Stetson has been on fire this week. He has given me so many high moments during agility and obedience training, that I don't think I can accurately recall them all at this minute. Today was a hard road leading to a conclusion that probably did more for us as a team than any other individual training experience we've had to date.
I had a reservation to rent an agility field this morning. It was raining, but I decided to load up and go anyway because they also have an indoor area with equipment. I thought if they didn't have indoor scheduling conflicts, maybe they would let me switch to use the indoor equipment. The contacts aren't full height, but I knew there was a tire jump in there and I figured we could use the baby contacts to work on "two on two off" and practice some jumps (the tire in particular). I desperately wanted to fix the nemesis from last week, the tire jump. They generously let me trade.
There is a boarding facility in the building. The room with the agility equipment is separated by a seemingly thin wall from the kennel. The noise and energy in the building was typical of what you have before morning feed in any kennel, very loud. I immediately embraced the opportunity to expose him to this rowdy environment and ask him to work. Showsites can be very noisy and I know that he strongly prefers a structured environment to chaos.
Stetson was worried about everything, entering the building, the dogs barking, dogs banging into the wall between us and the elevated voices of the staff doing chores in the kennel. His brain exploded. His ears were dropped, the pupils were dilated and glazed, his head was slung low and he immediately began offering behaviors to me that he felt certain I wanted; dog walk, tunnel, a frame... Totally a stress reaction to the environment. Of course I wanted none of that equipment offering with him in such a state. What I wanted was for him to manage his emotions and focus on the task at hand. I could not have created a better environment to help him gather his brain and decide to work, but he was really off. He was not participating in the required connection between dog and handler well enough to get more than two obstacles completed without doing something goofy that caused me to "no" or "Stetson come here"... It didn't take very long for me to realize I wasn't going to win this battle with agility equipment as his reward. He doesn't have enough experience in this sport for the joy of doing it to soothe his soul like it does mine. I put him on lead to keep him from roaming around while I pondered the situation. I sat on a bench and absent mindedly put him in a "down" next to me. I glanced over at him and he was intently watching me with his ears up. Pupils were still gigantic, but his ears were up! He understands "down", he gets that, in that moment he was performing to my expectation and he knew it.
I had my answer, he needs to do something he knows is right, something he knows I'm going to be thrilled with. So I bounced off the bench, snapped his lead off, stuffed some chicken in my mouth, stepped away and called him "front". He flew to a crooked front, but he flew so I straightened him out, asked for an around finish and took off in a fast heeling pattern. On the first about turn, he wandered and his ears went down as a dog banged into the wall next to us. I told him to "watch" and he was immediately back at my side with his focus solely on me and his ears up. We finished with a couple of halts and then I took him to the tire jump. Tire jump problems, who has tire jump problems? They vanished as soon as his confidence was elevated!
Changing environments isn't something that comes easily to him yet, but I believe it will. When he was being shown in conformation, a woman nicknamed him "the boomerang" dog because he always came back from whatever rattled him. He gets rattled by these new things, and some days he gets rattled hard. Learning to turn his issue into a working attitude was huge today. We are light years from where we began only nine months ago.
His brain and the way he processes his surroundings will continue to challenge me to be a better trainer and partner. I accept, I haven't laid down to a challenge in a very long time and he's worth this effort. I look forward to our growth and smile on our progress! I don't know if we will earn any legs in two weeks or not, but I know we will grow leap years in partnership as we continue to navigate the ins and outs of becoming a team.
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| The look of confidence |
I had a reservation to rent an agility field this morning. It was raining, but I decided to load up and go anyway because they also have an indoor area with equipment. I thought if they didn't have indoor scheduling conflicts, maybe they would let me switch to use the indoor equipment. The contacts aren't full height, but I knew there was a tire jump in there and I figured we could use the baby contacts to work on "two on two off" and practice some jumps (the tire in particular). I desperately wanted to fix the nemesis from last week, the tire jump. They generously let me trade.
There is a boarding facility in the building. The room with the agility equipment is separated by a seemingly thin wall from the kennel. The noise and energy in the building was typical of what you have before morning feed in any kennel, very loud. I immediately embraced the opportunity to expose him to this rowdy environment and ask him to work. Showsites can be very noisy and I know that he strongly prefers a structured environment to chaos.
Stetson was worried about everything, entering the building, the dogs barking, dogs banging into the wall between us and the elevated voices of the staff doing chores in the kennel. His brain exploded. His ears were dropped, the pupils were dilated and glazed, his head was slung low and he immediately began offering behaviors to me that he felt certain I wanted; dog walk, tunnel, a frame... Totally a stress reaction to the environment. Of course I wanted none of that equipment offering with him in such a state. What I wanted was for him to manage his emotions and focus on the task at hand. I could not have created a better environment to help him gather his brain and decide to work, but he was really off. He was not participating in the required connection between dog and handler well enough to get more than two obstacles completed without doing something goofy that caused me to "no" or "Stetson come here"... It didn't take very long for me to realize I wasn't going to win this battle with agility equipment as his reward. He doesn't have enough experience in this sport for the joy of doing it to soothe his soul like it does mine. I put him on lead to keep him from roaming around while I pondered the situation. I sat on a bench and absent mindedly put him in a "down" next to me. I glanced over at him and he was intently watching me with his ears up. Pupils were still gigantic, but his ears were up! He understands "down", he gets that, in that moment he was performing to my expectation and he knew it.
I had my answer, he needs to do something he knows is right, something he knows I'm going to be thrilled with. So I bounced off the bench, snapped his lead off, stuffed some chicken in my mouth, stepped away and called him "front". He flew to a crooked front, but he flew so I straightened him out, asked for an around finish and took off in a fast heeling pattern. On the first about turn, he wandered and his ears went down as a dog banged into the wall next to us. I told him to "watch" and he was immediately back at my side with his focus solely on me and his ears up. We finished with a couple of halts and then I took him to the tire jump. Tire jump problems, who has tire jump problems? They vanished as soon as his confidence was elevated!
Changing environments isn't something that comes easily to him yet, but I believe it will. When he was being shown in conformation, a woman nicknamed him "the boomerang" dog because he always came back from whatever rattled him. He gets rattled by these new things, and some days he gets rattled hard. Learning to turn his issue into a working attitude was huge today. We are light years from where we began only nine months ago.
His brain and the way he processes his surroundings will continue to challenge me to be a better trainer and partner. I accept, I haven't laid down to a challenge in a very long time and he's worth this effort. I look forward to our growth and smile on our progress! I don't know if we will earn any legs in two weeks or not, but I know we will grow leap years in partnership as we continue to navigate the ins and outs of becoming a team.
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