Reactive Reyna Runs a 5k!

When we were deciding what kind of dog we wanted on of my biggest "must haves" was a running buddy. A dog that would always be up for fun and ready to romp. We went with the high energy German Shepherd for their activity level, trainability and naturally protective nature.

When Reyna's excitability matured into full blown reactivity visions of group runs faded into the distance. We spent the next two years just trying to help Reyna cope with a world that was too stimulating for her. I remember how excited I was when we were able to go to our first doggy dash 5k in February 2012. We didn't participate, that would have been way too much. But we hung out on the outskirts and ate lots of treats for looking at the dogs in the distance.

We worked our way up to being able to go for walks and pass dogs without an explosion, and then retired the head collar as an unnecessary tool when we graduated to a flat collar.

Now we run, in a harness, with Reyna out in front Canicross style and I steer her through crowds with voice directional cues. I haven't taken treats with me in months. 

When we found out about a local dog friendly 5k I decided I thought we were ready to come in from the outskirts and really give our training a test. My husband came so that if the environment was too much with the crowds and dogs we could leave her relaxing in the car and I would run alone.

Reyna did fantastic!!!!! She had a blast and shot off the start line so hard I was afraid she would pull me off my feet. The start line wait was the hardest, all crowded together with tension everywhere and loudspeakers blaring, but we practiced deep breaths, she held her composure (except for some impatient whines to get GOING) and once we got moving she didn't give the other dogs or people a second thought, it was the two of us in the zone and working!

We blasted through the crowd and Reyna didn't slow to a trot until the 1 mile mark. The next two miles she held a steady working trot/run. She followed all the cues to navigate through the other runners and just did phenomenal.

We finished in a personal best 23:57 taking first place female finisher and being the first dog team across the finish line.. (it was sort of like cheating though since I basically ran with a turbo gear going the whole time!) All of our physical training paid off and all our behavioral work really showed as we mingled in the crowd, met with people and animals.

I am so proud of Reyna she is the dog I knew she could be. Somebody came up after the race and asked who trained her, I told her I did. She asked if I ever trained for other people because she said, "I have a lab mix that we can't take anywhere...he lunges growls, all his hair goes up and he barks at everything, he's not aggressive...he's just....nervous, crazy, I don't know how to describe it" I smiled "it's called reactivity, let me tell you Reyna's story..."

Back from the summer!

Well once again our training over the summer was pretty much nonexistent due to my work schedule. We continued the heeling class, below is a couple videos from later in the class...

We had a great time with the class and definitely learned a lot. We are now finishing up Hannah Branigan's obedience fundamentals course. Unfortunately with my schedule as the class is ending we are just now able to work on the lessons. That is one of the things I am really enjoying about the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy is that I will continue to have access to the materials and since I'm auditing nobody is giving feedback anyway so I can work when I can and not worry about class being over and not having mastered everything yet!

Patience to speed learning

Reyna and I went to vets office today to work on calm and focus in the face of distractions. Let me tell you it's easy to see why Reyna loves Nosework...all she wants to do is sniff stuff.

Initially when she hopped out of the car she gave me the standard sit and eye contact, good start. But moving any distance from the car and her nose was glued to the ground, or the bush, or whatever. I thought about telling her leave it, or putting her back in the car, but I needed to look at me goal for the day. Was I planning on working obedience? No. Heeling? No. Eye contact? Not specifically. What I wanted was calm behavior and paying attention to me. Ultimately I wanted her to feel comfortable and have a good experience too.

So instead of putting her away which would have been a punishment for not giving me focus that I hadn't asked for in the first place, I decided to go a more Leslie McDevitt route. I sat on the bed of the pickup and just waited patiently while she smelled everything within the radius of her 4' leash. When she looked at me I clicked and treated and told her to "go sniff". She quickly started giving me more focus with less sniffing until she wouldn't go sniff. So we walked a few feet closer to the entrance rewarding every step where she had her nose off the ground.

We actually got all the way to the front sidewalk before her nose hit the ground. I just sat and waited while she took everything in. It took much less time this time. Then we walked back to the truck and started over. We made it all the way to the front door almost.

By the time we got inside she was clear headed and calm. We worked on walking past people in the waiting room, sitting on the scale, sitting quietly in the waiting room, all with short bursts of running out the door to play tug and then coming back in to work. We got all the way up to starting to walk down the hall and then it looked like it was going to get busy so we headed out.

You want to know the coolest part...the front yard area was filled with dog mess and pee spots, but not only did Reyna tug enthusiastically in the face of the smells and the distraction of people coming and going....she was so focused we did a couple short heel bursts during the play breaks.

So in the end I did get full focus and obedience work in the face of distractions, all by giving Reyna the time she needed to process the environment without pressure or punishment.

P.s. I was only there 17 minutes!

Release to movement - Heeling

Okay first part of our heeling work...

Reyna already had a strong "go round" so I just worked it into heeling. It's definitely a lot of fun. We lack precision for sure so I need to work more on that, but her attitude is good.

I also need to turn right instead of left when she comes in to avoid killing the momentum.

0:00-0:28 - reinforcing the awesomeness of going around an object

0:29 - naughty puppy

0:42-1:05 - demonstrating how much more fun it is to play with me than to tear up a toy on her own

1:28 - still not stellar but much improved front the first time

1:51 - first ever "heel to fly"

2:10 - that took some brain power :)

2:52 - okay...I loved that!!!

3:17 - now she's getting it!

We are having a blast!

There is so much material in this class it's amazing! I recommend you check it out... http://www.fenzidogsportsacademy.com/

Heeling Games

We have signed up for Denise Fenzi's Heeling Games class at the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. We received a bronze level scholarship and WOW what a class!!!

Here is our baseline video before our first lesson:

Around :53 I want her to ignore the toy and stay engaged with me - Fail

At 1:15 on the third failure even with increased pressure I gave it up and decided to doodle our way back. Lesson learned from watching this video is that immediately outing and retrying when she brings back the toy does nothing to discourage her enthusiasm to chase the toy, but it definitely teaches her not to bring it right back.

1:40 - lots of forging and crabbing, I didn't realize until watching the video that it was because of the toy swinging in my right hand

2:06 - trying to correct forging and crabbing with left hand turns

2:10 - Finally get one smooth step in the pivot

2:58 - Ready to start working our way back to the goal from :53

3:12 - Stepped on the tug to remind her they were not available

3:20 - Good committed movement away from the toys - Race back

3:38-  added in a short low energy toss

5:08 - Original exercise - Success!!!!

Next up, horizontal movement games...

Exercising Self Control and Winning

No we have not sudden conquered all of our self control behaviors...but I have stared in the face of my own temptation and came out successful on the other end.

I am teaching nervous, crazy Reyna to walk on a treadmill. Back in the day I would have just slapped a leash on her and expected her to get over it. But that was three years and a lot of learning ago. So knowing my tendency to want to "help" the learning along I have done all her training sessions without even a collar on to prevent me being able to make her get or stay on the treadmill...here is our timeline, some of these days were up to a week apart...

Day 1 - Clicking and rewarding any interaction with the stationary treadmill. Including frequent breaks away from the treadmill. Reyna was unimpressed.

Day 2 - Take two kinds of treats down and work the treadmill with Susan Garrets crate games in mind...interaction with treadmill equals chicken, take a break and do other stuff earn kibble, back to treadmill, earn chicken. This time she quickly shaped to running and jumping onto the stationary treadmill

Day 3 - Reiterate the awesomeness of the treadmill. This time she is standing on it and I turn it on 1/2mph...she wigs out...bad move. Back to stationary to rebuild confidence. Turn it on again, she bails but comes right back. We take a break and I decide to leave the treadmill running. I try and be very clear with criteria and because of all the chicken in the bank she gets up to walking one foot on the moving treadmill

Day 4 - We quickly get up to two feet walking on the moving treadmill, I try to lure her all the way on, no dice, too much pressure, she walks off. We take a break. I turn the treadmill back off and we spend some time getting on and off the stationary treadmill. Back to moving, she is confidently walking with two front feet and occasionally lifting a back foot. We call it a day.

Day 5 - This time we get up to three feet walking on the treadmill which sounds as weird as it looks. Now we are stuck. We take lots of breaks during each session and repeat the stationary exercise back and forth with consistent results. Stationary she jump right on, moving she settles right in to walking with three feet on one foot off.

Day 6 - She is now walking VERY confidently with those three feet, but she is stretching herself out to do it and I am worried she will hurt something. We stop after 5 reps and just sit and think

Day 7 - Still thinking...Okay She is comfortable jumping on the treadmill while stationary, so I will add a physical cue of a hip tap to ask her to jump on and then maybe I can use that to get her on the treadmill while moving. So we spend most of the session teaching me tapping her hip is cue to jump on the treadmill. No problems. Turn it on, give the cue and she leaps on!!! aannnnddd flops right off the back. Luckily she wasn't phased at all and soon becomes good at jumping on and falling off the back.

Day 8 - Time to think again...how do I teach her to WALK? I try luring as she jumps on, no luck. Hmmm, if she were just wearing a collar I could keep her from going off the back by physically holding the collar...and then I would have betrayed the whole point of this training. Okay now what...

Day 9 - Okay what if I teach her that my hand on her hind end means walk forward...so we spend a session shaping that and she catches on quickly.

Day 10 - reiterate the last lesson and then try to add the treadmill into the mix. Hop on hand on the rear, she sits, and then falls off the back. We go back to hand on the rear means walk forward for awhile then back to the treadmill...she sits again and then falls off the back. Call it a day.

Day 11 - Really focus on clicking those back feet for moving. We make quick progress, now she is running across the treadmill perpendicular to the belt and thinks that is AWESOME! *sigh*

Day 12 - Okay now I need her to stop bailing off the side. So I block it with a plastic tub thinking maybe she will get on and stay on....nope....now we are back to three feet walking on the treadmill.

Day 13 - Really thinking hard about that leash and collar at this point....how do I teach her to walk while she is on there....she can walk with three feet but as soon as that fourth foot gets up there she stands stock still and falls off the back.

Day 14 - Okay somebody HAS to have done this before...lo and behold a quick internet search pulls up this gem... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25QXJLXHNg why did I not think to check online before??? The big piece we were missing was teaching her to run across the stationary treadmill.

Day 15 -  Spend the session training running across the stationary treadmill. No problems, she loves it. Then I start the motor, nope. Go back to stationary for several reps, then start the motor (remember she is extremely comfortable around the treadmill at this point so I was comfortable raising the criteria in the same session) nope....okay stop and think for a second....put a pile of chicken on the floor at the front of the treadmill and let her get really excited about getting to it and the only way over is across the moving treadmill because I am on one side and the tub is on the other still. She thinks about it for a minute....and then goes!!!! I dump half the bowl of treats on the floor and throw a massive party. Party over, she looks at me, I look at the treadmill, and she runs across it again!!! and then again and again...she has it now! (I felt that because of all the foundation work she could handle the pressure of having the chicken on one side and her on the other, if she had shown any real stress I would have called it immediately and gone back to the stationary belt)

Day 16 - Now she thinks running across the moving treadmill is really cool...how do I make her stay on the treadmill? I tried clicking and treating as she got on but she would just run off the front past my treat hand and then turn around for the treat. I tried that with the treat in multiple locations and sizes of treats with the same result...run past then turn for the treat. What is something bigger that will really get her attention? her food bowl...can she walk and eat treats out of her bowl at once? probably not. So I spend some time away from the treadmill teaching her to walk and eat treats out of her bowl at the same time. Then back to the treadmill and.....SHE DID IT!!!! She walked on the treadmill while I held the food bowl in one hand and dropped treats into it with the other!!!!!! YAHOOOOOOOO We did it!!!!!!

The training may have gone much faster if I had watched the video beforehand, but I think it was also a good learning experience for me to have to try and come up with Reyna friendly solutions that would help her understand what I was looking for. I can't tell you what a huge success this is for both of us...for Reyna overcoming her fears and for me keeping Reyna's attitude always ahead of the results I was wanting and getting both in the end!!!!

We still have speed, duration etc to work on, but this had just been an awesome journey these last several weeks.

Thank you Reyna!

Learning to use Fred

I read this post http://denisefenzi.com/2013/05/07/meet-fred/#comments by Denise Fenzi, and began to wonder...would I be able to use Fred effectively with Reyna? I have some serious doubts that I would use him correctly without outside guidance from an instructor. Since reading the article I am trying to take mental note of when Reyna multi tasks and when she clearly needs me to paint a different picture. Here are two examples...

We are playing in the back yard, I am giving her my full attention. We have some small working bursts in between periods of play. Generally just have a good time. I ask for a short heel spurt and let her grab the tug, instead of bringing it right back she prances around with it. Normally I would call her over with my hand held high for her to jump the toy up to my hand. Suddenly I realized, she isn't giving me 100% engagement...why am I putting more effort in?? So when she prances off with he toy I turn and go talk to my husband for several minutes.

By this time Reyna has come back over and is trying to get my attention with the toy. Now when I turn back toward her she shoves the toy at me. We play, I release the tug, she shoves it right back, I throw it she brings it straight back to play. In fact throughout the rest of the play time she remained 100% engaged with me!

Second example was yesterday working on some strength and balance skills. I pushed her just a bit too hard and she checked out. I could have pulled out Fred, but this was not a "oh look a bunny" distraction issue. She was stressed. So we took a break, played, did some easy tricks and games and then went back to it refreshed and made a couple major leaps forward in her understanding.

The difference between the two is the emotion and motivation of the dog. In the first situation Reyna thought playing by herself might be more fun, so I showed her it wasn't. In the second situation Reyna was stressed and telling me she needed a break for a minute to clear her head, and we did.

After those two successes I am feeling a little more courageous, but I still have to be very deliberate and thoughtful with the use of Fred, it is a punisher after all.