Dogs in Motion

Ratings woes

We got our February issue of Front and Finish freakishly early this month, (last Tuesday, to be exact) and it took Becky only a second to see that the Open A and Utility A ratings published were not quite right.

They were listed as being the 2005 ratings, but she could tell that they didn’t take into account all of 2005, because she and Riker had scores from October that clearly weren’t in the points calculations. More checking of other dogs we knew confirmed this.

I sent an email to Bob Self, Jr and after some checking it turns out that there were two errors involved. First, the ratings were supposed to have been for 2004, not 2005, since the 2004 OA and UA ratings were never published. Apparently the title had gotten changed in later stages of publication.

The second problem the was that the 2005 ratings were used, which were incomplete since F&F hasn’t recieved all of results from the AKC yet.

It boggles belief that the AKC hasn’t yet gotten around to sending 3 lousy Excel files to Bob, particularly since the results for all of 2005 have been on the web site for a month now, but that’s a different issue.

Anyway, look for F&F to be reprinting the 2004 OA and UA ratings in the next month or two.

Update

It  now looks as though the 2004 results will be posted on the F&F website, and the 2005 ratings will be in the March issue. It was starting to be a bit late for 2004 and thanks to some phone calls to the AKC, Bob got the full 2005 results over the weekend.

Injury Update

Ouch….

No, I’m not gonna wear black pants…

The UDX Equation

I just submitted my February article where I talk a little bit about the probabilities of double qualifiers in the pursuit of a UDX. It seems a little counter-intuitive, but if qualifying in the two classes is really unrelated, the odds against double Q’s increase dramatically as the pass rates in those classes decline.

I wonder if anyone will make the argument that the two classes are more closely related. The problem with addressing that argument is that no one has enough info to even guess at how much of correlation there might be. Let us all thank the AKC for not reporting when someone flunks, only when they qualify…

Still, if a lot of people report beating the average, there might be something to it. It only stands to reason that there are occasions where a team is “on” and more likely to qualify in both and other occasions when they are not and so are likely to flunk both.

I guess I almost hope I’m wrong - it’s really sort of depressing if the probabilities are right.

Finally, we do something right

This past weekend Molly and I did Utility at the Lansing, MI shows. We did OK, qualifying in the mid/upper 180’s both days. There were some mistakes, of course, but none of the them were major, and we both stayed on the same page the entire time, which was a big improvement.

We only did Utility (instead of trying for UDX legs) because we had been having some trouble staying connected and focused between exercises. Some trouble? As Kent Delaney put it last spring, “It looks like she doesn’t even know you’re in the ring.” UKC hasn’t been quite so bad, but we’ve been struggling in AKC.

Judie Howard gave me some very useful tips on improving attention and Pat Kelly pointed out what a fine line you have to walk with a dog like Molly. She has high drive and she wants to please, but she also is independent enough that if you are too loose and happy, she’ll do whatever she wants. But if you are too harsh and strict, she’ll opt out of the game.

Just realizing that I had a very small margin for error helped. It means that I have to focus more on my handling and Molly’s attitude, making sure I adjust quickly to keep her working. It also reassured me that my training is not so bad, it’s just managing Molly in the ring that’s tricky. In fact that had been the biggest frustration - brilliant runs in practice, great attention out of the ring, followed by distracted and spaced out performances. Of course not all of our performances were that bad - I sometimes hit a good combination almost by accident.

So this weekend was a test to see if what Judie and Pat were telling me about getting and holding attention would help. It did. We may have made some mistakes and scored low for the class, but Molly was with me and keyed in pretty much the whole time. She even survived a sendout to the wrong corner and a stand for exam with the one thing she really fears, a vacuum cleaner, running at the other end of the hall. Now if we can just keep this trend going next year…

Why do dogs need blogs, anyway?

OK, let’s get the introductory material out of the way. I’m Vern Ceder and I write a column called Sanity Check for Front and Finish. Hey, this month Molly and I even made the cover, for no greater reason than that I write a column and the editors like it. Front and Finish is mostly dedicated to training dogs for AKC and UKC obedience competition, and my column tries to explore some of the things that make dog trainers crazy. Actually, it has been suggested that we’re crazy to begin with, but that’s a different question.

In any case, it struck me that there were several items in my notes that for whatever reason weren’t right for publication in my column, but still might be worth chewing over in a public way. I think that pretty much explains what I’m doing here and why I chose the name.

Of course that still leaves the title question unswered. A quick search indicates that very few dogs (and not many more dog trainers) have actually jumped on this blogging bandwagon. As far as I can tell, Molly, my Australian shepherd, is completely unimpressed by the blogging phenomenon. As to trainers, from what I can tell, email lists seem to be the preferred mode of online interaction - they allow for the sharing of ideas and flames without the real-time constraints of chat.

So here I am to have a shot a filling the gap. While I’m sure I won’t be posting daily, or even all that regularly, I will do my best to avoid being one of the many three post wonders that show up on the blog sites.

Oh, yeah, one last promise - this will be the only time, barring extreme provocation, that the words “dog blog” will appear together at this venue. Really.

This past Sunday we went to a fun match held by the Gem Cities Dog Training club in Dayton, OH. It was a bit crowded as usual, but fairly well run, offering both regular obedience and Rally. We survived resonably well.

I did one Rally run with Molly and the only two faults were that she started to get up on the sit/halt/walk around, which was my fault for starting out with my left foot, and the judge didn't think she was tight enough on the sidestep right.

Becky then did a Rally run with Riker and they did fine, except she got dinged several times for tight leash, and she had a hard time getting his attention and getting him to sit on the halts. A little while later I took Riker in and the judge liked that run much better. I used lots of verbal commands, including a strong "sit!" half step before I actually halted, so he handled the halts better. I had one tight leash on the spiral, but as I felt the leash tighten I stepped up the chatter and he caught up. I also verbally cued him for the sidestep so he actually handled that better than Molly. As the judge pointed out, I also moved faster than Becky and that helped. So I think he can qualify.

I also did 2 Open run-throughs with Molly. She was pretty good on the first one, just some minor lags on the figure 8. I did both a drop and a straight recall on the flexi.

Then as we were sitting waiting for the stays I discovered a way to mess with Molly's mind. I would tell her to sit and stay, very low key, then not pay much attention to her. She would sit of course, but after about 30 seconds she would figure she was done, and start to sink down... of course I was ready and would nail her. Then I would ignore her but make her continue the sit for a minute or so. We went through that routine about 4 times before she decided that "sit, stay" meant "sit, stay" even if I didn't make a big deal about it. That seemed to help, since she was very steady on both of her stays.

The second run-through was more ragged. She wasn't as focused on the heeling and for the recall I decided to a straight recall off the flexi and at the first command she just looked at me blankly. Becky says that Bob and Velma Janek's dogs, who were only a few feet away, put up a fuss right then so that she (Becky) couldn't even hear me give the command. In any case, it wasn't the look she has when she hesitates on a recall, it was pure "huh?" She did OK on the second attempt, but still not as snappy as I would like.

On the retrieve over the jump, which we were doing toward the crowd ("because it's harder" as they said) she got distracted for a moment, but I think she would have have recovered even with my reminding her.

Since she did OK on the first stays, we blew off the second set and left for home.

Overall, we did OK. Since we managed to squeeze ALL of of our runs into under 2 hours (we were home by 3 pm), I think they both got a little fried. About all they've done since we got home is sleep.

Right now, I see the sit-stay and the recall as the two biggest problems we have for our upcoming shows. I've been thinking about what I might do about both.

After struggling with stays in Novice, Molly has been fairly stable on stays, at least until she decided to go down at our last match. I think she's doing it because she's left in a lot of situations where she is on a more informal "wait here" sort of stay, so now, if the attention isn't focussed she assumes she can just go down and relax and wait.

The stay is a harder problem and in class we'll try following June's suggestion of having Rich ignore Molly and then nail her if she goes down. If she does break I think I would want to do it again right afterwards to help beat it into her hard head. In the meantime, I think I'm going to work more on stays at home and at school. It won't be the same as a trial of course, but maybe I can convince her she's being ignored and then sneak back and nail her. Getting "tricked" like that seems to get her to concentrate better than anything else. Weird child.

At Dayton we'll see how she does. She was a rock there the last time, but if she breaks, they won't mind my correcting her. You can bet I'll be watching closely.

As to the recalls, she has been coming slower and slower, even though I almost never drop her anymore. I've decided to work her on the flexi, but to drop her about a 1/3 of the time even then, and use the leash to keep her snappy regardless. (I still won't drop her very often off leash, though.) I think with her it works better to meet a problem head on (subtle she aint). She's not afraid or worried, she's trying to figure out the game, and so far coming slowly has given her the most control.

I tried it several times this afternoon at school in the hall after school and she was fast every time on the flexi, even though in the middle I dropped her twice at full speed. I tried to pop her with the flexi, but only managed to land one mild pop, she beat me every other time. Then I took the flexi off and she was still noticably faster than she was last night, coming in at a medium trot.

I've been training since my wife and I got Molly, our first Australian shepherd, in 1999. We really didn't intend to do obedience, but Molly has always had a mind of her own and she manages to get things to revolve around her. That's why we call her "the princess".

From the start Molly had too much spirit and smarts not keep training. Once she made it clear that I was her trainer (we had originally gotten her for my wife) I started to get really interested in the process of training dogs. I read as much as I could find about training and how dogs learn, from Koehler and Woodhouse to Jean Donaldson.

I enjoyed that reading and absorbed quite a bit of the theory quickly. Unfortunately, like the man said, "In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice they're different."

In practice I benefited from the teaching of June and Rich Mintchell of RiJu Dawg Skool, who instructed and corrected both Molly and me (actually mostly me). I made loads of mistakes which June graciously pointed out to me in her inimitable style, but we actually made good progress for a first time trainer with a hard headed too-smart-for-her-own-good dog.

We had stay problems when we started Novice, which meant our share of flunks, but buy the time we finished Novice A we had 5 first or second place ribbons, with all but a couple of scores in the 190's. It took a year for Molly to get a CD, but along the way we learned a lot.

Now we are getting ready to start Open and there are new lessons, new worries, new mistakes.

So what do I know about training dogs? Way more than when I started but far less than I want to. So it goes.

More later, Vern