Post date: Mar 18, 2009 3:50:11 AM
Where we last left off, Trevor was stopped in the middle of the weave poles in Fresno, sniffing. To people who have only seen him at agility trials, it must have seemed shockingly out of character. To his Rally friends, however, it was unfortunately a familiar sight. Thanks to the AKC's secret policy of holding Rally trials on top of gopher colonies, I regret to say that I have walked Trevor off Rally courses more than once.
I was horrified to see that our Rally problems had spread to agility. Agility was supposed to be sacrosanct, how could Trevor not know that? Two days later, my obedience instructor Denise and I tackled the issue during our weekly lesson.
Well, that part was easy. Where DIDN'T I go wrong? My first mistake was going to Fresno, but never mind that.
On Saturday in Fresno when Trevor stood up at the start line in JWW, I didn't correct him and I ran him anyway. But it really started the previous weekend in Dixon at the Mt. Diable trial. He was slow and distracted on JWW there too. The return to grass after being indoors all winter was simply too enticing.
When he stood up to sniff and Fresno on Sunday, I really did not "have a dog," as Denise would say. I should not have proceeded. That was the day he came to a dead stop in the weaves.
So I had screwed up, and I had to figure out what to do differently going forward. Obviously, I couldn't let Trevor break his start line stay in the future. If he did it again, I would go back and correct him, and then run with him. If he broke a second time, I would walk him off.
But that still left the question of tone. Clearly something was breaking down in my relationship with Trevor. Should I be correcting him more sharply? Conversely, should I be cheerleading him around the agility course to get a little more energy and motivation? Denise and I talked about it.
Inform, don't persuade
Especially in obedience, I often find myself in the mode of trying to get Trevor's attention through my tone of voice. Mean mommy didn't work? Try nice mommy. Wheedling. Talking to Denise, I decided to move to a more informational mode. Not "you broke your start line stay, BAD DOG!!" or "plleeeasssse sit back down, please?" More like "I just noticed that you broke your start line stay. That's a violation of the rules. Correct immediately or face the consequences." No emotional charge.
Communicating information applies once the run starts too. Sniffing during the run? Not okay. Hurry up. Trevor has a tendency to split his attention between me and his surroundings. Speaking of which...
Give attention, reward attention
Everyone knows this. We've all been doing it ever since our dogs were puppies. Haven't we? My epiphany came when Denise made me practice "stand for exam." I was to leave Trevor, and then Denise would go over and do the exam. I was supposed to wait until he looked at me and then throw him the ball. Rewarding attention. This made me think: how consistent am I about rewarding his attention on the agility field? How many times have I released him when he was staring off into the distance? How often do I get distracted by trying to remember the course and fail to pay attention to him during the run?
When I think about our last few weekends, I feel like there were many times when I lost my focus on Trevor and bad things happened. As Denise observed, when I disconnect from him during our lessons (for example, to talk to her), he quickly checks out and resorts to recreational sniffing. He seems to need a high level of connectedness and attention (at this point, anyway) to be successful.
He is also a reserved, somewhat cautious dog who craves and responds to structure. Trevor loves the rules. I can't be lazy or sloppy.
It was against this backdrop that Trevor and I went to the Vallejo DTC trial in Dixon last weekend.
Our first run was jumpers. I did a very short leadout. Trevor went off course multiple times. It was pretty funny. Every time we started a new segment of the course, he took an extra jump. But he was energetic and engaged! I was happy with how he did.
Then he Qed on Std, our first Std Q since coming back from his broken toenail. So I was happy about that, though there was a sniffy part at the beginning of the course where I came close to losing him. But I got to practice informing him that he was breaking the rules. :)
I was really hoping we could stay for FAST since for once the course looked doable, but after waiting around all day I had to leave to pick Kelly up at the airport.
On Sunday, we had our showdown. I did a short leadout on jumpers, and he started sniffing the grass. I reprimanded him. He stood up! At that point I had no choice but to go back, correct him, and run with him. Lucky for us, the first 4 jumps were in a pretty straight line, so I was able to keep him on course without a leadout. He ended up Qing, and he Qed in Std too.
Here we are in jumpers.
We NQed on FAST. It was a layered send bonus, and Trevor did the near jump instead of the far jump. As he should have, per Moe's handling system.
Anyway, information and attention. That's our new theme.