20!

Sometimes time just goes by and you forget to reflect on your achievements. I have been concentrating so hard lately on:

-        Sen and her reactivity issues; and,

-        Chook and his muscle conditioning/barking/socialisation

So much so that sometimes it can become a bit of a downer. So today we report our very satisfying recent achievements:

Sen

Although I almost didn’t notice, Sen passed the “20 clear rounds” mark this month – a fine achievement! As it had been about a year since a pass in either agility code, things had been starting to feel a bit grim. Granted she had been out of competition for most of last year, but her efforts from Oct 2014 to now had been somewhat less than stellar. However recently we have had signs of return to form. She passed both runs at his year’s Western Classic, and made a smokin’ run at last weekend’s ADAA trial (no video for that one unfortunately):

More importantly, I think she is starting to really learn how to calm down, although progress in this area is a bit off and on. For the first time in her life she has actually greeted a few dogs at the beach with an appropriate but sniff instead of a mugging. This is ENORMOUS progress for her. On-lead, she has occasionally walked passed by dogs closely without a reaction. I have started a few new things that I think are really working:

- taking her to a mix of classes (obedience class, show class, agility class etc.) and asking her to do nothing except stay calm. No participating in the actual class, just hanging around and watching what is happening. This has come as a total shock to her – not being asked to do anything;

- teaching her to walk slowly. She is a big-time prancer and the foot-padding looks cute but is just all about hype. If she walks slow she has no choice but to slow down on the inside as well

 

Chook

Chook seems to have new levels of motivation – good motivation! I can now get some reasonable duration out of him during training, and he is starting to generalise things very well. This has mostly occurred in the past two months. I have to say this is a big relief as he was pretty frustrating to work with before.

The lesson I have learnt here is that it pays to persevere – sometimes the foundation is really being built even if you don’t always see immediate indication of this. One very good choice I made was to sick with just training a small range of things until I got the speed and accuracy required, rather than trying to lay a basis for everything. This is really paying off now as he has full speed with his "tree agility" - a good get from a dog not naturally driven to be fast. He might not know much yet, but what he does know is very solid and well-generalised to different locations.

Lots of hill walking and stair climbing seem to be helping him develop better coordination , and to balance out the muscles of his rear legs. I’ll find out whether or not that is just my perception is the next two weeks.

The barking issue goes on but I have been concentrating my training on me and trying to calm down about it! I think overall the situation is improving. Every day I’m thankful that he is a friendly and outgoing guy. At obedience class he pays no attention to other dogs at all, will play with me in their face, and can stay happily engaged for most of the class.