Open Obedience Class or The Good and The Bad.

I had an Open Obedience class start last night (open as in Open class with retrieves, etc). The only dog I have that's even close to ready for Open is Quinn, so I decided to take him, have him demo. the exercises and then send him home with my sister.

When we arrived he barked at a couple of dogs he saw in the parking lot, but I moved out to the street and got him calmed down. When we had a little space, I took him into the building and right into a ring. He did great--no barking. We started working in the big ring practicing Open stuff. Another trainer brought her very calm GSD in the ring to practice with us. Quinn looked at other dog and then absolutely ignored him. At one point, we both set up the dogs (about 25' away from each other) and walked to the other side of the ring. I called Quinn first, then she called her dog. Quinn did nothing, he didn't even look at her or her dog!

That was the good.

I then had the students for the class line up outside the ring and watch us do a routine. Quinn did great, until we got to the retrieve on the flat. There was a lady with a Malinois standing just outside the ring gate right opposite us. I threw the dumbbell short and Quinn hesitated to get it. I knew why, the Mal was intense and he wasn't comfortable. I suggested we go to the other end of the ring and try it again. I should have asked the woman to move her dog.

When we got to the other side Quinn didn't want to go to heel, (again, I should have listened to him). He went behind me and ran up to the ring gate barking and growling. I told him to knock it off and called him back. He did (yay!) and I did get him to retrieve on the flat, he wasn't really focused on the retrieve over the jump, but had gotten back into the swing of things as we did the Broad jump exercise.

When my sister took him out of the building he barked quite a bit, but I just told her to leave and not mess around. I probably pushed him too far, too fast. but overall I'm really proud of his behavior. I obviously need to really focus on what he's telling me, he knew the situations he couldn't handle and he let me know. Now I just need to not push him.

Training with the Trainer

Met with the trainer today at a local park. She brought her older male Aussie and her younger male GSD. Quinn does not like GSD's for whatever reason, I was a little nervous.

We started with her getting out her Aussie and setting him up about 12' from the sidewalk. Quinn and I just started walking toward them. As we got closer, when he noticed her dog, I paused and when he chose to disengage, I marked the behavior and ran away (okay, by the end I was walking away). Quinn figured out that he could ignore the dog completely, he was on a loose leash walking back and forth in font of and to the side of her boy. She then had me go into the parking lot and she walked her Aussie by Quinn. He got a little upset, but wasn't overloaded. At one point we were walking behind them and Quinn acted as if he wanted to catch up to them.

She then brought out her GSD. I wasn't sure how Quinn would react. We started out the same way and Quinnie did very well. We had one outburst, but he settled down and it was much quicker for him to learn to ignore the dog. I walked around them and moved a little closer. Then she and I walked the dogs side by side (about 6-10' apart) down the soccer field and back. Quinn had no outbursts he reacted very well. I'm so proud of him!

Practicing Open

Went to the club building on Friday, the trainer didn't show, so Quinn and I practiced an open routine. He's doing very well, we need some more practice on the drop on recall. His broad jump was very good considering we haven't done it in about 2 months. His retrieves are fantastic as usual.

I worked a bit on the Graduate Novice exercise the dumbbell recall. The dog takes the dumbbell, you tell them to stay, walk across the ring and call him. Quinn really wanted to heel with the db in his mouth. That's really a favorite exercise.

We practiced a bit on directed jumping: sending him out to a target and jumping the high and bar jump on command. We didn't make much progress on that exercise.

Afterwards, I took him to PetsMart and we practiced B.A.T. with the store employees and any customers in the store (no dogs to use as decoys).

At one point a customer asked if I'd put a coat on Quinn to see if it would fit him. I said yes and put Quinn in a stand stay, stepped on the leash and put the coat on him. It barely fit and he was miserable, "Bad, Mommy!"

Really he didn't care that someone was looking at him, he didn't care about the stand-stay. He hated having to wear a coat!

Hope to meet up with the trainer next week.

Poor Quinn

I've been practicing Scent Discrimination with him. I moved the set up into the living room (from the dining room) to give him a new location to try it. He seems to be getting the idea, I can't do many repetitions, if I try to do it more than two or three times or he starts to just grab articles. I wonder if he gets bored or he's being lazy. Hmm, I'll have to think on that.

I took him to the club on Thursday evening. When I got there, we were alone. We went inside and we practiced some heeling and retrieves, drops, etc. A person was there with out their dog. He showed interest, but didn't bark at her. While we were in the smaller ring, located partially behind the bathroom, someone brought their dog in. Her dog was very barky. Quinn barked once or twice at her dog, I did correct him and then moved further away from the ring gate. She moved past us into another ring. Quinn then began barking at me, it wasn't the growly, aggressive bark at the other dog. He was looking right at me and barking. I covered his eyes, which is what I'd do for any other dog (you can see or bark). He did stop barking after a bit, then we went out to the car.

Unfortunately he and Jojo got into an argument, they were running outside and crashed into each other, that sparked actual bites. Jojo has a puncture wound on the top of his muzzle. Quinn ended up with four stitches in his ear! I've been keeping him quiet, I'll be meeting with my trainer on Friday.

Thursday's session

I met my trainer at the local obedience club building.

She set her 13 year old female up in a different ring than last time. She pointed out I needed to watch Quinn for calming signals (sniffing/lip-licking, etc), not just turning away from her dog. I brought Quinn in and he barked once or twice, but settled down. I was just having some timing issues with him and he got to practice a little barking/lunging.

I think her female has decided that she needs to fix Quinn's little red wagon once and for all. She didn't approach us at all, but she did stand up a couple of times.
We only got a little practice in before someone came to us the Agility equipment. I knew Quinn wouldn't have been able to handle that, so I took him back to the car. We'll try again next week.

Back to Scent Discrimination or Why taking a break from training an exercise can help the dog.

I've taken a small break from B.A.T. training with Quinn, I'll meet with my trainer on Thursday.

Last spring, I began working with Quinn on Janice Demello's Around the clock method of teaching Scent discrimination. He'd been doing pretty good, but we hadn't gotten away from using cheese. I'd decreased the amount, but was having a little trouble fading it completely.
About that time, I was diagnosed with a chronic illness and I stopped working on that exercise.

Last night, I decided to see where Quinn was with S. D. I put down a clean article and a scented article and told him to "find mine". He ran out, sniffed them both and brought back the correct one. Yay!

Today, I decided to haul out the whole set up. The first time I put out a clean article and a metal one with scent and a small smear of cheese. He brought me the correct one. I didn't use cheese on the next set up (two clean articles and the scented one). He did great. The third time, he brought me a clean leather article. I said "oops" and took it, but no treat.

I put out another clean article and a minuscule bit of cheese on the scented article. He did great. Back to no cheese, but the time we had 9 articles out, he was bringing me the scented article with no cheese on it. I then switched to the leather article, I did use a bit of cheese on it, I wanted him to get it right.

Then I switched out the leather article I've been using all along, for the clean one he had retrieved before. I scented it, but didn't add any cheese (this article has never had cheese on it). I put them out and rearranged them a bit. He sniffed all the articles and brought the correct one!

I've seen it before, I really think giving the dog a break to process new information really helps him to understand the exercise. Probably a year was a bit long of a break, but I do think it helped Quinn figure it out! I am so happy with my boy.