I got Jet’s new dumbbell this weekend! I really like it! It’s so tiny. Which is funny, because my other dogs are all so big, their dumbbells are big too. But Jet is a little boy and so he gets a little dumbbell. He really likes it, too. He wants to carry it around the house and chew on it. Of course I don’t want him to chew on it because I’d like it to have as few chew marks… Continue reading
A while ago I posted about my favorite dog water bowls… and I was so upset when my aquabowl was left on the stove when the oven was turned on, and a hole was melted in it! I was devastated! Okay maybe not devastated but I was pretty darn sad. I mean, it’s only a thing… but still, it was a very important thing! So off I went to the internet to find out how to get a replacement. And… Continue reading
Jet in Idaho Falls
I was at an ASCA Obedience trial this morning… and yesterday morning. And I got to thinking. Everyone else in the world probably already knows this, but I’m a softy when it comes to giving my dogs treats, and I may just treat too much. I was thinking that the dogs really need to love the training. They need to love the exercises and have a good time doing them. And the treats are just there to reinforce what they do right… what we want them to do. If the dog doesn’t like the exercises… doesn’t like obedience, then they are not going to have fun in the ring, where there are no treats. So making the exercises themselves reinforcing is a huge key to obedience.
Agility comes more easily, the obstacles are a lot more self-reinforcing than in obedience. In obedience it’s all about the person and the dog. And although I will never believe that I can be more interesting than some things in the world (smells, other dogs, etc), I think I can work at it and come pretty close. Close enough for good work, anyway.
So anyway, about the title of this post, I think the treats should only be there to reinforce the training. The dog has got to love the training, and the exercises, and working with the handler, in order to do good happy exuberant work in obedience. Otherwise you’ll have a dog that’s a dud. He may even qualify as a dud, but I personally don’t want a dud dog. I want a happy enthusiastic dog!
With the treats there to reinforce the fun of the training… the treats being about the training, I think I’ll have more success in the obedience ring. I want Jet to have awesome heeling. I want him to love to heel. I want him to think it’s one of the coolest things ever. Haha, that’s funny, because I don’t think it’s really that cool. But I love to watch great heeling. Great heeling is so impressive, it’s a team of dog and person, it’s beautiful and it’s really exhilarating. And for me to get that with Jet, then it’s gotta be super fun. And the treats will merely be there to reinforce the heeling itself. And eventually, the treats will be there rarely.
So hopefully this idea of mine will stick, and it’ll work to get some great heeling. So far, so good. I should get more heeling video of him. I want him to love it! So we won’t need any best eye cream for wrinkles because we’ll have happy, smiling faces!
Oh… and no, Chase didn’t qualify today. He laid down on his sit 18 seconds before we were done. Bleh. I guess it’s something I’ll have to work really hard to maintain. I’m even wondering if I should try to get his ASCA CDX. I only want it so that I can do ASCA Utility with him in the future. He’s got his AKC CDX now… I just really love the ASCA shows. They are so fun, well run, and the people are great. We have maybe 6 a year so it’d be great to show Chase in ASCA Utility. But we have to get through the dumb sit stays again. Chase didn’t qualify yesterday, either. He did a drop on recall but… with the dumbbell in his mouth on the retrieve on the flat. LOL dork. He’s so creative.
Tatum Tot Spice RN
I am so proud of my smooth collie girl! Tatum got her very first title ever this weekend. I’ll upload the videos in a bit. Here is a picture of her with all her ribbons. She Qualified every day in Rally. On Friday she got a 91, on Saturday she got an 89, and today she got a 95! She even tied for second place with our friend Dare! Tatum was slower so she got third place, but the fact that she even placed thrilled me.
She’s come a long way my little girl, from being terrified of leaving the house, to having her first Rally title. She even loosened up and was more relaxed each day we were there. She is like that… she gets nervous at new places, but the more she goes to a place the more she relaxed.
I even watched one of the new AKC classes called Beginning Novice. It was really neat, and I think Tatum should enter that sometime too. It’s a titling class. I’ll have to read about it too. I am going to work Tatum’s heeling so she gets the idea to have a target and watch me more. I think she really will be able to heel.
I adore Tatum, and I’m so proud of her.
Good Girl Tatum
I’m so proud of my Tatum girl! She is doing so well. I’m not convinced she really knows we are doing a thing in the ring, but she sits when I tell her, she downs when I tell her, and she follows me around just fine! That is two Qs for her in a row, one yesterday and one today. If she Qualifies tomorrow, she’ll have her RN, her first title ever! I’m so proud of her!
We went for a walk along the river after the trial today. I didn’t run Chase… I saw no need to put him into the open ring again and push those stays when we don’t need to. I’d like to save them for an ASCA CDX if possible. Once we get that, then he’ll be out of open entirely and I’ll just train him up for Utility. And that will be fun!
Jet is with too for the trip and I got some pictures of him that I’ll post when I get home. I’m tired now, so time for bed. 
Spirit Chasers Spice CDX
Chase got his CDX!!!! I am thrilled! I almost thought it would never happen. He started laying down on his sit stays back in March. After the pigeon incidence and he got to do a 9.5 minute down stay in the ring. After that, I thought we were pretty much screwed. But with lots of training and persistence, he held his sit stay today! Wooo Hooo!
It’s my first CDX ever on a dog. Levi had one leg toward a CDX before I retired him. He just wouldn’t hold the out of site stays. So that’s okay. But Chase always had the potential. He has the potential for a UD, too, so now that his CDX is done we are going to work the UD exercises. That’ll be fun. I do want to get his ASCA CDX too, though, but hopefully that sit stay will hold for those legs too.
Today was an adventerous day… last night driving up to Idaho Falls Chase pooped in his crate, which is really rare. He’s usually really good about letting me know when he has to go out. But he didn’t give me even a peep. Then this morning his poop was solid again. But last night Tatum didn’t settle at all and kept me awake most of the night. She’s usually really good in the hotel rooms so I don’t know what was up with her. Hopefully tonight she’ll be good and tired so she’ll sleep. She also Q’d in Rally Novice B, yay! I’ll post more about that later. I was so nervous about Chase and that CDX leg that I didn’t spend as much mental energy on Tatum as I should have. But she did good, she got a 91 out of 100 so I was very proud of her!
So after we were done at the trial we came back to the hotel room and I took a nap. It felt good, I was exhausted. The stress of the CDX was such that I felt like I was going to throw up after it was over. I was so relieved. So I took a nap and when I woke up I couldn’t find my smart phone. I looked in the hotel and the van and couldn’t find it. So then I remembered that I’d thrown some stuff away at the trial site and though oh no, maybe the phone was with all that stuff.
So we went back to the trial site and they garbage collectors had come only an hour before! I thought I was screwed! So we did some training with the puppies and some friends and that was fun. Jet did some go-outs and some heeling and some dumbbell and had a great time.
When we were done I figured I’d walk the path once again from the van to the tent set up to see if I could find my phone.. and as I got closer to the tent site I realized that I had never taken my chair down, and maybe it was in my drink holder. And it was! I was so relieved! I don’t want to buy a new phone, I can’t afford it! And I really like my smart phone. :)
We then went to Cafe Rio for dinner, and then we went back to the hotel. Chase is again runny so I’m not sure what’s up with him. It’s not affecting his performance, though. But since he now has his CDX I’m not going to put him back in the ring Saturday or Sunday. There is no reason to waste energy on those stays when he doesn’t have to. So now I get to concentrate on Tatum’s Rally for the next couple of days and I hope she will get her Rally Novice title!
It’s time for bed, good night! ;)
Jet and Chase
I won’t need any diamond engagement rings up in Idaho… but I do want some Q ribbons! Tatum is in Rally, too. She seems to have regressed a bit lately into some more shyness so I hope she does okay. My poor special needs rescue girl. I adore her, I do push her, but without a little push she’d be a bubble dog and would be too afraid to leave the house. So a little push is a good thing. As long as it involves lots of Tuna Brownies!
I hope to have internet there and be able to post about our Obedience.
Chase and his Frisbee
Although it’s not really an officially acceptable thing by the UKC, afterward the club had a Wildcard class. If you are not familiar with obedience, Wildcard is just a class where you can go in the ring and, well, kinda train, but you can’t really train… and you can’t get legs or qualifying points or anything. It’s just really a thing you can do to see if your dog is ready for the qualifying events. They have Wildcard Novice, Open and Utility. And I think you can opt to not do two of the exercises in each class.
So the only reason I would enter a dog in Wildcard is, like I said, to see how he acts in a real show environment and see how he’ll do. But, I actually pretty much know what Chase is going to do, he’s a very solid and predictable dog, so I wouldn’t enter him. Maybe I would for Utility, I dunno. I’ll get to that bridge when he has training to cross it.
Most of the dogs I saw in the Wildcard classes were… well, just not really good. Some were slow and poky, or seemed like they needed a lot more training. Actually, what I thought they needed was motivation and positive reinforcement. Since you can’t reward a dog in Wildcard with treats or toys, and you can’t correct with words… what’s the point? It’s just like the real thing, pretty much. Okay you can give some double commands I guess if you want to, or need to. But if you are too enthusiastic then you can be asked to leave the ring… at least I think you can. So unless your dog is trained to the point where all they need is a couple of double commands to remind them of things, why would anyone enter?
To me, if you put a dog in the ring, your training has to be solid. My trainer says it’s like a bank. Training puts money in the bank. Trialing takes money out of the bank. You have to have your bank chock full of training before going into that ring. Because it only takes the dog once or twice to realize that there are no corrections and no rewards in the ring. And if you go into a ring, any ring, and your dog doesn’t do a sit when you tell him to, then you take him out of the ring and you either correct him or reward him for a sit, what is he learning? He’s learning that in the ring he can pretty much do what he wants. Outside the ring he has to do what he’s told. Wildcard or not.
So for me, i want my dogs able to do the entire ring performance without treats, in a solid way, before I put them in a ring. Be it agility or obedience. And I’ll tell ya, I’m in no rush to get Jet into a real trial ring. When he’s ready, he’s ready, and I’m not going to say he’s ready until he is ready. And I want his bank totally full of good training before we go in. I want him to be happy and motivated and smiling, doing a whole routine, without treats or corrections, before we even step foot in a ring.
Of course you can never train for every imaginable thing. And I’m sure Jet will come up with some odd things I’ll have to fix. Like Chase and his darn sit stay in the ring. And Chase… well, he didn’t start obedience until he was about four years old, no foundation training at all. And his Open work is actually quite beautiful. It’s that darn sit stay biting us. I was going to show him at an ASCA obedience trial in a couple weeks, but I’ve pulled him because the more he lays down on his sit stay, the more often he’s going to lay down on his sit stay. So back to training it is. And back to ring-like environments so, hopefully, he doesn’t know the difference. Though it’s hard with a smart dog. They know the difference between training and trialing quite well, even when we try to fool them!
With Jet, though, he’s going to love obedience! He already does! And he loves to work, and he loves to do the exercises, so I think he’s going to really excel at obedience. Only one other Danish Swedish Farmdog was doing obedience here in the USA, and she’s moved back to Denmark. So Jet gets to set the standard for obedience work for the DSF. So I want him nice and solid before we even think about going in! And he’s going to get a UD… no doubt! He’s so smart and we love to work!
So anyway, I am confused about Wildcard and I just don’t understand why people keep putting their dogs in the ring and getting the same sloppy results. Okay granted some dogs are just goofy (like a friend sheltie I know LOL) and he has just got to keep trying because he knows all the stuff, and he can do it, as long as his mind doesn’t get too distracted. So in that instance I understand. But for the most part, I don’t!
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