footing is an astonishingly slippery clay sort of quicksand.

(You want to know how desperate I am about this footing?  I’m currently spreading horse poo to stabilize the soil on the way out to the agility area.  Oh yes I am!  Because walking on dried horse poo is at least possible.)

I love my agility area, but let’s just say I’m always ready to work around its challenges, just as I used to work around not having equipment at all.  For me, it’s all about breaking things down in a modular way–into component behaviors that build the foundation for the final, complex behavior.

That sounds very fancy.  But when I started doing it, I couldn’t have put those words together to describe it.  I wasn’t familiar with clicker training and the only agility instructor within 3 hours had left.  Then, as now, I did most of my training at home.

Under challenging circumstances, it becomes a matter of thinking about the pieces a dog needs to understand as part of the big picture–and particularly with regards to how that individual dog thinks.  With backyard pieces, you can lay a decent foundation for agility long before a dog is old enough to take jumps, wriggle through weaves, or face a full-height contact obstacle.

When I got ConneryBeagle, I knew I couldn’t target on contacts–in fact, I don’t even want him to think about putting his nose down at contacts.  He needed concrete, stable, environmental cues–not facing cues, body patterning, or amorphous concepts.

I used a single step in my house to teach him “run and sit with your butt on one surface and your feet on another.”  By the time he saw a contact obstacle, he had a very strong understanding of his personalized contact zone behavior.

Dart Beagle came to me with no idea where his feet were at any given moment.  He learned about those feet on the railroad ties that stabilize our startlingly narrow back yard (there’s a young arroyo behind us)–not only running along them, but perching in a neat down–feet tucked up, or no clickie-cookie!  For the same reason, he learned to climb and sit an upturned bucket; he learned to fling himself down on planks in the living room.  He walks curbs when we’re out, as well as those cement parking bumpers.

All those feets are tucked away--cookie time!

To this day, I keep a batch of planks leaning against the book case.  They served to teach a straight front (in progress), and to run ahead to his down on contacts.  They helped him understand the concept of the moving down and a straight finish–and I’m certain we’re not done with those things.

Dart, still figuring out exactly where his body is relative to the rest of the world... But he readily cleared the jump, so all was well!

Both dogs learned their running contact behavior in the house, and took it whole cloth to the equipment. To prevent contact leapage, they use a diagonal motion on the downside of the equipment.  Connery learned this at age five; Dart learned it from the start.  (Frankly, I never did have to worry about what Belle and Jean-Luc Cardigans would do on a contact.  Short legs and “keep ‘em moving” meant a natural running contact.)

We did Dart’s early weave poles on the tiny patio outside my office (and inside the house!).  In the strip of a back yard–with its single jump–he first learned rear crosses, funky weave entrances, and “send to jump.”  To introduce concepts that will layer understanding in body use, attention, and release, and I use the walls of the hall, the back of the couch, crate entry and exit…all the pieces of their normal environment.  Dart doesn’t get dinner without performing some randomly chosen behavior–he not only needs the self control, he needs the constant structure.  So I’m using his basic needs to develop a daily reinforcement of bottom-layer agility and obedience skills.

You see where I’m going with all this.  I hope!  We don’t all have convenient training facilities; we don’t all even have backyards, or have them available all seasons of the year.

But we have our brains.  We know our dogs and how they think and what they need–and in fact, now that I’ve learned to think this way, I’d do all these things as foundation work even if I had a full-size agility yard out my back patio.

The house and yard–or apartment, hallway, and surroundings–are teaming with objects and circumstances just waiting to be co-opted into use.

Eventually, of course, the dog needs to put it all together on a course, and on real equipment–generalizing and proofing are necessary steps.  But if all the pieces are there, it’s suddenly not a big deal after all.

ConneryBeagle! Photo by ByVine Design.

Duh, right?

ConneryBeagle: Yes!  BAWH!

Or not so much, because not everyone seems to know that when it comes to training.

Maybe that’s why when I think coaches/trainers/clinicians, my first priority is to find someone who knows this particular duh and keeps it in mind.

I mean, yes–for me, I need someone who thinks and speaks constructively, who understands my goals and offers me tools to reach them.  I need someone with a good eye who can discern whatever Stupid Handler Trick I might be pulling this time.  Who doesn’t?

But the reason I habitually train at home is that I also want someone who supports my dogs for who they are.  And I really hate how long it took me to realize that not everyone groks the hound learning process (or has an awareness that they don’t).

All dogs are individuals, of course.  They’re not all typical (or stereotypical) of their breed; they all need to be treated as individuals within their breeds.  But breed matters.  Anyone who says it doesn’t, doesn’t Get It.

Dart Beagle is still figuring out how to use his body...

Beagles (hounds in general) are bred to be independent on the hunt.  They’re bred to make their own decisions and they’re bred to persist with those decisions–come hell or high water, terrible terrain or long hours or descending weather.  Humans may interpret their resulting behaviors as stubborn or hard to train, but context is everything.  (And any human who interprets these resulting behaviors to indicate that a little hound is stupid had best take a second look at their interactions with any such little hound and see who’s trained who…)

ConneryBeagle: BAWH HA HA!

Beagles are linear thinkers.  They’re generally robust and square-built (this affects both jumping and weaves), and they like their rules of behavior written clearly in black and white.  They even have visual idiosyncrasies–many of them don’t tend to “see” an obstacle that isn’t moving relative to their own position.  Woe unto me if I do a front cross that brings ConneryBeagle into direct line with the weaves, because I’ve 1) interfered with his line-of-sight to the next obstacle and then 2) lined him up with a hard-to-see obstacle in a way that it isn’t moving relative to his own position.

ConneryBeagle: You should NOT DO THAT.

So why would I want to work with a coach who instead of accepting that (or knowing it to start with), focuses on “fixing it” instead of building awareness and alternate strategies?

In the Beagle world, it’s important to transfer motivation away from self-rewarding hunt behaviors to our interactions before asking for performance work.  And in Connery’s world, a performance choice is valid until he’s told that it’s not.  He won’t make a different choice simply because there’s no reward at the end–in that case, he thinks I’m the one missing the boat (see above, “bred to persist with those decisions”).  But he understands immediately if I stop him in the middle of that behavior and show him what I want instead.

ConneryBeagle:  Why didn’t you SAY SO in the first place?

And by all means, I know to avoid basing performance criteria on props that are faded–stride regulators and pool noodles and touch pads and hoops and….

They are incredibly literal dogs.  (And yes, all of my contact training is based on physical elements of the equipment that never change!)

ConneryBeagle: Things should BE WHAT THEY ARE.

More wrong thinking?  Looking at the green dog who goes out sniffing in the ring and thinking, “I need to stop that.” Yiii!  Sniffing is a highly self-rewarding default behavior, and it’s the first thing a Beagle will do when stressed.  Want him to stress even more?  Go ahead–make a big deal of it, and see where it gets you.  Support the dog, focus on the positive stuff, and the sniffing will fade.

ConneryBeagle: BAWH!  Respect the SNIFF!

A good coach knows that I celebrate my dogs for what they are and I respect them for what they are, and I don’t try to make them fit into the training mold that serves other breeds with their other breed habits–and neither should they.

ConneryBeagle: BAWHSOME!

Just this week I learned that Connery is among the top title earners for breed champion Beagles (it’s hard to pin that down, because there’s no single resource, but at the moment it looks like the top two).  And this is a dog who’s been through life-changing attacks by giant breeds, who’s been chronically ill from his first year onward (yes, all the proceeds from HEART OF DOG still go toward his medical expenses, which are profound even in a good year), and who spent most of the last 18 months dealing with a complicated mystery ailment that took him out of the fun for far too many months.  That’s what I call positive reinforcement for his handler!  ;>

So there you are:  That’s the deal-breaker for me when it comes to a coach or clinician.  Celebrate the dog; work with the dog’s foundation characteristics in synergy, not in conflict.  Don’t just say that you do…have the experience and depth of understanding to do it.

Respect the sniff!

ConneryBeagle:  BAWH!

~~~

PS! This is a DOG AGILITY BLOG EVENT!  Want to see more on the subject of agility coaches?

A Dog Agility Blog Event Post

I’ve never been any good at competition.  Doing well means too much; it always has.  I’m one of those people who hands homework in early, stressed myself sick over tests all the way through college, ran my years of track plagued by moments of Fail though Trying Too Hard, and always aim to deliver my books early.

So when I started pondering obedience trials with my first Cardigan Welsh Corgi, it wasn’t a natural fit.  I forgot to breathe, my legs were too wobbly to move confidently, and my clever dog knew better than to think we were having fun.

Kacey (no more obedience for her!), Jean-Luc (the brain injured), and Miss Belle

Very early in that effort, a gruff steward followed me out of the ring to berate me harshly in front of all and sundry for a newbie error.  I went off to cry and that was essentially the end of my obedience trialing.

(For those who know AKC rules-yes, the steward faced disciplinary action, but the damage was done.)

Flash forward a couple years.  I was training brain-injured Jean-Luc Picardigan in agility as therapy.  No one expected him to function well enough to compete, but that wasn’t the point, and we were happy.  Then I started Belle Cardigan in classes about six months later just because she loved it.

Six months after that, I entered them both in a small trial, somewhat against my better judgment.  Not because of my concerns about them, but because of me.  I knew me.  And, in fact, Jean-Luc took one look at the unfamiliar start line and went into his autistic mode, freezing in place until I went to get him—unable to process the sensory input of the situation.  But that was okay.  We were there to enlarge his world, not break competition records.

But then I went out with Belle Cardigan—me and my nerves and my complete lack of confidence, tense and freaky and Oh My Gawd Everyone is Watching—

And then Belle started to run.  Suddenly it was me and her on the course together, alone—and we were flying.

I came off that course a different person.  One who knows it’s not about being perfect (even when perfection is nice).  It’s about those moments of connection with the dog.  It’s about flying together.

A decade later …

Jean-Luc has passed, but the agility changed his life in ways I can’t even describe.  Belle is freshly retired, 100 points away from her second PACH and, at the time, #1 Lifetime Preferred Corgi.  Oh, we could have eked out those final points.  But she’d become concerned over her own diminishing speed.  We weren’t flying together anymore—not truly.  We were just worrying together, and that’s not what this is for.

Now it’s two more dogs (and a breed) later, not to mention two (almost three) MACHs later, and a handful of other titles (including that obedience title, albeit with a different dog), with young Dart just starting his journey.

Cheysuli Jean-Luc Picardigan, OJP NAP OJC NAC CGC (Jean-Luc)

PACH Cheysuli’s Silver Belle, CD RE PAX2 MXP5 MJP6 XFP EAC EJC CGC (Belle)

CH MACH2 Cedar Ridge DoubleOSeven CD RE XF EAC EJC CGC (ConneryBeagle)

Albedo’s Charter Member TD RA OA OAJ CA CGC (D’Artagnan Beagle AKA Dart)

We’re also into tracking now, and ConneryBeagle is flirting with cat search and rescue—and we’re all enjoying the zen of it.  And if Dart Beagle is a little crazy and well-deserving of his Crytic Evil designation, those moments when we do connect on course and on the tracking line and in the obedience ring…well.  Those are out of orbit.  And changing the way I think about that is what makes it possible for that to be what it’s all about—for both me and the dogs.

We still aim to be perfect.  But we also take it on the fly, just being together.

PS But leave me my book deadline anxiety—and don’t ask me how far out from this Dog Writing event I had this blog written!

PPS Other blogs on this subject are linked at the Dog Agility Blog Events.

A Dog Agility Blog Event Post

In training, I do my best when I’m in the middle of it, but find it all to easy to look back after I’ve done it. It’s the If Only game.  I bet you’re familiar with it.

“If only…”

…I had known [insert training technique here]

…I had realized sooner how to meet this individual dog’s needs.

…I had read this book, met this trainer, gotten this training tool…

Sometimes this way lies madness.

While I didn’t start agility with any particular training philosophy,  I did do something else–I started with Jean-Luc Picardigan, an autistic, brain-injured young Cardigan Corgi.  In truth, none of the usual techniques worked for him–just a lot of guidance, a lot of repetition, a lot of patience.  Eventually agility changed Jean-Luc’s life and he earned multiple (unexpected!) titles.  But that’s another story.

The point is, when I started training Belle (AKA Miss Belle AKA Princess Belle AKA b-b-b-BELLE!), my sole experience with training for competition dog sports was based on this brain-injured boy.  So training Belle–who was a natural, full of glee and amazingly fast to learn–came very easily.

But.

What I didn’t realize–what eventually became our major struggle–was how very, very sensitive and soft she is to the unspoken and the incidental, and how things to which she gave no real-time reaction (such as someone shouting to someone else across the agility training field during drills or class) added up to make a significant impact on her.

For in contrast to Jean-Luc–who was largely oblivious to all forms of communication until agility and even afterward required specific, direct (and unique) management, Belle assumes that all communication is directed at her.  And she takes on the worries of the world in the process.

Belle: Am I a good girl?  Are you sure I’m a good girl?  Someone raised her voice five five minutes ago.  I don’t believe you.

And you’d better believe she knew it when I was frustrated during training, even if I happened to be frustrated at the weather, another dog’s interference, or a stone in my shoe.

So even though I was working with a “it’s the handler’s fault” philosophy when mistakes happened, Belle’s extraordinary sensitivity–and her need to be perfect–meant that wasn’t enough in the long run.

Not that she didn’t accomplish awesomeness along the way.  She was the 20th dog to earn a PACH nationwide.  She’s a PAX2 dog who retired at twelve years old and 100 speed points shy of PACH2, and at that time she was #1 Preferred Corgi.  And this in spite of being out of the game more than she was in it, between her health and mine (that, too, is another story).

But what if…?

…I had better understood behavior-based training when I started

…I had found the book Control Unleashed when I started (never mind that it wasn’t published yet)

…I had understood the profoundly unexpected way Belle absorbs the weight of the world.

I can’t change any of it, but thinking about it is more than an exercise in self-flagellation, even now that her single role in the house is to be the Princess.  Thinking about it means maybe I can do a little bit better the next time.  But still, there’s plenty of regret.  Because…

If only I had been able to ensure that she never, ever believed herself to be the least bit imperfect at all…

(Because she never was, you know.)