A big change is about to happen at The Old Potting Shed.
We have fenced off an area to the right of the field to create a new and separate agility field. Mainly this has been done with the thought of keeping our own dogs off of it when they are up the field. This along with a bit of pressure from a few people has also helped me consider my agility training in a more serious way. Up until now since we've moved up here I have done agility training mostly as one to one's with clients gained by word of mouth.
It has been great and I have some lovely clients who have accomplished what they wanted to this year.
Something was missing though. For years I had been a club trainer or a guest trainer working with groups.
In regular groups there is a different dynamic that feeds off that competitiveness within us. We discuss this effect on our Sports Psychology Seminars. As the group develops a camaraderie grows and each person becomes involved in the others in the groups journey. This feeds the group and pulls it forward at a different rate than is possible in one to one's or one off training sessions.
In turn this added energy drives me to gain the best I can from each of them and ultimately me. We all have ownership and responsibility, even emotional involvement that makes every little success a shared success and therefore more rewarding. I run a couple of groups that came about by accident which I really enjoy and those people enrich each others training so it is only a small step to develop this further. My one to one's are still special and I will ensure I keep times available for them too. One to one's bring forward a different strength within my coaching skills and I am so proud of all of my students who have developed into very confident handlers who enjoy competing and are getting the best out of their partnership with their dogs.
The adverts are out now and a couple of groups are already full and I'm looking forward to a great "off" season with loads to work on getting ready for the new season next year. I like to think of names for things and am known for my corny suggestions. As our house is called The Old Potting Shed I am thinking my group should be called TOPS or is that a bit presumptuous?
September is nearly here and summer nearly over. This year started so well with Rhyme kicking off the year with brilliant performances in champ and Pikachu surprising me by winning her first out door competition.
Elsewhere in my agility world we had great Agility Team GB tryouts, training days and EO's we'e got the AWC still to come in October in The Czech Republic.
The EO Junior event in Luxembourg was every bit as good as Mark had lead me to believe and these youngsters were so inspiring.
Sadly all that inspiration as been lost for me and my dogs. Rhyme is not agility sound and Pikachu has delighted in exploring what fun she can have looking for treats in and around score tents and then laughing at my attempts to catch her.
Rhyme's unfitness is not likely to be life threatening but his X-rays may throw up something that may be life changing. I love agility and think that learning it and competing at it should be available to all but also appreciate that it is a physical sport. There is much to strive towards and so many aspects to improve on within your partnership with your dog not to mention your own physical and mental skills. Never a dull moment and always things to plan to do.
The only stopping factor for me is if my want to achieve could damage my dog. To an untrained eye Rhyme was fine but his movement was wrong. My various professional helpers sorted his presenting problem in his shoulders. Next it was to be gently back to agility. Straight line low jumps were fine but on a low jump with a slight turn I heard him "humph" and knew that wasn't right. Further observations showed he wasn't engaging his rear legs just pulling himself over the jump with all his front end. A quick visit to our McTimoney Chiropractor identified heat in his shoulders again and she wasn't happy about his left hip. Is that his problem? I have him booked in for X-rays tomorrow as a starting point. My hope is that there is nothing on the X-ray that suggests doing agility could cause him harm. Yes I may have missed a season and several competitions I was working towards but if he has something that we can work on then I have a whole winter and a lot of help to learn what we need to do to get and keep him fit for next year. If it's something that may mean a slip or sudden jolt might make him worse then its no agility for him. Then the learning will be finding another hobby for an active 7 year old collie. So the optimist in me has plans and won't allow any feeling of pessimism to get the better of me. Well maybe a little tear or two .......
I had also plans of getting a puppy this year but feel that whatever happens with Rhyme will take up any spare time I have. Too often we hear the phrase from people that they have too many dogs and know that although they give all to the dogs they have there is only a certain amount of hours in a day no matter how much love you have to give. I hope to have enough strength to not fall into that trap although know that sometimes puppies come along that can't be said no to ;)
On that topic Pikachu has motivated me to change a few things. I've organised a monthly group training session with a top instructor in our field to train her with others around. A step in helping her understand that whatever distractions are around doing agility with me is the best thing. We didn't get Pikachu as an agility dog yet she grew into a shape that would suit it and loves activity. Believe it or not at home she wants to be wherever I am and will walk round our field just tugging, she gets out of her bed and grabs her tuggy, a shoe or my even my trouser leg. She has no issues with playing. She wants to work and learn equally for a toy or a treat and can tug with a treat in my hand.
There is lots there to encourage me that she can learn to be a great agility dog. The current challenge is that she has somehow decided that when I release her from the start line at a show she needs to check out behind the score tent or run off somewhere else on the course. This in turn is teaching me not to want to compete with her.
There are a few day to day routines that I would have done differently with Pikachu had we got her with agility in mind. I am not sure I can change her understanding of what is fun. Whether I ever get round to competing with her again I don't know.
I mentioned one reason I would not do competitive agility would be if it was potentially harmful to a dog, the other would be if my dog didn't enjoy the competition environment. Pikachu is displaying to me that somehow I am putting pressure on her at a show and that makes it more fun to run off than to run with me. I will put a lot of training into her this winter and see what happens next year. I have had loads of help and support from small dog handlers some of whom have had similar problems and overcome them. There are training in the ring shows close by in the winter that will help too. I have learnt that I have a stubborn streak too so will not give up lightly and whatever we do I will learn lots about the best way to get the best out of Pikachu even if it just ends up being the best she can be on our field.
Wow the season has definitely started here in the Laker household. After a couple of back to back seminars my own Sports Psychology skills have certainly been revised. Our own dogs have started the season looking amazing. Even though Crufts didn't go to plan the boys looked very fit. (Searched 'looking fit' on google and thought yes this will do 😉)
Mark and I both have young dogs at the same time which is something we haven't done before. Plus with one in a different height there is loads of learning to do. On top of that I started judging last year and have had a couple of judging appointments this year already.
I know the rules and keep abreast of any changes for myself as a competitor. It is a different ball game for me to focus on these rules whilst watching 100's of dogs for a whole day. Becoming a judge involves a couple of days training to earn your certificate. With quite a few others attending there is no way to practice or test the mental stamina that is required. And then there is the things that you couldn't anticipate happening and how to deal with them.
Lastly there is nothing to prepare you for the slating that you will receive on social media if you do happen to make a mistake.
Luckily I had two appointments back to back and was able to experience a more normal judging day with good decisions this weekend. That has strengthened my resolve to become a good judge. I have spoken to a senior, experienced, long standing judge about my decision at Wyre to restart the class due to a timing issue and allow the first few competitors to re-run from scratch. Once I explained the situation she totally agreed with my decision. Whether the decision was right or not matters a lot to me - I would not deliberately do anything to give any competitors an unfair advantage. To be fair in the grand scheme of life if the decision had been wrong bleating about it on Facebook is not the way forward. Any judges walking the course could have easily approached me about the timing gates BEFORE the class had started or somebody could have recorded it in the incident book for future learning. An Honest Mistake
I would rather it hadn't happened but I am trying my best and learning with every appointment. The worst that happened was one person qualified for an event that their first run might not have. (I say might not as they only had 5 faults the first run and a dog with 5 faults did qualify anyway) What a lovely bonus for them to have a second chance after doing a near perfect round with one jump down on the first attempt. What a bonus for a few people to have another go at the course. Who can begrudge a few G1-3 handlers having another chance? Hats off to the ring party who dealt with it all so well too. Those capable of qualifying will no doubt have other qualifiers this season and if not I do apologise as I would have to your faces had you spoken directly to me.
This weekend we had the opposite where a lovely lady and her happy dog did a beautiful clear only to find out the timing didn't work. On her re-run the dog had the first pole down. She was disappointed as anyone would be. We're hoping her bad luck with that will turn around for good luck next week in a qualifier she's going to. Meanwhile they did another beautiful run in a later class gaining a high place and I'm confident we'll see more of that partnership.
My forte in judging is my course design. I love setting a course that will assess a dog's key skills and the handlers understanding of the dogs path to get the fastest route. Wyre was a real challenge as the rings are quite a bit smaller. I spent hours setting up our own equipment in our field, moving it around and running various dogs around it or parts of it to get it right. I needed a course that met the new distances, all the other KC rules and was of course safe. On top of that minimum movement of equipment to keep the different classes running through smoothly. Ring party, show organisers and least of all competitors do not really want to be at a show past 6:00pm at the latest. Those that thought I should have rebuilt the course and got everyone to re-walk it may not have appreciated that I simply did not have another planned G1-3 course ready to fit all the above criteria and it would add at least another hour to the end of the day. As one of our friends likes to say - 300 million people didn't die. However if I was not such a determined person then my judging career could have.
Luckily for me this weekend at Agility Nuts Show my courses ran as I'd designed them and I received many compliments on my courses. I felt I kept my focus for over 90% of the time and am confident my contact calls were right. I had 2 scribes that were also judges that if I had any blips of confidence were there smiling and encouraging - thank you Natalie and Anne. We had a dog walking over the long jump that we looked in the book to clarify our decision on and I know that one for next time too. I've still got 2 judges appointments to do this year and I'm looking forward to them. How our dogs did will need to wait for another post now but I'm very happy to report Torro got 3rd in Veterans, Rhyme got a 2nd & a 3rd in G7, Devo got 3rd (when I was 2nd oh yes!!) and a 2nd (when I was 3rd normal business resumed), Moog got more and more experience and oh yes, Pikachu went clear and won the class.
She's smashed my targets for the year though so I now need to sit down and write some more or sit back and let the rest of the season drift about to see where it gets us ;)
Something that I have been thinking about is when dogs are put back on contacts in the ring it is deemed "training in the ring". Some judges will send you out after, others will let you continue.
But IS it actually training in the ring, which quadrant of operant conditioning are you using and what is the dog being trained by this behaviour?
With modern positive dog training techniques being used widely in most training schools these days we use positive reinforcement to get our dogs to perform the desired behaviour within agility.
Take a stopped contact. The dog stops on the contact and we give it some kind of reward - a treat, a play with their tuggy etc. We focus on making the contacts a great place to be and then check our dogs understanding with various proofing methods which usually result in the dog getting a reward for the correct action.
I understand training to be setting a situation up for my dog to do the correct response to which I give him a positive reward.
What happens when we go to a show and the dog does something different to what you wanted it to?
I frequently see people stopping their dog from going further, placing them back on the end of a contact and then either leaving the ring or carrying on.
If it is training lets explore which part of Skinners operant conditioning this may fall under.
Positive re-inforcement - adding something the dog enjoys to encourage that behaviour again. Putting the dog back on the contact and praising (unable to give other type of reward in a competition).
Negative reinforcement - taking away something that was undesirable to the dog. Shouting at the dog and not stopping until it is back on the contact.
Positive punishment - adding something unpleasant to stop a behaviour. To some dogs this can be something as small as a rebuke. In extreme cases it is a physical reprimand. So if you tell your dog off for jumping off the contact you are using positive punishment for that action.
Negative punishment - taking away something that the dog is finding rewarding. Stopping the dog from continuing on the course which it is finding rewarding to place it back on the contact.
So now you have considered which quadrant of operant conditioning you may be using on your dog when putting them back on contacts in the ring, lets look at what we have possibly trained the dog. I say possibly as I suggest the dog is not actually learning what is trying to be taught.
Picture the perfect stopped dog walk contact - drive up, along and down the 3 planks until the dog reaches the bottom where it stops confidently waiting for the release command.
Consider the approach, your position, the next obstacle and your position in relation to the next obstacle. The dogs strength both physically and mentally in its understanding. What is going on in the next ring, where the judge is and any other external circumstances. Is the perfect stopped dog walk contact really an easy decision for a dog to understand and make?
When your dog missed the stop did you realise you were flailing your arms and out of position? Did you see the dog race through the tunnel in the next ring? Did you notice your dog loose it's footing slightly along the down plank? Just a few observations and any one of these plus a hundred more could make your dog fail in its performance.
Once the contact is missed and the dog brought back everything has changed. The dog will not be moving at the same speed, you will be in a different position etc etc. Nothing will be the same.
Are you teaching the dog to cope with the things it failed on or have you just given your dog a whole different picture to deal with? Will your dog understand it failed or maybe it will think the process is to leap off and then rush back to be put back on?
I have no answers to these questions, no golden pill for getting contacts once a dog gets confused with them in the ring. I too have stopped a dog when I felt it did not understand its criteria. I believed in that instance more confusion would arise if my dog continued to fail without me having opportunity to break the behaviour down and then use positive reinforcement to regain understanding.
A few years ago Mark withdrew Kodi from competition for several months to go to shows where he could take a toy with him into a ring and help Kodi understand his job better. He had been marked for a high contact at a main event. If it wasn't good enough for the judge then he needed a better performance. The following year he won his final 2 tickets and was made up to Agility Champion Bekkis Carbon Copy :)
In contact sessions at our club we used various proofing methods around the performance in an environment where if the dog gets it right it can have a jackpot reward and if the dog fails it can try again with the same distraction or with a slightly lesser distraction. An example is throwing a football along the ground as the dog comes over the apex of the Aframe. If the dog fails it can be changed to just having the ball dropped or thrown after dog in position etc until dog can learn to maintain criteria even when the ball is thrown.
Those are examples of what I consider to be training.
Below is a lovely run that Rhyme gave me where I rewarded his criteria of waiting for the release with an exciting ready, steady go that he has learned to love. Is it training in the ring or just reinforcing the behaviour I want in a testing environment?
As I said I don't know that I have the answers to the questions I have raised so your comments and own thoughts are appreciated.
If you are struggling to think of ideas of how to up the anti in training environments where you can train your dog successfully to avoid the need to think about replacing your dog on contacts please drop me an email and we can see if we can arrange a training session or two :)
The lovely generous people from UpAndOver Agility Dogs clubbed together to get us a very lovely Christmas present (as usual). Now I know it may seem like a while since Christmas but we have only just managed to arrange to collect it. Last year's present - the flight in a Helicopter didn't happen until August.
This year we have a voucher for a photo from Pet-o-graphy. He specialises in taking photo's on a white background and, although each dog is taken individually, can then group them.
It makes for a stunning photo so you can imagine how gorgeous our lot will look.
The individual photo's were taken this weekend at AJAX.
For one who once spent an hour getting the dogs to stand in a group to get a decent photo by a lake this sounded, in principle an easy task. All I had to do was take the dogs one at a time to his stand then get them to sit and look for head shots and then lie down sideways for the group set up.
First up Devo who has brilliant start line waits but absolutely no understanding of doing a sit wait on the photographers sheet. Result - harassed handler and photographer ( Chris) thinking how am I going to get through this.
Next the gorgeous Flint who is very photogenic and behaved beautifully. Result - absolutely brilliant photos and faith restored that I could actually control my dogs.
Next Chris thought it would be easier to bring 2 dogs over at once - entrance Kodi and Torro.
Kodi thought this was a very serious business and looked suitably intelligent and serious. Chris questioned if that was what he's really like as although the photo's were good something didn't seem right. Spot on Chris - Kodi is a real show off so serious intelligent look does not suit. We got him doing some tricks. Result - you'll have to wait and see but it is sooo worth it :)
Torro was a star and luckily decided the hair and ears slicked back Edwardian look (his normal photo expression) was not required today. Result - Torro at his handsomest showing off his beautiful eyes.
Next up was Rhyme. 2 things to remember about Rhyme - he doesn't come back when called and he loves the world more than coming back when called. Armed with this information it would seem fairly obvious to anyone NOT to take his lead off so why.............
Result - Rhyme in ring with lovely little terrier. Not just any ring, he has got style, it was the Tug E Nuff agility qualifier. Thank goodness the Masters had finished. Exit a very red faced Karen Laker. I was so embarrassed I rushed off without fully apologising - sorry sorry sorry.
So Rhyme and Christie who wasn't there that day will be getting their photo's done at Shuttleworth :)
Absolutely brilliant is all I can say about Mark & Kodi at Crufts this year.
On grass during last year with Mark not being fully fit Kodi was not matching the times of the top 10 dogs and we did wonder if his age was going to mean a reduction of the brilliant performances we'd seen when he was younger.
Since his in clandestine meeting with a certain Wren he seems to have got something off his chest (or other area) and has regained much of his speed and power.
Much credit must go to Mark's psychology learning - he's a good student and can definitely practice what he preaches. Knowing how many very good fast dogs were there and being 5 faults down in the first round (a dampener for many people) he pulled off an amazing agility run in the 2nd round and therefore gaining a place in the final.
Still with such an impressive line up it is credit to him and Kodi to step up to the line and so very nearly do the double. Dawn and Breezer did an brilliant run with running contacts so to be so close is awesome.
Well done Kodi and Mark - I'm very proud of you both :) :)
This time of the year seems really bleak and dark,
but we have snowdrops in bloom and daffodil buds waiting for the sunshine to open them, giving a promise of the spring to come.
The other pointers to the approaching season is having the last of our scheduled in house training days (lovely feedback thanks) and the fight to secure camping at shows LOL.
We still have our regular training at Devon Dogs and our new regular training with Joy Costello's group to do.
We are lucky to be able to do all kinds of instructing - one to one's, weekly groups, seasonal regulars and one off training days (not many of those as we usually get asked back again).
I enjoy all types for different reasons.
At this time of year at club we go back to basics with even more places to reward your dog than you'd ever have thought possible. There is a slight buzz of excitement with
people looking forward for the competitions to start to see how they've progressed over the winter :)
Personally I am looking forward to Mid Downs to get in the ring and enjoy running Torro - no pressure to do well this early, just a chance to see if what we practised in the winter has put us in a good place.
Kodi is looking superb - last season he didn't seem right but is totally on one now.
Devo will be fun to watch develop, starting this year in Grade 5 - an exciting place to be.
I have entered Flint in quite a few any size so he should still be able to have some fun :)
Christie (nearly 16) nearly had a one way trip to the vets in January but has rallied round and hopefully will still be able to walk to the exercise area and back.
So BRING IT ON
Did somebody ask about Rhyme? - well I won't start talking about him again or I'll turn into Tolstoy.
