Flawless

Well, a flawless weekend of agility for Travis. We have just been so perfect lately. On Saturday, he won both of his classes to earn QQ #18 and today he won his standard class and earned a 2nd place in jumpers for QQ #19. Gus, the lab, normally takes down half the jumps in a course, but once in awhile he does pull off a clean run and when he does, he's usually a second faster thanks to blistering fast weave poles.

This is his first place standard run on Sunday.

Mirror

Stephen jokes that he is waiting to adopt the Never Say Never Greyhound flunkies. I have to admit that it is kind of nice to know that if any of my greyhounds aren't thrilled with the idea of being a participant in competitive obedience and agility that they can simply become Stephen's hiking buddy. Its a win win situation because he gets a well trained dog and I can start over with someone new. But while some dogs are easier to train than others, each dog is quite honestly a reflection of the trainer's abilities. Dog training isn't simply a recipe to follow, but more like a creative work of art. Each dog comes to the table with issues, characteristics, and desires that making him or her unique and its up to the trainer to determine the best way for the dog to reach full potential. Probably the most important piece of the puzzle is reinforcement (what's in it for the dog?).

Greyhounds are generally considered difficult to train beyond the basics. I think that success is often related to the level of reinforcement. First, it helps to choose greyhounds that are easy to reward with food. It is very difficult to train a dog that works only for rabbits. Food, on the other hand, is easy to carry and easy to keep interesting. A missed meal or 2 can quickly increase a hound's interest in treats. Secondly, use hard to resist food that has a strong smell. Those odorless treats you buy at the store probably won't work well for long. Dogs don't take the time to taste their food, so its important that they can at least smell it on the way down. I use a lot of Red Barn dog food which is a high quality, meat based food that comes in a sausage type roll. It is soft and easy to cut into bite sized pieces. Red Barn can get boring if used all of the time, so I mix it with other strong smelling food such as hot dogs, Tyson grilled chicken strips, Swiss cheese, cheddar cheese, fishy salmon treats, and so on. I also let the dogs lick peanut butter, creme cheese, and canned dog food as a reward from a small container.

Over time, expectations should go up. Travis and Katie are no longer rewarded for little things that Reagan is currently rewarded for. Its also important to get the treat out of your hand, so that the dog responds with or without a treat visible. This is where I think some trainers go wrong. People seem to think that the dog should not get a treat if the treat is not visible. However, initially the dog should actually get more. If Reagan responds to an empty handed request, I'll give her 3 treats instead of one. That is how the dog learns to respond regardless of the location of the treat.

At some point, your trained dog will probably choose to ignore you. I do believe that you do have to step in and make the correct response happen. Behaviors such as sit, down, stay, and coming when called are simply not optional once the dog fully understands what is asked.

Eventually, you may want for your dog to do several things before being paid. This is important for competing since you cannot carry treats with you in the ring. Competing in obedience is especially difficult because the dog must do numerous exercises for several minutes before receiving a reward. I condition my dogs to expect a jackpot. Katie and Travis learned to do what was asked and then a few minutes later they would receive a tremendous jackpot. I think Katie worked especially well in obedience because she loved the jackpots that followed. She always received compliments on her smart, deliberate, happy attitude. Of course, she would sometimes make mistakes in her haste, but I would prefer that to a dog that is frozen and indecisive.

I am happy to report that I do believe I am figuring out what makes Reagan tick. She is really coming along nicely. Our only continuing issue is that she does make too much noise when she is crated in the van and feels that she is missing out. I have started to counter condition that since I do believe the noise is directly related to stress and anxiety and that she is starting to relate that to the crate. So I have been returning to her crate frequently to feed her treats and chicken backs. I try to leave her with a stuffed Kong or a bully stick to keep her busy. I want her to like her crate and reinforce being quiet. I think it is working. I hate giving her all this extra stuff in front of Travis and Katie, but I have decided that she watches them eat in the morning, so they can watch her eat in the afternoon. They might not be getting as many bully sticks as Reagan is, but they are getting plenty of pity treats they would normally not be receiving.

Scent Articles

I have pulled out Katie's scent articles again. Scent articles can be a source of a lot of frustration and stress when you are training for Utility level obedience. Katie, with no talent for using her nose, and I were no exception. The scent article exercise consists of 5 leather articles and 5 metal articles. Dumbbells are commonly used. The handler scents a leather article and a metal article with his or her hand and then one at a time, they are placed within a pile of the 8 other articles. The dog then has to use his/her nose to find the article the handler touched. In competition, I always touched food prior to going into the ring so there would be a food smell on my hands. When articles are going well, it really is neat to see your dog search the pile and to find the correct one. With no upcoming show pressures, Katie has been working her articles like an Obedience Trial Champion.


Prior to learning articles, Katie did not use her nose for anything. She was very visual and had no clue what to do when we started training scent articles. There are lots of methods to use, but I decided to make something up. I put Katie into a down stay and blind folded her. I would then hold up the correct article and when I saw her nostrils quiver, I would click and treat. I would then hold up a wrong article and give her a non-reward mark, so she'd know that it was incorrect. Next, I started working her with a pile of 2 articles and then 3 and then 4..... and so on. The blind folding worked and I actually know of one other person who took my idea and succeeded with an American Eskimo dog :-).


Now, we just do articles for fun! The correct article is the metal one at 12:00.

Reagan's First Perry

Reagan completed her first of hopefully many pilgrimages to Perry, GA. In the future, I hope that she will be a participant in the obedience and/or agility competitions, but for now she had to settle for being a competitor in training, shopping buddy, and cheerleader for Travis. She did get some new smelly fish treats, 2 bully sticks, and a new pink collar. I don't usually do pink, but she is the baby girl, so I made an exception.

Reagan handled most everything like a champ. She was comfortable and attentive to me down by the agility rings and surrounded by strange dogs and people. At one point an Australian shephard tried to jump through the ring gating and brought down an entire section that literally landed a foot from Reagan. To my relief, Reagan could have cared less. A fear of ring gating could put a big delay on the success of an agility and/or obedience career. More and more, Reagan ignored the barking dogs that try to launch an attack from inside their crates as you pass them in the halls. On Sunday, it was particularly windy and the vendor signs, merchandise, and canvas walls were flapping with fury. She handled that very well and we hurried on out of there before something bad could happen to scar an impressionable mind. She was a good girl at the campsite. A crate contained her quite nicely. She still thinks she should have the freedoms that the mature Bachelor hounds enjoy, but she has a lot of a crating hours to go before she earns those priviledges. I try to explain to her that the other hounds have long since put in their hours, are compliant, willingly crate, and do so without complaint......... but she continues to argue her losing point. She minded her P's and Poo's. On Friday, she pottied at about 5:30 PM and then did not go again until about 12 hours later the next morning. To her credit, she held it until the morning potty walk. After that, she was quick to take care of her business each time.

Saving the best for last, Reagan's big weekend brag is that she took after her brother, Travis, in the lake. We put her on a 15 foot long line and just was going crazy watching Travis swim out and retrieve his bumper. Reagan jumped and splashed in the water. She tried to swim out after him. We then gave her the opportunity to retrieve the bumper from the shallows and she did several times. It was very cute.

Perry

The Perry dog show in April is the largest annual dog show in the southeast. It is also my favorite because the show has everything.... agility, obedience, conformation, herding instinct tests, Canine Good Citizen tests, and lots of vendors. The agility venue is perfect (indoors, dirt footing, and climate controlled). I look forward to Perry week every year, but it is also the most stressful week because the show always falls on the weekend prior or during April 15th - tax return deadline. I am a financial planner (not an accountant, thank goodness), but clients always have these last minute questions and information requests for their tax returns. I used to have an awful employer and the Perry show was always a sore spot and a source of conflict every April. Eventually, I was unable to enjoy it at all and often felt sick to my stomach the entire time. I now have a wonderful employer and so the trip to Perry, GA went off without a hitch this year.

Stephen, Travis, Katie, Reagan, and Allie (token stepdog) left for Perry Thursday afternoon. We arrived at the venue at about 3 PM and set up the ex pen for Katie and Allie and crates for Travis and Reagan. We then headed to the campgrounds to set up our nightly accommodations. We have learned that it is so much cheaper to camp in a tent than to stay in a hotel room. Renting a campsite with electricity, water, and access to bathrooms and showers costs a whopping $10 - 15 per day.......... about the cost of a pet fee charged per day by hotels. Plus I am a germ phobic and so I much prefer sleeping on my sheets, pillow, and mattress. We have an enormous tent with 2 rooms..... a dog room and a people room. With a space heater and a lap top to watch DVDs on, we were happy campers.

Stephen is always such an asset at dog shows. He comes along if there is a camping option and sets up the tent, carries my stuff, and drives me to and from. I couldn't ask for more. He is also very good at watching over our set up at the trial.

Travis ran very well as usual. We ran clean 5 out of 6 times. Generally, I am thrilled with a 50% clean run rate, but he is consistently running clean much higher than that as of lately. He received 2 more QQs (3 more to go for MACH2). Travis did make me a little paranoid this weekend when he fell in the end of the weave poles, was very tired after swimming on Friday, and lost his footing a bit in Jumpers on Sunday. I think he is fine, but at his age.... anything is going to raise red flag and be over analyzed.

We forgot the video camera so we videoed his runs with our camera, so I have them here for you.

1. This a clean run in Jumpers on Friday. I tried to screw him up in the beginning by getting in his way before jump #4 with a really late front cross, but he managed the jump just fine.

2. This is a clean run in Standard on Friday. This is where he fell at the end of the weaves. It looks like he just got caught up in the poles.

3. This is his Jumpers run on Saturday. He dropped a bar towards the end so this was our only non-qualifying run of the weekend.

4. This is his Standard run from Saturday.

5. This is his Standard run from Sunday. Normally, I avoid attempting to out run Travis by running along the outside like I did at the yellow tunnel, triple jump, to the dog walk. Its much easier to turn a dog towards you than away from you. However in this instance, if he saw me running as fast as I could as he came out of the tunnel, he would quickly catch me and start drifting in my direction and set up for the dog walk on a terrible angle. By running along the outside, it was very easy to flip him towards the dog walk for a perfectly straight approach to the dog walk. No one else ran a big dog this way, so I was hesitant to do it, but the logic made perfect sense to me and it did in fact work.

6. This is his Jumpers run from Sunday. The opening sequence (jumps 1 and 2 to the weaves) was very tight and most dogs over shot the turn almost missing the weave poles. Travis did it very smoothly. Once in the weaves, he seemed very disorganized, but he made it through. Everything else was smooth.

In fairness to Stephen, I sleep at agility trials too :-).

6 Months Is Up

Six months has passed since Katie had her spinal stroke. One of her doctors, Dr. Filer, said that I could expect to see improvements for 6 months. So here we are at the same point we have been for the last few months. The "twist" that occurs with each step of the left hind leg has not changed at all. I hope that no injuries will be caused by the wobble it causes. I would hate for her to develop painful arthritis and to have to be left behind because she can't keep up any more.

I am going to start her on some high quality glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate. I am sort of embarrassed to admit that she isn't already on it. Its one of those things that I believe is important to do correctly if you are going to do it..... the right dose and good quality. I always felt that if I gave it to So And So that I should also give it to Such And Such. With greyhounds aged 10, 10, 9, 9, and 8 by this summer, you could argue that they should all be supplemented. But then it becomes cost prohibited. However, Katie has earned it and she is the one most likely to be damaging joints since she still insists on maintaining her active lifestyle.

Today I started training her to put a rope toy in a box. It was interesting. She was successful numerous times (with my help), but I don't think she figured out exactly what I want yet. Once she does, she will repeat it over and over. It was fun to work on something new with her.

Reagan's Mom

Reagan's mom was adopted recently............... no not me! Her real mom, Task Spring Buds. Guess which one in the photo..... the fawn one of course :-). She is obviously living with several other greyhounds. I could just kick myself for not taking any pictures of her at the farm. She was on the premises when I looked at the puppies, but time was short and I had to focus on picking one out. Lots of luck to her and her new family!

Happy Birthday, Reagan!

Reagan turned a year old today and so far I still like her as of this week.

We visited MIL and FIL (mother and father-in-

law) this weekend. They have decked out their garage just for the dogs. It has been insulated and they have added a heating and A/C vent. We set up crates for the trouble makers and a large ex pen for Katie, Allie, and Julie.

Reagan was able to get some training practice in. We did lots of practice with her dumbbell.

And we also did some sit stay practice with lots of distractions....... notice the duck in the background.

The Good Twin

I would be remiss to not mention that I have actually been thrilled with Reagan this week and wanted to brag before her evil twin came back.

Having Reagan work for meals and food stuffed toys has greatly increased her drive and motivation for both this week. She is retrieving toys and touching targets much quicker than prior. Overall, she is much eager to work.

Secondly, I have been wanting Reagan to make eye contact with me when she wants something such as throw the toy, open the door, and so on. I want her to know that I control these things and for her to ask for them by looking at me. She is figuring that out. She is also arguing less and less about the crate and I require her to lie down while I open the crate door and has to wait for me to invite her out. She is catching onto this as well.

Also, she has been very good about putting stuffy toys in my hand when she retrieves, but when we work with the dumbbell, it has been limited to her just putting her mouth on the bar while I was holding it. Well, suddenly the toy work has transferred over to the dumbbell and Reagan is now picking up the dumbbell and holding it long enough for me to take it from her. This progression was very seamless. Katie, who can retrieve anything she can put in her mouth, had a hard time learning the concept of holding the dumbbell. She wanted to pick it up and drop it immediately. I had to eventually hold her mouth or put my hand under her chin for her to learn to hold it, so I am very pleased that Reagan progressed through that step so quickly without my help.

Lastly, I have started Reagan over low jumps and finally this week she seems more interested in doing that.

Raspilla

In 1988, my dad purchased for me a 3 year old thoroughbred filly named Raspilla (Spanish for the Forget-Me-Not flower I would come to find out later). With sales tax, he paid a little over $1,000 for her at the auction. Probably not the smartest match in history, but our trainer at the time was more concerned about movement, size, and attractiveness than safety. Like many of our greyhounds, she was a racetrack reject.

I learned a lot. I fell off Raspilla more times than I can begin to remember. In 1993, we moved to GA, bringing her along. Eventually, it was time to move onto a new horse. She had some soundness issues and I had found her a great home where she'd be used for light trail riding, but would basically be out to pasture. I would visit her periodically. A few years later, I ran into her new owner at the store and asked how she was. She explained that she has sold her. I was not happy at all. I had given her this horse and at the very least expected a courtesy call and the first right to take her back. Unfortunately, it was out of my hands. I visited her at the new barn periodically. She was being used mostly for riding lessons. Eventually, I learned that she had been sold and moved to Ohio.

Fast forward to last summer..... I started searching for her. I Googled her name and found results to a horse show. The rider's name was included, so I Googled the rider's name and found it in a caption under a photo at a riding stables' website. I emailed the stable and asked if they knew Stephanie Wilson and Raspilla. They did and forwarded my email to Stephanie who quickly emailed me back. Now, when you search for an old horse, you don't always have a happy ending. You never know if they ended up at another auction. Or sold as an over used lesson horse. Or even slaughter. Part of me didn't want to know which is why it took me so long to even do a search.

Happily, Stephanie explained that Raspilla was living in Kentucky on her uncle's little farm. Retired, fat, and happy. This past August, Stephen, Denise (sister), and Matt (Denise's boyfriend) went to Kentucky and visited with Raspilla. It was so good to see her again. She looked good.

Today, Raspilla is 23 years old. I emailed her a happy birthday wish and Edward (Stephanie's uncle) sent me this recent picture of her running with Summer, a 3 year old quarter horse he purchased last summer.