Better days

The last two days Grey went out on a run. He also had much better LLW training sessions. For some reason he's much better in a morning. The traffic does play a part in it, but he's much better in the morning than he is last thing at night. So today we went out first thing with his lamb mince cooked up and in the treat bag. Sticky fingers! Ugh. He was much much better. Then lunchtime we we went out for a run. We went out in the car and he was in the boot area. Much better than when he was in the Yaris. He had a good run, not crazy though. He settled down doing some track backs for his fleecy plaited toy until a Bernese Mountain bitch came up and ran off with it and promptly ate it! Swallowed it whole! So no more track backs! We continued to the beach where he lay cooling his tummy off in the rock pools. On the way back to the car we managed a couple of minutes of LLW. The drive back home he was really good and when we arrived back I managed some more LLW with full attention. Yay! Then he slept for england.

Working Slovakian Rough Haired Pointer Club

I got a flyer to the Gundog Working Test on 31st May at Mapledurham via the Working Slovakian Rough Haired Pointer Club. I've not checked out their site before. It looks to be promoting the working aspect of the breed. They list a number of training days with preference given to slovaks over other breeds. Not sure if the dates are accurate or not, what type of training or who the trainers are.

Session 3

Around the back yard and out the side gate. I tied the lead round my waist to I'm not tempted to steer with it and so I've got two hands free for click and treat. He's now sleeping it off.

Session 2

If outside is still too stressful I'm back to working inside and drifting out. I left the front door open, and started from the kitchen. He was whining and straining on the lead. So I just stood there. When the whining stopped and he sat I took a tiny step forward. Boing. Stood there and waited. and repeat. By three metres to the outside he realised and loose lead walked to the outside. He sat and was rewarded, he looked at me, he was rewarded. Lots of rewards for sitting on the step and for looking at me. Back inside and we did the whole walk again from the kitchen to the outside and sit. I did this three times and then stopped.

Not so great walk out

Grey was super switched on this morning. Just constantly spinning out to the end of the lead and going round and to the back of me. I was getting dizzy trying to reoriantate myself to not allow him to run behind me. He's gone on a houseline in the house just now so I can get him to leave a room without mouthing. Need to remember to not let it get me down and to keep positive.

birthday walking

Was up early this morning to take Grey out at first light. Earlier than I'm used to and especially so since it's my birthday. L had got up extra early to bring me breakfast in bed before I got up and out. That was very nice! Grey and I had a nice calm trot round the alleyway opposite the house. Stress levels were low and he was fairly focused. He's much calmer first thing than later in the day. Hope to continue like this for a few more sessions and then work up to take him for offlead exercise in a few days time when he will have been on the lead for 2 weeks.

Sometimes you don't do the right thing

Argh... Well inexperience shows sometimes. I felt really bad today when I had a think after being advised by friends that perhaps my big trip up north in the car to pick up the new car wasn't good for Grey. When I did it, I thought I was doing the right thing. That it would be an opportunity to work on spending time in the car and it not being a journey to go offlead running on the beach. That was really silly of me and I won't do it again. It's not a good idea to raise the bar high and force him to get used to something. Where is the positive in that? So I put myself in a time out to think about it!

On the plus side I think he's going to be so much better in the new car. He happily gets in and sits in the back while it's parked. So later we can work on little trips out. But for now, we'll carry on with no car journeys while working on calm behaviour outside.

Another great piece of advice today was to try and LLW train when the traffic is quiet. Today was ideal because Sunday traffic round here is really low. During the week, we'll get up extra early. We went out across the road to an empty driveway/entrance to a carpark. No idea why I didn't think of this before. I think I'm slow sometimes. He was much much better. No lunging and barking. Stress levels were lower and was able to focus.

Other than that we've worked on sits and downs at home. I put his down on a long whistle so now he's got sit and down on a whistle, which hopefully will come in useful when he gets back off lead.

Also worked on watch at home.

Attention

I watched a DVD last night from a 2004 clicker expo. There was an item on working on reliability and creating strong root behaviours. While I'm at home with Grey at the moment I'm interested in activities that strengthen focus on me and increasing the bond. So we've been doing lots of really short sessions. The presentation identified this was better than one 30min session. The prersentation was by Steve White. He demonstrated some work on attantion aka watch. I've run through some of this this morning and Grey did really well. For the reactiveness to traffic quite a few people hae advised me to look at Leslie McDevitt's method of looking at the object that is causing fear and then looking at the handler in her book Control Unleashed. I'm trying not to jump around with lots of stuff, but work solidly on some foundations like being with me, attention on me, calm.

LLW and fear

Perhaps they have to be treated as too separate things? We've got the reactiveness to traffic on the road and the LLW. I've seen progress session on session in being calm when we go out on the front step and just sit and lie there on the blanket. He's got so much better and we can get down the steps to outside the house. When I add LLW on top of that it falls to pieces, so it seems like it is too much.

He is better at LLW when we go out of the side door and sort of slide onto the street. So that's something positive to work on. We had a little session getting in and out of the new car yesterday, so that was also good. Perhaps round my house is just far too busy so the best option might be for me to take him on a short drive to a quiet place like a car park and work round that. I won't jump straight back in to drive = offlead running.

We've had a carpenter in the house all week taking windows out and generally banging around. He was scared of dogs and Grey was scared of him and all the banging. So unfortunately there was a lot of barking at the beginning of the week. But by the end of the week, they were in the same room together. grey was wagging lots and then also calming down.

Training levels test day

Grey passed his level 2 downstay (Dog Downs and stays while partner walks 20' away and back. Partner may give extra cues while away. An official "return" is not required) and the level 2 distance (the dog goes around a pole from a distance of 2' with no more than two cues) today. Big yay to Grey!

So today was 7 days since we've had no more offlead running. We're doing lots of training in short bursts. Had a nice session this morning out on the pavement. But by this afternoon it was more stressful.

Other things we worked on was putting his sit on the whistle. I used a single short peep. He seemed to get it quite quickly, will test it out tomorrow.

Yesterday was a really busy day. Grey and I drove up north to get a new car. Was a long journey with lots of stops. He was quite reactive at each stop. I think he settles better in the new car as it doesn't have as much static electricity. Must go to bed now as v. tired.

Distance L2 - 4th session

It was suggested I try delivering treats to the floor behind me to see if it made Grey get a bit more in the game of his own accord. It seems to have helped get him back to the start and he naturally cam back to my side after getting the treat. I think it woke him up a bit! He is a bit of a plodder in the training! So thanks, S for suggesting it!

If anyone has anything else to suggest, I'd welcome it!

the start of crate training

I'm going to get a new car soon where Grey will be in a crate. So I'm starting crate training again at home. He goes into his crate with 'in your bed' and lies down.

Distance level 2 training video

Since Grey hasn't been off lead running for three days now, we've been doing more training at home. Here's a video of him learning distance (level 2 - which is to go round an object from 2 feet away with no more than 2 cues). He sniffs my bum a lot when he goes behind me! I also had problems trying to set him up to start again from my left side. He's not far off being tested on this one.

Lovely Ziggi doing her own nails!

Lovely video of Ziggi the vizsla doing her own nails with a method from Shirely Chong. So going to try this. I bet Grey will love it!

Big changes in Grey's world

Something clearly wasn't working with Grey's training on walks and on the gencon. After much consultation with my dog guardian angels (thanks guys!) it was decided to make some radical changes for the next week or two. So Grey is now on day 2 of no off lead walks. And further that we don't go anywhere and he pulls. I'm not taking him out in the car either. I don't go anywhere unless he's calm. If he's not calm in the house, the lead doesn't go on and we don't go through the door. Yesterday we passed the day by doing the following:

Getting him used to the gencon by CT him for touching, looking, approaching the headcollar on the floor and in my hands. I left it around (supervised) so it's not just seen as the instrument of torture!

We sat out on the top of the front door steps on his blanket and CT for calm for each passing lorry, van, motorbike, people with push bikes, prams, kids, disabled people in wheelchairs. We live on one busy corner! We did 4 sessions like this of a couple of minutes. A couple of people came up and asked if they could stroke him. Grey obliged by wriggling lots!

We ventured out onto the pavement a couple of times and just worked up and down in front of the house. he had one barking freak out where we retreated to the safety zone of the steps and then CT for calm again.

Inside we passed the day with training on downs and started work on distance by going round the waste paper bin. I also got the crate back out because I'm going to get a new car soon and want him to be crate trained for that. Also it will be useful if he is able to be self controlled enough and calm if confined ever at the vets. He surprised me and got straight into the crate and lay down. I had thought he hated it as he had to be confined in it last month at a friend's flat and he didn't like it.

Other stuff I've done is stash kibble in the living room and I've generally been more proactive in getting him off the sofa and looking out the window at passersby. He's been generally very into training. So over this week or so his training is much more intensive. I had thought he would be really different if he didn't get his big run of the day, but he's been just as tired from the training and thinking about things. One huge difference I think will be is his focus on me. Everything good comes through me. I'm hand feeding him. I've portioned up his food and it's all used as training. Walks are no longer a means to an end. i.e. a free ride to the beach! So he will get used to the walk itself not as it being a route to being let off for a run.

I'm keeping sessions really short. I can see he can't cope with much and he starts to lose focus after a few minutes.

Today we've done some outside the house walking. Some round the bin distance work, and lots of downs where I've aso started to walk around and away from him while he's in the down.

On top of this we've got games and stuffed toys in his open crate.

More walking backwards

I'm still working hard at lead training. I've found that walking backwards is still a great help when he's really starting to freak out and get over stimulated by the environment. I've also gone back to working him more on the gencon. He's less reactive to traffic on the gencon. I can't seem to get him to relax on it though. It's like I have to do as much work on that as flat collar training. if I have him on a short leash on the gencon he never ever lets up pulling into it. No wonder he hates it. So I have to do lots and lots of reinforcement now to get him to stop pulling on that and making it unpleasant for himself. Kind of makes it hard to have that as my from A-B tool. I wonder if I'm doing something wrong.

He does seem stressed when I put it on him. Even though it's put on with food. He grinds his teeth for the first part of the walk. By the time we are homeward bound he's ok.

We went back to the park this morning. Had a run around then more walking backwards in the center with him following me. He lunged at a line of mounted posties which was a shame as he'd been really good outside the sorting office the day before. But I think the difference was that he was already very excited at the presence of other dogs round the perimeter of the park and that he was on the lead and couldn't go and say hello. I managed to calm him down, put on the gencon and walk nicely home.

This afternoon we headed out on foot again. I decided not to take him in the car to see if we could lower his energy levels that way. It seems to make a difference. We went to the beach at the lido, walked along to the harbour and through the old town. I'd picked up lots of nice bones today at the butchers so he spent a long while chewing bones and farting under my desk. Lovely. Might be a hangover from being wormed yesterday. Who knows, but it's kept him busy.

Other bits of training was more 'up up' and 'off' yesterday.

Master Grey's new collar

Came next day delivery. It's really lovely and beautifully made from Emma S. Baker Jones. He's got the 1" dark havana plain flat collar with brass fittings. Very lovely indeed.

While I was measuring for the collar I got some new statistics.
Neck 17"
Height to the withers 23.6"
Weight 31.5KG