Our Journey

Well, now that Riley is doing so much better, he has been getting into more and more things. Pulling dishes out of the sink, pans off the back of the stove, etc. Unfortunately it also causes me to get a little lax in giving him his supplement treats. I had forgotten like 5 days in a row when I left a carton of eggs on the counter while I ran over to my Mom's to have a cup of coffee. Well of course, I came home to egg juice all over the house. Lovely. Riley ate 12 raw eggs. I really didnt think anything of it, I have heard of people feeding their dogs raw eggs, and my husband used to eat raw eggs all of the time. Well I came home to Riley just wanting to be outside eating grass so that he would throw up. So I left him outside while I took Kenzie to agility class. I came home late and Steve and Riley were already asleep. The next morning Riley was lame in his right hind leg, and very weak in his other hind leg.I had to carry him outside to do his business, and then back in a well.  He looked to be in a LOT of pain, so I ran him to the vet. She said that he has a fluxating patella (moving knee cap), and that if it causes him pain, he would need surgery from a specialist. Very bad news, since it was obviously causing him a lot of pain. But I kept thinking about when Riley was really young and he got into the organic fertilizer. That caused him to vomit and then be lame in his hind legs the next day too (though not as painfully as this time), so I was REALLY hoping that Riley has always had the fluxating patella (but the supplements keep it from being too big a deal), and that he was just dehydrated, or whatever happened with the fertilizer was happening again, causing the lameness. I made him some electrolyte water and some extra of his supplement hoping that with some rest he would improve. Well, he woke up this morning full of energy and using his back legs no problem!!! He doesnt seem to be in ANY pain!!! SO exciting! So I guess it was just those stupid eggs that threw him off. It just shows me how badly he could be doing, if I did not have him on his supplements. I am so glad that I have that for him!

 

 
Kenzie did great at her first trial! We did have a little fallback from the stress to deal with afterward (jumping at every sound), so we went back to the thundershirt/music regime for a few days, and then she was fine. On the way to the trial I gave a speech about how relaxed I was, and how it did not matter how we did, we were just there to have fun, etc. Once we got there and went to get measured etc, there were dogs milling around everywhere. She was stressed, but not aggressive, so that was good. I then massaged her while we waited for our first run. I left her with a bully stick to work while I went to walk the course, then came back to get her when it was getting close to our time to run. I massaged her at the gate while waiting at the gate after warming up. She completely relaxed on the ground for me to massage her, even while surrounded by pumped up agility dogs! When it was time to go in I showed her the toy, then tossed it behind me and went in. To sum up this first run, she was VERY relaxed on the field....slow, not zoned in, and loopy. I expected wayyy too much from her while planning our run (it was a gamblers course), so it was a rather rough run for us both. She did hit her dog walk contact though =) 

For the following runs I decided to try to ramp her up beforehand, to see if I could get her back in that zoned in place, but it just didnt happen. She did get a little more zoned in as the day went along, we actually placed twice and got 3 Q's. She always ran with me, such a good girl, even if her mind was not all there. She was doing great in Snooker until I messed up and took her the wrong way!!! Ugh, I have been out of the ring for too long!

I mostly noticed that I did not have a strong enough reinforcer with me in the ring to get her to focus on me, rather than ALL THAT NEW STUFF OUT THERE!!!!!  When we finished running, I had to have my mom at the finish waiting for me with a tennis ball so we could sprint out to the back area to play fetch.

So, I decided three areas can be improved upon:
1). Go to more trials so that it is not all such a big deal
2). Practice getting ramped up for agility, so that we both have that routine
3). Increase tug drive, so that I do have a reward with me in the ring

Okay, so how to do these:
1). Obviously just go to more trials. I'm not going to worry about this one too much, it will come with time.
2). I know that going into Kenzie's agility field at home is a major reward, so I decided to begin a routine of putting the agility leash on, asking her if she is READDDYYY????, then go to the gate, open it, then get her all ramped up and say "OKAY" when she reaches her most worked up, then enter the field quickly and put her on the startline just like I would at a trial. After a week of doing this, she now knows that she needs to be barking her head off and growling to enter the field, so that is what she does =D
3). Okay, so to increase her tug drive, I knew that I needed to put all throwing toys away, so that her play need was not being met by those. I also googled how to increase toy drive (yes even trainers call upon google occasionally). I found a great paragraph on how someone trained their dog how to tug by shaping it. She said she learned it from her teacher, but didnt say a name, so I dont know who to actually give credit to, just know that this was not originally my idea. 

Begin by shaping your dog to pick up rope. Hold it in your hand, when she touches it, click treat, then when she opens her mouth and touches a tooth to it, click treat, then when she picks it up, click treat. Once your dog is picking it up out of your hand, then just close your hand over it, then let go when she pulls, c/t, then wait till she pulls a little harder, then a little harder, until she is pulling really really hard to get it out of your hand, and whalla! Your dog is tugging. I also will sometimes not pick the rope back up and let her bring it to me to start the game of tug-for-a-treat. I started doing this before dinner every night one week ago, and took it outside for the first time today. So I did our usual routine of getting her all worked up before entering the field, then went in this time with no toy, just a braided rope leash. We took off and did a quick course, then ended with me throwing the rope leash over a jump. She ran to it and I said "get it!" and she brought it right over to me and we tugged tugged tugged! When I let her win, she just kinda looked up at me and I said "GOOD GIRL!!!!", then grabbed the rope and started again. I let her win two times, then decided that I was going to win! I pulled and pulled and screamed YOU GIVE ME THAT TOYYYYYYY!!!!! (I got this from a very cute video by Susan Garret found on youtube). I smacked her up a bit and grabbed her like I do when we played, oh ohh boy did she love it!!!  Once I did get it from her I said "LETS GO!" and ran her around the course the other way, then threw the toy again, repeated the tug game, then called it a day. I was SOOOO happy!!!!  Before last week when we started training this, she had never tugged on a leash for more than a couple seconds, and that only half heartedly! 

When I started training this stronger tug, I also started researching what kind of leash I wanted to have. I decided to get into leash making, and I have had a blast!

SOOOO, it has been a while since I updated you all on our agility progress. We have now been to 3 fun trials, where Kenzie learned what the whole trialing thing was. At the first two fun trials she was what I call "loopy", which just means that she ran with only 5% of her brain focused on me, the rest of it was focused on everything else = /  So she just ran very wide, though she did stay with me, which is more than it could have been. Then, a couple weeks ago we went to her third fun trial, and she ROCKED IT!!!!!  She was so tuned into me, and I her, it was awesome. She hit ALL of her dog walk contacts (4) and all but one A-frame (6), and had an awesome teeter every time as well. I was SO happy. 

So we are now working on getting faster weaves and higher drive through the course. I have found that as long as I trust her, Kenzie is pretty darn consistent on her DW contact. We have our first real trial this weekend!!! It is USDAA, and we have 5 runs, so that should give me a pretty good idea on how consistent her contacts are right now. I am super pleased with her teeter performance as of late. She was going very slowly, but then I stopped working on it at home, and only did the teeter during class or fun runs, and I guess because her drive was so high, it no long seemed a big deal that it dropped.So she just runs to the end and holds her two on two off beautifully. So now I just make sure not to practice it too often. It is too easy for her to practice crawling on it during at home practice when she is not as hyped up. 

Kenzie's reactivity to other dogs is going okay. She did have a set back at this last fun trial, not that she aggressed really, she was just very very on edge afterward, and she did not get over it before out group class two days later, so that just made it worse, and then it took an entire week. after that of thundershirt/massage/music therapy to get her over it. But she did great the next week in group class, so we will see how she does this weekend. 

So we have just started our agility group classes with a trainer in Stockton. It is SO funny to watch Kenzie "show off" to the other dogs. I am shocked at how fast she is when we are in a group setting. Of course this could just be that she is a little "on edge", so her adrenaline is pumping, making her run faster, but either way, I am very happy with it. Now that we have the performance of the individual obstacles down, we are now on the very fun process of fine tuning our team performance. Learning how to read each other, to best work fluidly as a team. I love our new trainer here, she is a very good people trainer =)  Certainly the hardest part of any dog trainer's job description.

SOOOO, Kenzie is rocking 12 weaves!!!! It is so exciting to now be working on speed, more difficult entries, and independent performance. Kenzie is also making great progress on the Dog Walk running contact. We are now able to go jump, tunnel, full dog walk, toy. We are working up to full speed, not quite there yet, but I am very happy with our progress. We start A-frame training in 2 days, as well as introducing the chute. Her teeter performance still is not as quick as I would like...I will be working on that the next few weeks as well.

Ok, so I have been working on weaves and contacts for about a month now, if you take out my traveling for the conference for a week, and now recovering from surgery. I am finally starting to be able to work outside with Kenzie again, albeit slightly dizzy, and moving very little, and slowly at that. =(

We are making great headway in both areas. Kenzie has been running the full height dogwalk starting from the middle of the top plank for about a week.  

We are just about to 6 straight poles, with front x, rear x, and shoulder turn, as well as sending to the entrance from parallel to 6th pole on both sides (very advanced entries). She did it all on 4 straight poles, and 6 very very slightly turned poles.  

The tricks are going well, Kenzie is finally "sitting pretty" on her own, it took her quite a while to have the confidence to try to balance herself. I am still working on a really strong paw swiping over the eyes/nose, I call it "shy?". She does it great while lying on her side, but we are working on it while sitting or standing now. She has "say your prayers" down! I think that is her favorite trick as of now, it is really cute.

Oh, so new news, I had to go pick Max up from his adopted family...=(  This is the little guy who had been deemed unadoptable, then we fostered him for 8 months (in which time he bit no-one), and then we found what we thought was a perfect home for him with a terminally ill woman about 30 min away. Well  it turns out that there were some things not reveled to me about her lifestyle and health issues that made Max not appropriate for her as a pet. So he bit her while I think she was pulling him off of someone else, and now she is afraid of him. So I picked him up on friday. She said that he was getting worse instead of better (which of course he was, since he was not being aggressive at all when she got him). So I took him back with me. I was expecting to have a very stressed out puppy on my hands, but he really wasn't. He is pretty chill, and has not so much as raised a lip at the other dogs, which is HUGE.  So anyway, I am now taking him back to square one of people reactivity training, and we are going to be using the BAT method. He is getting clicked for having the courage to look at the guest right now, and that seems to be working well, because he actually tries to trick me by turning his head toward the guest, but not looking with his eye balls! Silly boy. But this tells me a lot, that it is difficult for him to look at the guest. He is a lot more uncomfortable than he seems (his mo is to run up to guests and roll on his back to be petted, but then gets spooked and turns into attack mode). People think, oh look how friendly he is! But really he just needs to be ignored until he is comfortable enough to ask for his head to be petted (then if he does get scared, he does not feel trapped like when he is on his back). Anyway, he is being a really good boy so far. I was afraid that he would be back to square one, peeing all over the house and attacking my dogs again, but he isnt! WHEW! lol

Oh, and I got my large stuffed dog! It is FREAKY!!! It feels and looks like a real dead dog. It worked well for my reactive client, we were able to see of the dog was friendly and was just a frustrated greeter, or if she was actually afraid and reactive. It turns out she was just a frustrated greeter, which has totally different training than reactive dogs, but the behavior looks identical (crazy barking and lunging at end of leash). So that was pretty cool. I will be using it tomorrow in my reactive dog class, doing BAT.

Oh, and other new news (boy I am just full of it today!) I took Kenzie to her first agility trial this weekend. It was indoors and pretty large, held in an arena. It took us about 2hrs to get in the doors, doing the zen down when she started to get stressed. Once we got inside she did not do too well, so we left for about an hr. When we came back, she was much more calm. We were actually able to get all the way inside, and settle on the outside of the ring and watch the dogs run, while surrounded by other dogs! That was sooo cool. I could not have gotten there though without the "zen down". It worked wonders to help her trust me to protect her.

Here is my recipe for dog treats, I finally wrote it down as I was making them! Unfortunately for anyone who is trying to repeat one of my "creations", I am a throw-it-together, we-dont-need-no-stinking-measuring devices, kind of person. But I did finally buckle down and write things out as I did them.

Things you need:
Ground Turkey Meat: 5.25lbs
Oats: 4 Cups
Bone Meal (optional): 1.25 cups
Powdered or Minced Garlic: 2 Tbsp
Freezer baggies

You want a ratio of 1 cup of flour to 1lb of ground meat. You can make the flour whatever you want. I use ground oats and bone meal for my dogs, but you could just as easily make it out of wheat flour, it just would not be quite as healthy.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Grind up oats in food processor until in a flour-like texture, pour to a very large bowl. Add human grade bone meal powder and garlic and mix well. Then add the raw, ground turkey meat. Mix mix mix until all of the flour is mixed in with the meat. It will seem too dry and impossible, but just keep mixing! You can stop when there is no more free flour in the bottom of the bowl or the outside of the meat ball.

Press into a cookie sheet until flat the the thickness that you want. I do not grease my cookie sheet as the meat is greasy enough. Cook at 350 until when you take a fork and look at the middle of the center of meat and it looks cooked. For my 5.25lbs it took approx 25 min. Let cool for about 30 minutes, or until cool enough to handle safely. 

Once cool enough, cut into the size you want for treats, and fill freezer baggies with them. I cut the whole thing, then use a spatula to remove from tray and put into baggies. I then just pull them out of the freezer when I need them, and if I do not use them all, it goes into the fridge to be used the next day. It will usually keep about a week in the fridge.

So, I have been pulling my hair out trying to make the trkman method of Running Contacts work for us. It has been 6 months, 3 of which I worked on it very diligently. I did not know what I was going to do, when a completely new method came to me (as far as I know its new, anyway). It seems so obvious, but simple in regards to training theory. While I was excited to try this new method, a part of me thought that it was pointless, because who am I? How could I come up with my own method that is better than all of the methods created by such wonderful trainers all over the world? But then I went to Bible Study this morning, and was reminded of the verse: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me". I know that I was called (meant to) to train Running Contacts, so is it so hard to believe that God would show me the way to train them??? Duh! I have decided to call myself: Mandy Miller Christian, and this method the Christian Method. This is to remind myself that I did not come up with it, Christ just chose to reveal it to me.

So that is all I am going to say about it as of right now. The rainy season just hit, so it is going to be interesting working out in the rain all fall =)