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Fraction
Mar 27, 2010

CATS RULE DOGS DROOL

FERRETS ARE ALSO PRETTY MEH, HONESTLY


Does your dog compete in...


Agility?


Flyball?


Obedience?


Heelwork to music?


Schutzhund?

Any and all of the above? Something else? This is the place to chat about training/crow about success/commiserate about failure. :toot:

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Fraction
Mar 27, 2010

CATS RULE DOGS DROOL

FERRETS ARE ALSO PRETTY MEH, HONESTLY




Kalli (for those of you who don't know) is a nearly 2.5yr old BC, who has been training for agility since January of this year. We are members of a local agility club, and will be starting to do our first competitions in the next couple of months. My handling is sub par, and she has drive out the wazoo, so we're doing real well :v: She's fast and fun to run, though we're still working on weaves and her seesaw phobia.



Lola is my nearly 5yr old JRT, who has only been training for the last 3 months--and we missed about a month due to kennel cough. She is much slower than Kalli, but she is veeeery sensitive to my body language. I've accidentally pulled her away from obstacles/off of the dog walk and a-frame by letting my arm fall too early or moving myself slightly too far away. She has reactivity issues with strange dogs and people, but has been an absolute star in class - she's one of the best behaved dogs in class.



If all goes well, I'll be taking Kalli to a fun (neither UKA nor KC, so doesn't count for points/ progression) comp this Friday. Whether we run large (aka compete) or any size (nfc), I still need to decide. There's no weaves or seesaw in this comp and she jumps large just fine in class... we'll see! Lola isn't ready for competing yet. I'm also hoping to go to a flyball taster in the next few weeks.

Instant Jellyfish
Jul 3, 2007

Actually not a fish.



I'm not sure when it's going to happen because things keep coming up but I really want to start Major (my ~8 year old saint bernard/acd/??? mix) competing in nosework in the next year or so. UKC has started up a program and AKC is working on it so I'm hoping there might actually be some venues to play somewhat near me soon. Maj has travel issues so driving 3 hours to compete just isn't going to work for him. At this point he is strong on birch and has started on anise and can do indoor, outdoor, container and vehicle searches at home but we definitely need to take it on the road before actually get our pretrials done and compete.

Here's an old video of him doing a quick outdoor hide. Excuse my dumb "talking to dog" voice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQsV27cEBQA

Engineer Lenk
Aug 28, 2003

Mnogo losho e!
I'm running recreational agility with my little broken dog (2 herniated discs in his back), waiting out the clock until he hits veteran age so we can do some light competition at a low jump height. I'm also training more seriously with my 3-year-old (pre-)novice border collie. She doesn't quite have her contacts reliable yet (and we're doing running contacts, so it may be a long progression).

My handling has changed considerably over the last year or so since I changed instructors and started a faster dog. My old instructor (whose classes I help out with) had her foundations with Greg Derrett's handling system, then switched over to Mecklenberg so what she teaches has flavors of both. My new instructor's handling is more purely motion-based, and she's recently started playing around with OneMind stuff. I find I have to switch on the fly between the old and new depending on which dog I'm running, since I haven't done all the forward focus groundwork with my little guy (though I'm tempted to take a month or two and teach him, the OMD stuff feels way more fluid and faster).

I've been doing a refresher of the 'around the clock' portion of the MEB 2x2 method for teaching weave poles with my BC (link). I'm trying to get better fluency with angled entries, particularly with the dog on my left.

We're at the really awkward point where she's almost proficient: I need to actually handle, but I also need to reward frequently to keep her from guessing.

Engineer Lenk fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Jun 18, 2015

Fraction
Mar 27, 2010

CATS RULE DOGS DROOL

FERRETS ARE ALSO PRETTY MEH, HONESTLY


Engineer Lenk posted:

I'm running recreational agility with my little broken dog (2 herniated discs in his back), waiting out the clock until he hits veteran age so we can do some light competition at a low jump height. I'm also training more seriously with my 3-year-old (pre-)novice border collie. She doesn't quite have her contacts reliable yet (and we're doing running contacts, so it may be a long progression).

I've been doing a refresher of the 'around the clock' portion of the MEB 2x2 method for teaching weave poles with my BC (link). I'm trying to get better fluency with angled entries, particularly with the dog on my left.

We're at the really awkward point where she's almost proficient: I need to actually handle, but I also need to reward frequently to keep her from guessing.

How old is your almost-veteran? Dogs can do veteran here from (iirc) 8 years old. They can do anysize at any time though if you want to drop him to micro height--assuming he's running small now.

I'm going to try that 2x2 around the clock stuff with my dogs. We're at this annoying point in class where Kalli can do the channel weaves practically touching... but doesn't recognise the "proper" weaves as weaves. So I'm drilling it hard at lunch/after work with her. I have a set of 6 push-in-ground weaves to use, but I've had no set thing to try each session so haven't progressed as fast as we'd like.

Kalli is still terrified of the seesaw too so it looks like we'll be in beginners/novice/NFC (depending where we run) for a while once we start competing. I didn't manage to get to the show the other week, so our first comp is on the 11th. Thankfully there's no weaves or seesaw in that. Now I just need to be able to steer her crazy speed...

cryingscarf
Feb 4, 2007

~*FaBuLoUs*~



Dexter: 4 year old terrier mix. Competes in flyball (FDCh-S) and has experience in agility. He was edging on competition level before we had to take a break. If all goes well, we will be starting up again in August. He is not the fastest, but he puts his everything into each sport we try and has a blast at it. We... also tried barn hunt but it ended with him peeing on the hay bale because that is *way* more fun.


Sinister: 3 year old dachshund mix. In training with flyball and also will (hopefully!) start agility in August. Currently she can go over two jumps to the box, get a triggered ball and carry it over one jump. We are working on her bringing the ball all the way back and getting her to realize that jumps are not optional!


Edit to include video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEnAISayjuE
Lesson learned. If a dog has to run "naked", make sure you do some runs naked in practice. This broke Dex's mind!

cryingscarf fucked around with this message at 13:44 on Jun 25, 2015

Fraction
Mar 27, 2010

CATS RULE DOGS DROOL

FERRETS ARE ALSO PRETTY MEH, HONESTLY


Kalli gotta WEAVE

I'm really proud of her. It's hard to tell because of the angle (and my inability to put the poles in a straight line...) but that's a straight-on entry :3:

EXTREME INSERTION
Jun 4, 2011

by LadyAmbien
Can I train pax to find things with his nose even though he is a mixed breed?

Instant Jellyfish
Jul 3, 2007

Actually not a fish.



EXTREME INSERTION posted:

Can I train pax to find things with his nose even though he is a mixed breed?

My dog is a mutt and he does nosework. If your dog has a nose he can find things with it. Are you thinking like tracking or nosework or just "where are my keys"?

EXTREME INSERTION
Jun 4, 2011

by LadyAmbien

Instant Jellyfish posted:

My dog is a mutt and he does nosework. If your dog has a nose he can find things with it. Are you thinking like tracking or nosework or just "where are my keys"?

I'd like him to learn how to track because I think it is cool.

I mean if he can find my keys as well that would be wonderful

EXTREME INSERTION
Jun 4, 2011

by LadyAmbien
He likes to smell things, and found me some rabbits and a fox the other day :D

Fraction
Mar 27, 2010

CATS RULE DOGS DROOL

FERRETS ARE ALSO PRETTY MEH, HONESTLY


I just got our running orders for our first show on Saturday.

It's a teeny tiny unofficial thing. Lola and Kalli are both up against just three other dogs :v:

Instant Jellyfish
Jul 3, 2007

Actually not a fish.



EXTREME INSERTION posted:

I'd like him to learn how to track because I think it is cool.

I mean if he can find my keys as well that would be wonderful

There is a good tracking book called Try Tracking that lays out all the different exercises and online classes at the Fenzi Dog Sport Academy for both tracking and nosework. Tracking seems like a sport that might be better learned in person so you might want to look around and see if there is a tracking club near you that you can get involved with. There was a goon who did some tracking with her GSD but I don't think she posts here anymore.

Here is one way you can teach your dog to find your keys (or anything really). You could also treat it like a nosework scent and use this method. Instead of putting a scent in a tin and using that just use your keys or wallet or whatever.

Problem!
Jan 1, 2007

I am the queen of France.
This is Pistol, my ACD/Aussie mix. We do AKC agility. He just (finally!) got his novice titles so next trial in September we get to move up to Open.







I took us six goddamn trials to get the NA and NAJ titles (most dogs do it in 2-3, sometimes 4) because he goes ultra ADD at trials and does stuff like try to dance with the judge:



We can flawlessly do Masters level courses in class but as soon as we get to a trial he goes all hurf-durf sensory overload. The only way I've found so far is to run him ragged before we go so he's running on fumes and doesn't have the extra energy to expend on visiting the ring stewards and judge. Everyone says he'll grow out of it and I'm seeing some definite improvement but it's really frustrating to drop money and time on a trial only to have him blow it in the first few seconds he's in the ring. He just needs more trial experience, but there are only 6 local trials a year and I don't want to spend the money and time on traveling to out of town trials (closest is 3 hours away) until he's more reliable in the ring... which he'll become once he gets experience from going to more trials. It's a Catch-22.

EXTREME INSERTION
Jun 4, 2011

by LadyAmbien

Instant Jellyfish posted:

There is a good tracking book called Try Tracking that lays out all the different exercises and online classes at the Fenzi Dog Sport Academy for both tracking and nosework. Tracking seems like a sport that might be better learned in person so you might want to look around and see if there is a tracking club near you that you can get involved with. There was a goon who did some tracking with her GSD but I don't think she posts here anymore.

Here is one way you can teach your dog to find your keys (or anything really). You could also treat it like a nosework scent and use this method. Instead of putting a scent in a tin and using that just use your keys or wallet or whatever.

I got the Canine Kingdom of Scent a few weeks ago...is that any good?

Engineer Lenk
Aug 28, 2003

Mnogo losho e!

Aquatic Giraffe posted:


We can flawlessly do Masters level courses in class but as soon as we get to a trial he goes all hurf-durf sensory overload. The only way I've found so far is to run him ragged before we go so he's running on fumes and doesn't have the extra energy to expend on visiting the ring stewards and judge. Everyone says he'll grow out of it and I'm seeing some definite improvement but it's really frustrating to drop money and time on a trial only to have him blow it in the first few seconds he's in the ring. He just needs more trial experience, but there are only 6 local trials a year and I don't want to spend the money and time on traveling to out of town trials (closest is 3 hours away) until he's more reliable in the ring... which he'll become once he gets experience from going to more trials. It's a Catch-22.

If he's zooming for distraction rather than stress, there's a proofing exercise we do that's kind of a bridge between Control Unleashed and agility. Basically you scatter stuff (starting with boring stuff and working up to toys and eventually bags of treats) around the course and proof against distraction, switching from box work to running agility and back as he needs it. You just have to be careful not to put anything right in his path or yours.

Problem!
Jan 1, 2007

I am the queen of France.
We've made a point in class to put random people in chairs around the course and reward the hell out of him for making the decision not to go visit and if he does visit he gets put away and sits in time out while another dog takes their turn. He's sloooowly getting it.

Part of it may be nerves, he does a whole lot better if he's out and moving around for a while before he goes instead of stressing in his crate. He's never been able to relax in a crate even at home and the trial atmosphere doesn't help. Now that we've got a few trials under our belt they're less stressful since it's the same dogs and same locations for the most part and I'm less nervous too.

We popped our "oh god my dog is going to deeply embarrass me" cherry at our first ever AKC trial when he peed in the tunnel on course at least :saddowns:

Triangulum
Oct 3, 2007

by Lowtax

Instant Jellyfish posted:

There was a goon who did some tracking with her GSD but I don't think she posts here anymore.


That was probably me.

EXTREME INSERTION, do you know what type of tracking you are interested in? There are quite a few different styles and it's hard to suggest applicable resources without knowing where you wanna go with it. Do you want your dog to follow a foot step trail? find you in the woods? detect dead people? find a scent you've hidden? follow a blood trail?

Regarding book suggestions, my favorites are Scent and the Scenting Dog and Tracking From the Beginning. Detective Steve White's articles are really excellent as well if you're curious about police-style training

Problem!
Jan 1, 2007

I am the queen of France.
I will live vicariously through your tracking, my dogs can't even find a piece of meat I'm pointing to.

CoolCat
Jun 29, 2015

Too many adorable creatures in this thread...

*explodes*

EXTREME INSERTION
Jun 4, 2011

by LadyAmbien

Triangulum posted:

That was probably me.

EXTREME INSERTION, do you know what type of tracking you are interested in? There are quite a few different styles and it's hard to suggest applicable resources without knowing where you wanna go with it. Do you want your dog to follow a foot step trail? find you in the woods? detect dead people? find a scent you've hidden? follow a blood trail?

Regarding book suggestions, my favorites are Scent and the Scenting Dog and Tracking From the Beginning. Detective Steve White's articles are really excellent as well if you're curious about police-style training

Being able to find people in the woods or large buildings would be really cool. How much difference is there between these tasks? (Like, for example, if I've been starting him out finding tea bags in boxes in the basement, would some of this skill translate to him being a hide and go seek champ in the woods for people, or helping me find a rabbit?)

Triangulum
Oct 3, 2007

by Lowtax
It sounds like you're mostly interested in trailing and scent discrimination - basically having the dog locate and identify the scent of a specific object or person. If that's the case books aimed at search and rescue handlers will probably give you the most bang for your buck. Also they're interesting as poo poo

The skills absolutely translate but you'd probably be better off starting him on the scent you want eventually want him to find. If your goal is to get him to find rabbits for you, you can get rabbit scent in a bottle pretty cheaply online or from hunting shops. To get him started on people scent, find the nastiest fuckin sock you've got and put it in a jug with distilled water (chlorinated water kills a lot of the bacteria that is an important part of the scent profile). Let that poo poo soak for a bit, pour the water into a jug of some sort, then squeeze some out on to a cotton ball/q tip/whatever and put it in a small jar with holes punched in the top. Then you give him a sniff of your groady sock and do scent line ups like you've been doing with a tea bag (make sure the other boxes also have identical jars with cotton balls too, trust me your dog will notice if you don't). Once he's got the idea that this scent is what produces his reward, you can start upping the difficulty by introducing other people's scent into your "dead" jars or by hiding the jars in more difficult locations. Not both at once - that's super hard and will probably confuse your poor dog.

The second part is playing hide and seek games. Get a buddy, have your dog sniff him, and have your friend hide from him with a toy in his pocket. Give your dog his search cue and let him go. In all likelihood the first couple times your dog will just kinda stumble onto your 'victim' without any real searching but after he realizes find the dude = PARTY TIME!! he'll start searching in earnest. Like with everything, start super easy (maybe just have them hide in another room) and gradually work up to more and more difficult problems.

That's just a super rough rundown, grab a SAR book and get searching!
Here's a more indepth look at how to use scent in a bottle as well as a rundown of another method of teaching a dog to follow a specific person's scent:
http://www.uspcak9.com/training/scent.html

Triangulum fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Jul 8, 2015

EXTREME INSERTION
Jun 4, 2011

by LadyAmbien

Triangulum posted:

It sounds like you're mostly interested in trailing and scent discrimination - basically having the dog locate and identify the scent of a specific object or person. If that's the case books aimed at search and rescue handlers will probably give you the most bang for your buck. Also they're interesting as poo poo

The skills absolutely translate but you'd probably be better off starting him on the scent you want eventually want him to find. If your goal is to get him to find rabbits for you, you can get rabbit scent in a bottle pretty cheaply online or from hunting shops. To get him started on people scent, find the nastiest fuckin sock you've got and put it in a jug with distilled water (chlorinated water kills a lot of the bacteria that is an important part of the scent profile). Let that poo poo soak for a bit, pour the water into a jug of some sort, then squeeze some out on to a cotton ball/q tip/whatever and put it in a small jar with holes punched in the top. Then you give him a sniff of your groady sock and do scent line ups like you've been doing with a tea bag (make sure the other boxes also have identical jars with cotton balls too, trust me your dog will notice if you don't). Once he's got the idea that this scent is what produces his reward, you can start upping the difficulty by introducing other people's scent into your "dead" jars or by hiding the jars in more difficult locations. Not both at once - that's super hard and will probably confuse your poor dog.

The second part is playing hide and seek games. Get a buddy, have your dog sniff him, and have your friend hide from him with a toy in his pocket. Give your dog his search cue and let him go. In all likelihood the first couple times your dog will just kinda stumble onto your 'victim' without any real searching but after he realizes find the dude = PARTY TIME!! he'll start searching in earnest. Like with everything, start super easy (maybe just have them hide in another room) and gradually work up to more and more difficult problems.

That's just a super rough rundown, grab a SAR book and get searching!
Here's a more indepth look at how to use scent in a bottle as well as a rundown of another method of teaching a dog to follow a specific person's scent:
http://www.uspcak9.com/training/scent.html

Ty! :D

I'm worried that I've fallen behind a bit. I'm still doing basic obedience with him, but I haven't done a good tea search with him in a few weeks (he's about 19 weeks old now). Is he getting too old to be really proficient? How young do you have to start seriously training with them?

EXTREME INSERTION
Jun 4, 2011

by LadyAmbien
I realized why pax was having some trouble over the last few days. I was trying to get him to find stuff with multiple fans on high throughout the room.

Fraction
Mar 27, 2010

CATS RULE DOGS DROOL

FERRETS ARE ALSO PRETTY MEH, HONESTLY


I took Kalli and Lola to their first ever agility show yesterday. It was a teeny tiny, local, indoor competition, allowing each dog two runs at the agility and jumping courses. It's a perfect show for beginners. My girls did me so very proud :h:


Lola won 2nd in small agility, 3rd in small jumping, and 4th in small steeplechase.
Kalli won 3rd in large agility, and 2nd in large steeplechase.


We had a few abysmal moments too! (Things to work on in training!)

Lola was extremely slow in her first run of agility, but soon picked up, and I was really happy that she didn't revert to stress barking or reacting aggressively to any person or dog there.

Kalli came around the first jump on one run, was initially terrified of the dog walk (wooden dog walk, we only ever train on aluminium; I think it shuddered underneath her when she got on and her brain flatlined and went SEESAW, ABORT!), and decided that she couldn't possibly do one jump in a particular way but would jump it the other way. I tried about 10 times over the two runs and she wouldn't do it at all, but was still engaged with me so I have no idea wtf happened there.

For a steady dog, Kalli sure is easily put off by weird/new stuff :v: typical BC, huh? I'm really glad we did this--and after we'd finished at our comp, we had time to get over to a nearby KC show and cheer on our club members in a few of their runs :3: Pretty fantastic day overall.

Problem!
Jan 1, 2007

I am the queen of France.

Fraction posted:

We had a few abysmal moments too! (Things to work on in training!)

Lola was extremely slow in her first run of agility, but soon picked up, and I was really happy that she didn't revert to stress barking or reacting aggressively to any person or dog there.

Kalli came around the first jump on one run, was initially terrified of the dog walk (wooden dog walk, we only ever train on aluminium; I think it shuddered underneath her when she got on and her brain flatlined and went SEESAW, ABORT!), and decided that she couldn't possibly do one jump in a particular way but would jump it the other way. I tried about 10 times over the two runs and she wouldn't do it at all, but was still engaged with me so I have no idea wtf happened there.

For a steady dog, Kalli sure is easily put off by weird/new stuff :v: typical BC, huh? I'm really glad we did this--and after we'd finished at our comp, we had time to get over to a nearby KC show and cheer on our club members in a few of their runs :3: Pretty fantastic day overall.

Slow but accurate is better than fast and all over the place. Speed will come.

Was there anything in the ring that was scary/weird smelling (if it was in a barn, a strong possibility) around that one jump, or someone outside the ring? There's a BC we train with who's a little skittish and at our last trial the leash runner was wearing a t-shirt with a large set of eyes on it. She would NOT break her focus on the t-shirt that was staring at her. That's not really something you can anticipate and train for :v:

Do you guys have training trials over there? The local humane society here has unjudged fun runs where you can run as many times as you want for a couple dollars a run and treat on course and use toys and stuff in a trial environment. I keep meaning to take Pistol to some but they're always on weekends when we're busy.

Fraction
Mar 27, 2010

CATS RULE DOGS DROOL

FERRETS ARE ALSO PRETTY MEH, HONESTLY


Nobody near the jump, and we train in a barn so not sure why she wouldn't jump it. In steeplechase the jump was placed about 2ft forward and she jumped it just fine :iiam:

We don't really have training trials. You can enter classes nfc but still not allowed to use food, only a (silent?) toy. Classes like the ones we did on Sat are practically training though, they were super lenient and the judge even came over to help me when Kalli decided the wooden dog walk was hellish. We do a monthly training/fun day at my club which let's us do miniature competitions in our venue.

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Triangulum
Oct 3, 2007

by Lowtax

EXTREME INSERTION posted:

I realized why pax was having some trouble over the last few days. I was trying to get him to find stuff with multiple fans on high throughout the room.

Yeah that'll do it haha. Don't worry too much about being behind or whatever. Your dog's still basically a baby, you've got plenty of time. Scentwork is actually really popular with senior dogs both because it's a pretty instinctive behavior and because it's mentally and physically challenging but low impact.

Here's baby Vex doing scent pads


We're signed up for our first nosework class! Vex's leg problem is looking like a chronic issue which means schutzhund is unfortunately off the table for us. Kind of a bummer but nosework seems pretty fun and is one of the few sports that allows aggressive dogs so we're going to focus on that from here on out.

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