Ruby has been heaps better in her foundation agility class for the last two weeks. She’s gone the whole class without wanting to wander off and explore the bushes once, and we’ve able to attempt all the exercises without taking little breaks for her brain to reboot. At the end of the class we do little baby sequences (last week was jump=>tunnel=>jump and this week was a little speed circle). We can’t do more than two in a row before the wheels fall off, but I’m just pleased that I can have her off lead and she is focused on me the whole time!
She’s improving in her domestic class as well. Last week there were some moments where she was fully focused on me despite other things going on. This week we managed to stand next to Teddy the toy poodle (Ruby and Teddy want to be friends so badly) and only tried to visit him a couple of times, and she was much better about staying in a sit next to me when our instructor approaches. She did get a little distracted by the arrival of new classmate Boots the heading dog (a very handsome heading dog indeed) but she was able to resist his charms by the end of the night.
She’s also much better about responding to me when we’re out on walks, so I’ve been able to drop the long line and let her explore a bit more independently. We’ve been venturing further from home at the weekends to find new places to walk, and even with the excitement of going somewhere new she’s doing pretty well. Birds are still a sticking point but she tends to freeze and stare at them from a distance rather than chasing. Well, except for the magpie incident at Temuka Domain…
Fun with Recycling
I have too many dog training props in my lounge. Last time I was at the Warehouse, I bought an ottoman that opens up so that I can put some of my smaller bits and pieces in it. So far I haven’t actually put anything in it …
… but when I was taking the box apart to put it in the recycling, I noticed what a great size it was for Ruby to crawl through. The Ottoman has a job to do too, holding our makeshift crawling tunnel in place – in other words, I bought one thing to hold all my dog training paraphernalia and it turned into two new bits of dog training paraphernalia.
Right: The crinkle box makes a cameo appearance at foundation agility class. It did not survive but the dogs had a blast.
I’ve also been doing a bit of online shopping lately, and one of my purchases came in this wonderful box! It was nice and low, long enough for Ruby to stand in comfortably, and jammed full of crinkled-up packing paper. I thought I might have to take some of the paper out to get Ruby started, but she had her front paws in there the second I put it on the ground, and within a minute she was happily wading into the sea of packing paper.
Another recycling-related training project has been teaching her to nose target onto a yoghurt lid. It’s our foundation class homework this week, and we’ll use this for 2o2o contact training at some point in the future, although I don’t think it’ll happen this year. I’ve always used ice cream lids for this before, but I’m finding the yoghurt lid fits into the palm of my hand and makes a more natural progression from targeting my palm itself. It also has a nice deep lip on it so that I can drop treats directly onto the lid and they don’t fall off.
Other Bits and Pieces
At home we’re mostly working on the same things – sit stays, lining up straight at my side, and pivoting. She found pivoting a bit difficult so I have been working through a little online course called “Where Are My Paws?” by Mari Valgma. I got this as a bonus when I signed up for her Movement Puzzles course a while back, and I really like it.
It’s a set of exercises with paw targets that focus on refining movements of individual paws (e.g. taking a step to the side with one front paw, and then stepping it back onto the target) within a predictable pattern, which makes the dogs a bit less frantic. I did it with Able last winter and we made very slow progress before giving up halfway through (his meds make him a bit klutzy on his feet sadly). This week Ruby learned how to pivot her rear feet up onto an object (something she was stuck on) and now we are doing some exercises with individual front paw targets, which she is finding easier than Able did.
Last week’s home agility training project was a Susan Salo bend grid. I haven’t done any gridwork with Ruby yet because we need to do more work on sit stays and/or forward focus first, but with the bend grid it’s easy enough to just fire her in from a collar grab. We still aren’t quite there with toy play so I used a bowl at the exit and loaded it up with a handful of her dinner for each rep. She loved it, and after the first rep she was pretty much paw perfect.
This week’s project was independence with a straight tunnel. I noticed in class this week that she was a bit funny about going into the bendy tunnel unless I went right up to the entrance with her. This is eerily reminiscent of Rik’s early career and I would really prefer to have a dog who will drive into tunnels without me holding her paw! There is a shortish straight tunnel in the Waimate dog park (secured by tying it to the fence with twine) and I decided this was safe enough for straight approaches – and it gives me loads of room for throwing toys. Every time she ran through the tunnel she got to chase her favourite toy of the week, and hopefully she’ll take on the message that blasting through tunnels is fun.