Update and a video...

I have been so busy with work and family I haven't had much time to work with Reyna...we still have not even begun NL3. In what little time I do have I have been trying to get Reyna out for walks and keep her energy levels down. We have been doing well on that front lately, getting in a 2-3 mile walk most evenings.

She is doing fine with walking and even occasionally passing other dog/handlers along the way without issues. We have three doggy friends in the neighborhood now, Sam a nine month old GSD, Lily a 4 year old Bichon/Maltese and Charlie a two year old Pointer. So three very different sizes, shapes, and ages and Reyna does very well with all of them. She can even walk with Lily or Sam, which has been very freeing. Even 6 months ago her leash frustration was so bad that if she was going to be close to another dog she HAD to be off leash or she would flip her lid. Now she can walk side by side with Lily or Sam and even have one person walk both her and another dog without a problem.

I have also noticed that Reyna has started defaulting to avoidance instead of reacting when she is uncomfortable. If I am walking her with the stroller (which I almost always am) and another dog runs out, barks, leaves their yard to follow us, Reyna will actually switch to the other side of stroller all on her own. I have been cueing this behavior for a long time (dog runs out barking - I make a gap between myself and the stroller and cue "other side" and she will duck between the gap to the other side putting the stroller between herself and the trigger) but now she has started to offer it at times when she would have reacted before!!!

Proof that even during training breaks learning still happens :)

For her agility training I have just been piddling around with it on the weekends, but she is still doing well. The 2x2 weave poles I made have been great, but as Reyna gets more confident I need to stake them down because they shift easily when she bumps them and they require constant resetting (as you'll see in the video).

We are up to 6 straight poles, just solidifying entries from all points on the arch and starting to introduce new locations...the left side of the back yard instead of the right, going towards the house instead of away, and even the front yard!! GASP!!! 

If I have time next week I may even take the poles to the park and start over out there to see how she does. The poles have really worked well for me, especially for $19 for the whole set. I think my next purchase will be twelve stakes with a spacing ribbon, since it will take up a lot less space than an actual twelve pole set, or even a 6 pole set on a base.

Reyna is also jumping full height now, she has only been there for a couple days, so you will see her clip the jump a couple times, but no bars down and no tail thwapping the stanchions!

I'm not really sure where to go from here with the jumping...I guess it's time to actually purchase the Developing Jumping Skills book...I think we've gone as far as we can on our own without risk of messing her up.

So here it is in all it's unedited glory...

That's all for now...one of these I will get back to work on our levels...don't want any backsliding that's for sure!

NL2 Pass!!!

Well we did it! Reyna has officially passed level 2 of Sue Ailsby's Steps to Success! I can hardly believe it, and the change that Reyna has gone through is remarkable! She default relaxes when I come home from work...she now sees my truck pulling in as a cue to relax and won't get up until I release her!

The other incredible thing is that I don't get angry or frustrated with her during training sessions...if she is having trouble I don't drill it anymore, I was soooo bad about that. Now I just make it way easier and remind-reteach-rethink I am gradually learning to treat everything like a game of chutes and ladders.

Lessons learned...
- Never say never...Reyna wil NEVER learn to relax on cue
- Never say can't...she just CAN'T sit on the wood floor without sliding her feet
- Train the dog who shows up...just because I trained her to do xxx doesn't always mean the dog she is in this exact moment can perform xxx
- Do not hold on to the past except to enjoy it and learn from it
- Chute back to the start after the second missed attempt it saves so much time in the end.
- Pre-brief...Be brief...De-brief
- Play!!!!

I love these levels!

Reyna makes friends!!!

Ever since our agility class I have been working a LOT on being more present with Reyna, the more I watched myself the more situations I found where I would just go cold in the face of Reyna's triggers, quietly marking and feeding her treats, but not actually truly interacting with her, touching her, talking to her. I have started responding to things like "reorienting away from a dog" the same way I would if she had just successfully hit all four weave poles and WOW amazing!

Just in the few weeks that I have worked on changing my behavior I have noticed a HUGE shift in Reyna's. Her thresholds are higher, she is more more confident, resilient, focused. It wasn't just over night but I think this is how somebody with a GAD dog must feel when you get all the meds correct and things start clicking.

We went back to the dog park last weekend and played "watch those dogs wrestle"....no issues. When one of the dogs left there was a 6 month old GSD still in the dog park. We walked up to the fence and away from the fence and up to the fence and away from the fence. The puppy didn't pay any attention to us and Reyna watched him, but wasn't concerned, aroused or anything.

So then we went into the adjoining section of the dog park and I let Reyna off leash. Neither dog really paid attention to the other. So then....in a massively risky endeavor I took her into the side with the other dog (with the owner's permission of course). I played the 1,2,3 Treat, and 2 Step games from Leslie's Pattern Games DVD. When I was comfortable that Reyna was focused I held back and let her wander on her own, the puppy wandered in the same general space until they happened to meander into mutual space and greet briefly but going off in separate directions. They did this a couple more times and then initiated play and romped around. They played for a little while without incident and then we left. She didn't bark or whine and enthusiastically tugged with me all the way to the car!

Then yesterday we met up with a neighbor and her 8 month old puppy who is one of Reyna's good friends. We took them both to a large field to play, they walked nicely next to each other neither dog harassing the other. While we were out at the field another family showed up with a little maltese cross. Reyna noticed it, her friend took off to say hi, but Reyna stayed engaged with me until I released her to go play, which she did without charging, barking, growling or anything. She actually barely paid much attention to the little dog and just romped around happily with her buddy.

I am so proud of how far she has come. I know we are not done yet, but I feel like we have crested the mountain!!!

Level 2 update

With the incredible feat of passing L2 Relax we moved on to Communication our last task in Level 2!

I got Reyna's dinner out, lured her between myself and a wall and stepped towards her, she swung out of my way to the left before I finished my first step...hmmm...I tried it again without a block...same thing, perfect.

Okay this is weird, I've never worked on this before...I'll stump her this time...I have her sit in front of me facing my left side...take a step forward, she swings all the way around into heel position...WOW

So we just tested our way cold through most of L2 Communication!

I still need to get her to back up stairs and untangle a leash from around her own leg then we are done...not just done with Communication but done with Level 2 HOLY SMOKES I can barely believe it

And speaking of things I can barely believe I took her to our local dog park to work on remaining calm while other dogs play within earshot. It was pretty quiet, no other dogs, until a guy pulls up and lets his dog out of the car without a leash. The dog comes straight for us, I pulled Reyna behind me, he stopped and the owner regained control.

Reyna was understandably amped, but she never barked at the dog even when he was less that three feet from us. I walked us away to put some distance between her and the other dog. I took a deep breath (her prep cue for relax), she looked at me, I took another one, she sat,another one, she laid down, then I said " can you cool it?" and she DID. I didn't wait for duration I immediately released and rewarded! Total time from dog rushing to her relaxing...two minutes...that is unreal!

Then we walked towards the dog park area and did some look at that with the dog in the park getting all the way up to the fence line. She even watched him chase a tennis ball! She locked in the first time so I walked her away before she could escalate, but after a few reps she was able to watch the dog chase the ball and look back at me. At one point we were about 30 ft from the dog park, she could see the dog playing, I said her name, she looked at me..."cool it please" and she relaxed into the flopped down, no prep breaths or anything! I definitely want to go back out and start working relax at the dog park more for duration, but WOW she was upper focused, willing to play tug, did her LL, didn't react to anything and even did some off leash work. She is really coming along nicely!

We passed Relax!

WAHOO!!!

It took a LOT of work and time, and patience, and patience, and time, and work...but here it is, the behavior I never thought I would get out of Reyna....Relaxing. I chopped large chunks out, because even I couldn't handle watching it at full length...deliciously boring during the settle portions!

I started to film this just using food to get her excited, but then I decided that would be wimpy, so here it is with a tug no less! WAHOO!!!!!!! Just about done with Level 2!

2x2 Weave Poles ~ $19

I have faced a major hurdle in Reyna's weave training...I don't have any weave poles. Until NOW!

After looking around and price comparing I couldn't find anything that I could afford. I was actually looking up plans to try and make single stake-in-the-ground weave poles which took me to this website where I stumbled across these

Those looked super simple to make, but they required that dadgum 4 way elbow that I would have to order. Then it struck me...I jotted down some notes, drew it out, ran to Home Depot and voila...2 hours (including shopping time) and about $19 later I had this...

Luring is just for the photo op I promise

A set of 6 (one off camera) 2x2 weave poles!!!

The braces are 18" which may prove to be over kill, but I worried about Reyna knocking them over and it's way easier to trim shorter than it is to glue back together :)

It took four 10' SCH40 3/4" PVC pipes chopped up like this...

1 = 3 36" weave poles (12" leftover)
1 = 3 36" weave poles (12"left over)
1 = 6 18" braces (12" left over)
1= 3 20" center spacer bars (60" left over)

Then you just get 12 end caps, 6 3/4" 3 way elbows (I couldn't find what I wanted so I had to go with a 3 way elbow that had two 3/4" slip openings and one 1/2" threaded opening and then get an adapter to screw into the threaded section)

Put it all together...the adapter part facing up to slip the weave poles into and TA DA! a 6 pole set of 2x2 weave poles for under $20!!!

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

Miles to go before we sleep

We went out to John Tanner park today for a family picnic and a little fishing. We never got to the fishing part but the intent was good. The picnic went well, Reyna was a bit nervy and scanning when we got there. We settled down and ate lunch and she did okay, not great, she wouldn't settle, she didn't bark or lunge but she just sat a looked OT a lot. Part of that was because she needed to potty, forgot to take her before we left, oops, but I am again reminded of how much I enjoy having a dog who eliminates on cue. Walk up to a tree...hurry up Reyna...she does her thing, we go back to the playground no big deal, and now I KNOW she won't poop in the sandbox instead of just having to hope :)

We walked to the playground with David and really she was okay, but again not great. She barked once at a guy walking with a goat, didn't see that one coming! She did not bark or even react at all really except to look over when a little dog swore at her from the nearby picnic table. I understand but it's still a little frustrating that the same behavior out of Reyna and we probably would have been asked to leave the park.

Then two little girls came running up behind us and Reyna jumped over to say HELLO!!! I stopped her before the knocked either one over. They were very eager to pet her. I said no but that they could each give her a treat. I walked them through how to hold the treat in their fist. The first little girl did okay, she didn't drop the treat on the ground when Reyna backed up, but she at least didn't wig out when Reyna slobbered on her hand taking the treat. I think he next girl learned by example because she did it perfectly, treat in fist...wait...Reyna lies down...she drops treat on the ground. Overall they were tickled to death that they got to help train and for Reyna it helps create a default down when present with kids, treats, or kids with treats. Several other kids during our stay asked to pet Reyna, I just said no but thank you for asking to everybody else. I find that Reyna is sort of like a pied piper, if I let one hundreds more will follow us around. She is big and fluffy and smiles like a clown, I see the appeal.

Later we were walking by a car and didn't notice the little papillon inside until we were about 3" from the dog. They touched noses through the window but neither dog reacted.

Really she did pretty well as far as not reacting to anything (except that goat), and she was way more chill at the end than when we first got there, but never truly relaxed the whole time we were there, and was pretty borderline most of the time. She is light years ahead of where she was even a few months ago, but today reminded me that we still have a long way to go. I would love to make a road trip to NC for a private with Karen.