Got more balls?

Blogger was in a more agreeable frame of mind this morning, so here are a few more pics from our evening in the park on Tuesday. Nothing special, just dogs having fun with a ball on a rope.

Jamie would be perfectly happy to take the ball off to a quiet place and chew it to pieces.


Phoenix is simply enchanted by ball possession. Or maybe he is simply possessed.


Malinois nirvana. A ball and wide open spaces.


Jamie lives in eternal hope he will eventually be able to get the ball and go tear it up somewhere.

Got balls?

Blogger was in a mood this morning and would only let me upload one photo. Fortunately, it's the best one. Here is goofy Phoenix with his tennis ball. I swear balls are like a drug for this dog. Doesn't he look slightly stoned?

Questions, answers and choices

Wow. Dog people are great. Really. They are.

In the last month, I have received a tremendous amount of advice on how to “fix” Phoenix’s ring issues, as well as support from trainers who are experiencing similar frustrating ring problems. I truly believe it was all given in genuine sincerity and appreciate the thoughtfulness of everyone who has taken the time to share their opinions, either in comments or e-mailing or calling me privately.

Having said that, this goodwill and free exchange of ideas can be overwhelming.

The advice I’ve gotten has frequently been in total conflict: train more, stop training so much, use more rewards, stop using rewards, you’re expecting too much, you’re expecting too little, make training informal, make training look like a trial, it might take a year to re-train, you can re-train in less than a month, etc.

There were days when I wanted to scream ENOUGH! My head is full! I cannot process one more conflicting idea, let alone realistically use it in training.

If you’ve been in the obedience world very long, you know this is the nature of the beast. Fortunately, I've played this game for more than 30 years so the many conflicting suggestions weren't a huge surprise. Everyone follows what they feel is the best training method, influenced by their personality, type of dogs they train, their goals, level of experience and a dozen other unrelated factors.

So how to decide who to listen to and where to go next? Well, I’ll be honest. Everyone has their own filter that colors how they hear advice and how receptive they are to it. Sometimes you only hear things you want to hear because you’re just not ready to listen to anything else. If you hear the same advice six months later, you might pay more attention and put it to use. (Just ask any instructor who has tried to impart a certain bit of knowledge, only to be soundly ignored by the student who comes back a year later and says, “So-And-So told me to do THIS and it works!” Of course, it’s the same exact thing you’d been telling them!)

Other times you grasp onto any new idea with desperation, hopeful that THIS is the answer to your prayers. Or you may roll your eyes and think, I’m already doing THAT, no matter how adamantly someone may insist their idea is a brand new concept that no one could have ever possibly thought of before.

The bottom line is, I have to decide what’s right for me and my dog. Which method seems the most grounded in reality? Which one can I personally adapt to fit my abilities and my dog’s needs? Each person who offered help truly believed their advice was the answer to our problems. It’s good to have strong convictions and I appreciate seeing a view outside of my current training box.

As I (belatedly) realize I cannot work Phoenix with the same approach that helped Connor and Jamie excel, I also know I can’t totally throw my previous methods in the trash. They weren’t bad methods, they’re just not right for my current dog, so I’ll store them away and explore new roads.

The journey continues. I’m moving ahead. I have new ideas to try. I have optimism. I have beautiful summer evenings to train by myself and with friends. Above all, I have a wonderful dog.

Thanks, everyone. I mean it. Dog people are the best.

Pay attention!

Cuz that’s where the problems started over the weekend.

Our dismal showing at the Hawkeye trials has left me wondering how in the world the wheels could fall off so completely. As usual, I have more questions than answers but that seems to be the way it goes in the obedience game.

Yes, Phoenix and I have recently changed training methods and I agree that might be partly responsible for the state of disobedience we very ably demonstrated. Expectations are changing in his training world and this weekend’s misery could have been fallout from uncertainty. Confusion does not create a sharp, confident dog. I really didn’t expect serious ring carryover after only 5 weeks of our new training approach . . .

. . . but I DID expect him to watch me and move around the ring with me like we were connected because this is something I have always emphasized in training. It’s not a new concept. Even if we blew everything else out of the water, I hoped we could at least look like we’d seen each other before and maybe liked each other just a little bit.

Since this connection was really the only thing I was looking for, that made it even worse when it didn’t happen.

Trainers vary on the concept of “attention” — what it is, how to get it, how to keep it, etc. While methods of teaching it differ greatly, most trainers agree it should become an automatic response. If you are interacting with your dog, you are elevated to the status of She Who Is More Important Than Cats (anyway, that’s my goal). You should not have to beg, plead and constantly remind Fido to “watch.” Fido needs to be responsible for his own little self without being nagged. If he has to be reminded to "watch," that means he wasn't watching in the first place. Uh-oh. Naughty dog.

I don’t have this automatic attention with Phoenix. Yet another case of thinking I'd trained something, only to find out OOPS! It's not there.

Maybe we had it once, then lost it. Yes, I’m sure we had it when we were doing HIT run-offs in Novice! Where did it go?! Once again I don’t know if this is a situation of A) I thought he’d learned it but in reality he hadn’t, B) he learned something entirely different from what I thought I’d taught, or C) I didn’t maintain it, so the behavior gradually deteriorated.

So in addition to everything else, we need to do some remedial attention work. Fortunately, that is going to blend in very naturally with my "become the cookie" plan.

My horoscope this morning said “You can’t possibly have all the answers yourself. Ask friends for help.” I thought that was hysterically appropriate.

Sunday's trial

I wish I could say today went wonderfully and yesterday's trial was only a bad dream but today was pretty awful, too.

Although I wasn't expecting a 200 in each ring, I thought I'd set some reasonable expectations for the weekend, the least of which was to have my dog stay focused on me as we moved between the exercises and do quick, clean set-ups. That didn't happen.

I got walk-ins, stress yawns, slow responses, malinois-in-the-headlights looks and more. I felt like Phoenix was the poster child for "My dog hates obedience."

This is an extra hard slap in the face because I love obedience. I've loved obedience since showing in my first 4-H dog show at the county fair when I was 9 years old. And until now, all my dogs have loved obedience. Doesn't mean they always qualified or were in the placings, but they went into the ring with their head high and their tail wagging and we had fun doing whatever we did. This weekend, Phoenix slunk around like he'd been beaten and his responses were so achingly slow people probably wondered why I didn't retire the poor "old" dog.

So, enough wallowing in the misery of the weekend. What's next?

I still feel that I'm on the right track with the "make ME the cookie" approach but obviously it's going to take a fair amount of time to build that to the point where I can expect it to hold up in the ring. I have NO IDEA how long that might be. 

Our next potential trials are 9 weeks out. When it's time to send entries, I'll re-evaluate and decide if I want to enter, what I want to enter and how often I want to enter. With the addition of an all-breed obedience trial sponsored by a local boxer club, there will be 5 straight days of obedience trials on Labor Day weekend - all 7 miles from our house. So I am very motivated to train and be ready to show, although I would never dream of doing all 5 days.

Since Phoenix loves running agility with single-minded focus, energy, drive and enthusiasm, I know he is physically capable of performing well in the obedience ring. If he were a slug on the agility course as well, I might suspect some physical problem or genuine phobia about performing in public but that is clearly not the issue. The difference between Agility Phoenix and Obedience Phoenix is night and day. He's obviously a speed freak, adrenaline junkie who relishes a 25 second JWW course but is nonplussed with the much-slower pace and demands of the formal obedience ring. Even if he's not racing about the obedience ring at breakneck speed, I still want him to enjoy what he's doing and put on an attractive performance that has "Happy Obedience Dog" written all over it.

I want the silly, happy, goofy, growly dog in obedience that I have in agility. Is that asking too much? Geez, I wish someone would give me the answers! Or, maybe I WILL find the answers, write a book and earn a million dollars.

Or maybe I should just keep training my dog and keeping a clear picture in my mind of how I want us to look in the ring - whether it happens this fall or next spring or 2 years from now. If I don't train, it's not going to fix itself and since I created the problem, it's clearly up to me to un-create it. No finger pointing, no blame game. (Ugh. Really, this would all be much easier to deal with if I could blame someone else!)

Here are some immediate ideas that I have for the rest of the summer:

Keep training sessions short and clearly focused; reward intensely. 

Blend toy rewards and food rewards with ME rewards.

Forget the formal: work elements of each exercise with emphasis on speed and informality.

As often as possible, train somewhere new. Backyards and club buildings are convenient but they also do not present a challenging new environment.

Reward effort; perfection is not the issue here.

Believe.

I hope you all had wonderful weekends and learned something about your dogs that will help you improve your relationship with them, both in and out of the ring.

On a scale from 1 to 10 . . .

Today was about a 1. Our UDX debut was less than spectacular (although thank you Earl and Shirlee who brought OTCh. cake, Michele who brought cookies and Sharon who brought chocolate - all were very much appreciated!) 

Other than that, our day was just plain miserable.

While I wasn't expecting all our ring issues to be resolved, I was at least expecting effort and hoping for some small improvements. Didn't get either one.

Again, Phoenix warmed up nicely, tugged, did silly tricks, went into the ring with enthusiasm and immediately went flat. I don't want to agonize over the details. No sense rehearsing bad stuff. Suffice to say he simply wanted no part of the obedience scene and went through the motions with a marked minimum of effort. We NQ'd both classes, blew signals in Utility and then he sat up on the long down in Open.

We'll go back tomorrow and give it another shot. I'm not entered in any more obedience trials after tomorrow and it's looking like that's a good thing. In fact, there aren't any local trials until Labor Day weekend so I'm looking forward to having two months to train without any trial pressure. 

Who knows, I may not be entering anything this fall either. Not too excited about throwing entry fees down a rat hole until we're showing solid progress on rebuilding attitude. (Yeah, WE. This isn't just about Nix. It's about me, too. We're still  a team, even though we're a pretty pathetic team at the moment. I love my Skinny Little Dog.)

The only good thing to come from today was Michele and Cider finishing their UDX. They've had a long road, with a whole year off after cruciate repair surgery following leg #9. I'm very, very happy for them! You go, blonde girls!

First step of a new journey

Phoenix and I start our Open B/Utility B career this weekend at the Hawkeye Kennel Club trials in Iowa City. I’ve shown at these trials since forever. Jess finished his UDX there, back in ‘93 (I think) when the UDX was a brand new title. Connor finished his CDX there in ‘97. Jamie finished his OTCh. there in ‘05. Phoenix got his first CDX leg there last year. So there’s a lot of positive energy going into this weekend.

These are our first trials since Nix finished his UD a month ago and I decided to change up our training to make ME more rewarding than other motivators. I know we’re making progress. I’m seeing small changes in his attitude when we train, little things that weren’t there before. Will they stick when we go into the ring this weekend? Time will tell.

These trials will be a good test of what is working and what isn’t, although realistically it’s too soon to expect any kind of night and day transformation. I’m also going into these trials with the attitude that nothing is on the line. Instead of obsessing about UDX legs and OTCh. points, my focus is on building happy, focused dog and being a relaxed handler.

It's been 4 years since I retired Jamie from the Open B/Utility B rings and I've missed the excitement of showing at that level. Looking forward to starting this new journey!