Bridget Carlsen Seminar

This weekend I spent auditing an obedience training seminar given by Bridget Carlsen.  Bridget is consistently one of the top obedience competitors in the country.  Her accomplishments are impressive (many OTCH’s, MACH, MH, etc).  One of her current dogs is the first-ever OTCH Norwich Terrier.  This was not a high-drive dog when she got him.  Now he’s an amazing little bundle of focused energy.

I really enjoyed this seminar.  It was well worth the money, and early weekend mornings.  I am not a morning person, and I rely on weekends to catch up on my sleep, so getting up before 5am on both Saturday and Sunday and me feeling like it was worth it is a big deal!

So why did I enjoy Bridget so much?  Similar to Celeste Meade and Sylvia Bishop, Bridget trains for attitude.  Her dogs love, love, LOVE to work, and it shows. 

As you know, I struggle with attitude with Ziggy.  Over the past 8 months (since the Celeste Meade workshop I attended last summer), I have been working on making Ziggy more bouncy, animated, happy, and attentive while working.  Z has gotten much bouncier and happier at home and at our kennel club building (where we go a lot), but when I take him to new places, or if he’s around a lot of other dogs, his energy level drops precipitously. 

So what did I learn that I think will help us?  Many things – but I intend to start by focusing on a few areas:  

- Building attitude using jackpotting and a cue word 

- Fun heeling games 

- Breaking exercises down into small pieces 

- A more militant approach to sniffing

So this post doesn’t get too long, today I’ll focus on the one I’ve already started with – jackpotting and use of a cue word.

Jackpotting

The thought behind jackpotting is that, since food can’t be taken into the ring for Rally, Obedience, or Agility, the dog needs to learn to work for a handler when the handler isn’t “packing” treats.  In order to do this, the dog needs to understand that even if they can’t see the food (or other highly desirable reward), that they will be rewarded. 

With jackpotting the dog learns that working without a constant stream of food can be fun, because there’s a little party with lots of treats and play if the dog performs well.  This little party with lots of cool stuff is the “jackpot.”  The dog’s thought should be, “when is she going to have the party?  I don’t know, but I better pay attention so I don’t miss it.”

I recently read a book (which I’ll review sometime soon, because I thought it was really good) that talked about jackpotting.  Bridget helped me understand it more, as she ties a cue word to the jackpot and has a system to build drive and want  connected to the jackpot and the cue word.

For Ziggy, I’m using food as his jackpot.  He doesn’t have a ton of play drive (we’re working on this), so right now we’re on food instead of toys.  I’m working with his breakfast & dinner as my training & jackpot time, so he’s nice and hungry and really wants to get that food.  The cue word I’m using is “supper.”  Any word could be used, but I’ve chosen supper because I think it’s a fun word to say over and over again in an excited tone (try it, “Supper! Supper!  Sup sup supper!  Who wants their supper?!” – isn’t that fun?!)

Phase 1

Right now Ziggy and I are in phase one –with the jackpot readily visible and on me.  This means that I have the dog bowl with his food in my hand as we’re working.  I trot around saying “do you want your supper?  Here’s your supper!  What do you want to do for your supper?” (basically I say supper a lot in an excited tone).  If he offers a high drive/excited behavior (leaping in the air for instance), I give him some of the food (“that’s what you do for your supper!  Good boy!  Here’s some supper!).  Then I’ll ask for a behavior (close, down, sit, stand, etc.).  If he does it with the same drive and enthusiasm, more supper comes his way (“great close, Ziggy!  Here’s some supper!  Yippee!).  I repeat this process until the food is gone.

I’ve done this three times now, and Ziggy seems to LOVE it!  Excitement, food, and work all at the same time!  I’ll continue in phase one until Ziggy understands that “supper” is an exciting word, and he’s consistently working with a lot of drive when I’m holding the bowl.  I want him to offer excited behaviors when I say the word “supper” – even if the food isn’t around.  This will show me that he’s connecting the cue word with the good times!

Next steps

For the next phases, I'll move the food bowl away from me, but in sight, and finally out of sight. 

In the end, Ziggy should work for me with high drive & enthusiasm – even if the food is far away, because he knows he’ll get the food and the fun.  Also, he should be really keyed up when I say the word “supper” – as we’ll have spent lots of time connecting the word to the party! I should also be much more fit, as this training method is an aerobic workout for the handler, as well :)

I’m really excited about this approach, as it helps with a couple of challenges I’m facing with Ziggy – lack of drive, and lack of attention without food.  It should also help me get over my attachment having food on me at all times.  I’ll admit that I feel less secure and confident when I don’t have a treat bag.  With food-lovers like Maggie & Ziggy, my treat bag serves as a bit of an “invisible leash” for me.

There are a couple of drawbacks to this method:  

- The Husband is now pretty sure that I’m insane (what kind of person runs around the with a food bowl in their hand, excitedly repeating the word supper supper?!?)

- I have to contain the other two dogs when I work on this.  Denzil gets to stay in his crate.  Maggie has to be outside because Maggie turns games like this into barkfests (she’s either the party police, or mad that she’s not in the game – I can’t tell which) and I can only take so much incessant barking.

I’ll let you know how it goes!!

Free: Therapeutic dog bed insert

While in India, I received this picture from The Husband with the caption, "Still, I will not lay on it."

That's it.   The Trio has spoken.  I've given up.  I've called it.  The expensive therapeutic dog bed has been taken out of service.

The dog bed cover is really nice, though, and it complements my decor.  I didn't want to get rid of it.  So what have I stuffed the dog bed cover with?  Down!!  The Trio's favorite bed (excepting the Pottery Barn Kids Anywhere Chair) is a Planet Dog down/feather bed that I got from a friend as a gift years ago.  When Ziggy was a naughty puppy, he chewed through the original cover, so my mom made a new one.  On Saturday I decided to wash that cover, only to discover that it was on its last legs as well. 

Rather than throw the down bed away, or make yet another cover for it, I had a "brilliant" idea.  I asked my mom (who was visiting) to make a new insert/case for the down.  She made it the right size to fit in the LLBean cover.  Then I transferred the down/feathers from the old bed case to the new one.  Voila!  A new down dog bed in the stylish LLBean cover!

Well, maybe "Voila!" is missing a few steps.  Here's what our front porch looked like after I finished the feather transfer (heck, that's pretty much what it still looks like).

And to think that at one point I thought doing the transfer inside the house might be the way to go...

The Child and I had a good time on the front porch playing with the feathers.  We discovered that it was fun to grab a handful of feathers, take them to the sidewalk, and throw them into the wind.  My, how far those feathers can fly!  (Sorry to my downwind neighbors.  No, a goose didn't meet a bad end in our cul-de-sac.)

As a final note -  if anyone wants the insert I'll bring it to the National Specialty with me.  It's barely been used!

But "mark" sounds a lot like "bark"

Here's a picture of what Maggie and Ziggy like to do in their off time (in a perfect world, the cat wouldn't be there):

Yesterday the brindles didn't get their normal amount of sofa time.  Instead, I took Maggie and Ziggy for a private lesson with our obedience instructor.  I missed our Utility class on Tuesday, and want to make sure I'm heading in the right direction with Maggie.  Ziggy and I can always use the extra help.

Maggie

She is doing really well on the signal exercise (including heeling).  She's also doing well on the first steps of directed jumping.

My instructor made the comment that Maggie is a "thinking" dog.  (My instructor really likes Maggie). This showed when we began to work with the gloves.  Maggie and I are starting with just one rolled up glove, working on the "mark" command.  I want her to look in the direction that I point when I say "mark."  First, we were using just one glove.  I'd throw it, say "mark" and send her on her way.  She learned this one really quickly, so we moved on to the same exercise, but with another glove laying out already.

She got this quickly, too, so we moved on to one glove placed (not thrown), and added in the turn.  We completed the turn, I gave her the hand signal and told her "mark."  She didn't quite know what to do.  I could tell she was really thinking.  I gave the command again.  I could see Maggie searching her database for the command.  She came up with "bark" she barked very gently and looked at me.  This cracked me up.  I have to say that "bark" is the closest of her other commands to "mark." Since she missed twice in a row, I took one step back (throwing the glove) so she could have success.

Maggie really seems to enjoy learning something new.

Ziggy

My instructor hasn't seen Ziggy in a while, as we've been working more on Rally and Agility lately.  She was pleasantly surprised with his progress.  His attention is better, and he is more animated during the exercises.  For the most part, he really seems to enjoy obedience!  We still have a long way to go, and Ziggy still has a very short attention span (his attitude seems to be, "we worked on this already, I'm done now"), but it's progress!!

She's not really thinking about it, is she?!?

Oh yes, yes I am.

Those of you who were "lucky" enough to see my outstanding (and not in a good way) brace performances at the National Specialty last year may be thinking to yourself, "what will it take for that woman to learn her lesson?"  Clearly, I haven't found an answer to that question, and I've got a better plan this year.  Maggie + Ziggy.

Last year I had:

Denzil + Maggie = really not pretty, but vaguely resembling a Novice test

Denzil + Ziggy = disastrous corgi frap-a-thon resulting in more than one premature "exercise finished" from the judge

Denzil was the common denominator, and the instigator of naughtiness.  

The only combination I haven't tried is Maggie + Ziggy.  

I haven't made the decision yet.  I have another week or so to figure it out....

_________________

For those of you who've never seen a brace competition - it's when a (barely sane) handler takes 2 dogs into the obedience ring and performs a Novice Obedience test.  The dogs can be disconnected (2 leashes), or connected via a coupler (shown above), with only one leash used.  As in Novice obedience, there's also an off leash portion of the test.  This is where things can go very badly wrong.

Ahh, it's good to be home again.

I made it back from India safely, but not without a bit of a hassle.  We arrived in Chicago after about 25 hours of travel only to find that our final flight had been cancelled.  The next available flight was 4 hours later.

I've been burned before in Chicago (waited for the later flight only to have it delayed), so my colleagues and I rented a car and drove home.  Thankfully there's a Starbucks at the Travel Oasis right outside of O'Hare, so we stopped for a couple shots of coffee and hit the road.  2.5 hours later we were at our local airport (I drove a little over the speed limit).  I love the flexibility of being able to drive home from O'Hare!

I arrived home to no find more snow on the ground.  It's mud season now, and the Trio are all looking (and smelling) a bit dingy.

Here's a pic taken about a week before I left.  I like this one of the Trio. Unusual to get one of all 3 together when they're not all on leash!

Home, Home!

I leave for the airport in 4.5 hours.  I'm still up packing, of course.  Well, not really packing, as I'm writing a blog post.  So really I'm procrastinating when I should be packing. 

Perhaps staying up late when I have to get up at 2am isn't the smartest thing to do.  But then again neither is eating a full Indian meal the night before I have to be on planes for close to 20 hours. 

But who cares?  Carpe diem!  Woo hoo!  I'm homeward bound to the human and canine pack.

Of course, tomorrow is a day that will last nearly 37 hours for me, so what's a bit of late night?

Anyway, back to dog posts soon!

(Don't miss my traffic post below - it will give you a look at things you won't see in US)

India Traffic

India traffic is a cultural experience.  The roads are crowded and the traffic signals, signs, and traffic control are few and far between.  Really few and far between.

Thankfully, our company doesn't let us drive whilst in India, so I don't have to deal with the traffic.  I've just learned to trust the driver, have my camera ready, and not be in a hurry to get anywhere.

On my last trip to India, I spent a LOT of time in the car.  Along the way I saw nearly every (or perhaps every) conceivable form of road transport.

In case you think I'm exaggerating,  here we go:

"Traditional" Motorized

See what I mean by bad traffic?

The best seats available.  And I mean seats.

It's a bus.  Not much to say here.

Entire family on motorcycle.  Note the woman riding sidesaddle.  I don't know how they stay on with all of the swerving required in India traffic!

 Moped turned sales vehicle.

"Non-Traditional" Motorized

Auto-rickshaw.  This one's empty.  I've seen more than a dozen passengers "in" one of these.

Tractor.  Why is this non-traditional?  Because tractors here often drive on the same roads as the cars - and not at "off peak" times.  And, it's used as the family station wagon when not used for farming.

"Traditional" Non-Motorized Transport

A cyclist.  There's lots of these.

The women here look beautiful even when walking on the roadside.

"Non-Traditional" Non-Motorized Transport

(Here's where it gets really fun )

Camel.

Donkey.

Elephant?!

Horse with a very fancy bridle.

Oxen.

Ok, so these water buffalo aren't pulling anything, but they are walking in the road.  So wouldn't they be considered "traffic"?

But don't worry.  If you get tired, just sleep in the road.  The cars, trucks, camels & scooters will go around you.