Teeter Training in Three Minutes

Here is one way to train the teeter in just over three minutes... okay, it took much longer than that.  Seven is about up to full height now.  I use an adjustible teeter that I can start low and gradually increase in size.

The teeter can be a real problem for some dogs.  It moves, makes a loud noise, and sometimes dogs mistaken it for the dogwalk and then are surprised when the floor drops out from under them.  Seven appears to have no issues with the teeter. 

As time goes on, Seven seems really solid in handling her environment, new things, and loud noises.  She is old enough that I think if she were going to start developing phobias like Reagan did that I would start seeing hints of something by now.  If anything, Seven is becoming more bombproof each day.  That is a good thing!

But Fun to Train

Here is Seven working contact obstacles and the chute.

And the weave poles are improving.  I am doing both Weave-O-Matics ("V") and 2X2 methods.  With the Weave-O-Matics, I closed them up much sooner than I usually do and it has forced her into better form.  She is still doing a lot of the two foot weaving which I think of as a small dog style.  See how she will often put her two front feet on the same side and then moves them both to the other side.

For comparison, here is Reagan doing the one foot style. Only one front foot on each side at a time.  It generally seems more efficient for bigger dogs so I hope that Seven will adopt this style eventually.

You all had a lot of comments on the last post.  I thought I would address them here.
 
I guess the powers above think I need to acquire more patience and learn to deal with frustration. :-)
 
It does not matter if Riley or Seven trains first.  Seven thinks it should be her turn 24/7.  Nothing distracts during her tantrum.  I provide stuffed Kongs and she works through them very quickly and then starts the upheaval.  If I provide something challenging and longer lasting, she opts out and gets right to her hissy fit.
 
Kathy, Sam is never to meet Seven.  I do not want him giving her any ideas. :-)  I believe her frustration has to do with not being able to get to me.  She is a little bit stimulated by dogs running agility, but not to lure coursing extremes or anything out of the ordinary.  I think I am her lure.
 
I've thought about the Manners Minder, but I need to test the range.  I wonder if the remote works from 100 feet away.  I would also have to change her food as the kibble I use for dinner does not pass through even the largest holes.
 
Seven broke out of the crate by pulling the front panel down into the crate.  Its a collapsible crate that I have never collapsed.  Couldn't figure out how and was not easy. It did take a lot of brute force.
 
Yes, I have Crate Games and worked on it for awhile.  Seven progressed quickly and loved playing the crate games, but it was just too slow going to bridge it into eliminating this problem.    At some point, I just had to get back to training Riley.

We had a better day today. Ten repetitions of Seven having to be quiet, closed mouth (not panting), and head down in her van crate before earning meals, company, and training sessions.  She is capable of settling down.

Hard To Live With

I must complain.  I hesitate because I really hate to tell the world about things that make me want to choke one of my greyhounds, but my hope is that when I read this post in ten years that I will laugh because while the first year was tough, she has been a perfect angel for the last nine years.

First let me say that Seven, is extremely easy to train.  She is very motivated and focused.  Other than Katie, I have never had a greyhound become so attentive and reliable so quickly.  It is fantastic.  Her recalls are brilliant and sharp.  She works very hard.  She handles being told she is wrong very well and will keep working.  She will do repetitions over and over.  She never shuts down or becomes lazy even when her tongue is hanging out of her mouth.  Seven is wonderful to train... but she is hard to live with. 

I wonder if I have created this monster or would Seven have been an impossible pet.  You have already read about Seven's sick obsession with me (read here) and that continues to be a big problem.  Despite working methodically on this problem, Seven continues to pant, scream, yelp, bark, and chew on crate bars.  This has everything to do with training sessions and surprisingly she is worse if she can see what is going on.  Her anxiety hits the roof.  I do not have this problem at all at home. 

My approach has mostly been that Seven is ignored until she calms down and I create lots of repetitions for her to practice this.  I did a lot of gradual work in the beginning, but its been four months, I work full time, Riley has to train too, and the world simply does not revolve around Seven.  I thought things might be getting a smidge better, but yesterday she actually broke out of her crate in my van. That cannot happen at a dog show.  So I am feeling very frustrated.

After an hour or two of training, playing, exercising, and/or nervous worry, you would think that Seven would come home exhausted for the rest of the evening.  Nope.  Here are a few examples.  She continues to test her boundaries more than all of my greyhounds combined.  She does not respect gated doorways.  She ate two pairs of my most favorite underwear when I was packing my suitcase.  She is not allowed on our furniture, but she continues to get on our bed despite strategically placed laundry hamper and scat mat.  We have no idea how she is able to work through all of that, but she does (I expect great things in agility) and then lays on my nice work clothes. 

I love training Seven, but......... I love training Seven.

The Dreaded Stay

Since Riley finished Novice, she and I are working on her Open level obedience exercises.  Open is more fun and interesting with off leash heeling, jumps, and dumbbell retrieves.  However, the exercise I dread the most is included in the Open class - the dreaded, three minute, OUT OF SIGHT, sit stay. 

Handlers and dogs line up.  Most handlers sit their dogs immediately, but I wait until the very last second and the judge's direction.  Once seated, the dogs are told to stay and a ring steward guides the handlers to the hiding place out of view from the dogs.

As most of you know, many greyhounds find sitting to be awkward and assume a position that looks more like a squat (see the air between Riley's rear and the ground in the top picture).  Some greyhounds are excellent sitters and quite comfortable.  Katie had no trouble with 3 minute sit stays.  She figured out how to get her rear on the ground.

Teresa obviously was not.  She would get tired, rock back, and sprawl out.  She was able to do one-minute sit stays for Novice, but I never attempted to train her for Open.

I am very appreciative of my greyhounds' sit stays and never take them for granted.  Each sit stay results in a jackpot of canned dog food, mackerel, or tripe, peanut butter, creme cheese, macaroni & cheese, or a stinky, raw beef mixture I save from the raw food breakfast.  A generous amount is placed into a plastic container and my good, sit stay greyhound gets to lick the container clean.  It is usually my greyhounds' least favorite thing to do so this is my way of sugar coating it.

I am having a unique problem with Riley's sit stays.  She is maintaining three minute sit stays with me out of sight, but she flicks her ears the entire time.  It is as if there is something tickling them.  I have tried to fold them back with no improvement.  I have considered trimming the hair inside of her ears to see if that helps.  I only see this when she is sitting.

Her funky right ear seems to be the most affected.  It probably has something to do with the floppy tip.  All in all, Riley has endured it so far, but if I could stop it, I would like to as it looks uncomfortable and irritating.  I want Riley's sit stays to be as comfortable as possible for her.

But I Don't Want To

Travis weaving

It never fails.  Each new greyhound brings on the assumption that I've got this.  I know what I am doing.  Seven is actually my seventh greyhound to train in agility so, of course, I think I know everything there is to know about training agility to greyhounds.  Wrong!  Each new dog presents something new and sometimes I just don't want to learn something new.  I want to do it the old way.

For example, weave poles.  I did a terrible job of training Teresa and Jessie weave poles.  Plain and simple, they sucked at them because I did a sucky job training them. 

Katie weaving

Katie and Travis learned via Weave-O-Matics (the poles are opened up like a "V" and you gradually close them) and some clicker work.  Both easily learned their foot work and I do not recall it being much of a struggle. 

Reagan weaving

Reagan comes along and I naturally think that Weave-O-Matics are the way to go.  Katie and Travis had learned to weave on a $10 set of Weave-O-Matics I made myself.  Reagan promptly disassembled them every time she went through them.  I upgraded and purchased a set of poles that would lock into the Weave-O-Matic position of my choosing.  Reagan broke those too.  I was not happy about it as they were very expensive and I felt they should stand up to a 50 pound greyhound.  At the time, creator was working on a tougher prototype and promised to replace them. 

Seven showing Weave-O-Matics

In the meanwhile, I started Reagan on channel weaves (poles remain upright, but are spread apart to create a channel) since I had a set of those.  They held up to Reagan's force and she finally learned to weave.

Seven showing Channel Weaves

Riley comes along and I'm truly and expert now.  I mean I have trained three greyhounds to weave very well.  Piece of cake!  Nope... Riley takes forever to learn to weave.  After OVER A YEAR of training, Riley finally masters the poles.  I mostly used Weave-O-Matics, but had to add guide wires to my training toolbox.

Riley weaving

So here comes number seven agility greyhound.  Seriously, I've got this.  How much different can she be from the others? Well... very different.  Seven has an unusual, inefficient style all her own (see video below). The untrained eye will have an easier time seeing the problem from the side.  Basically, she sort of hop/canters with her rear end when she should be using more of a trotting gait. So against my will, I am learning a new method for teaching weave poles. It is called the 2X2 method.

Born Again

Okay, the last picture is not from the same moment, but it ended with a picture of me running by the chute so I thought this one worked better.

No Regrets

On October 10th, 2007, Katie suffered a neurological injury.  It is well documented on this blog and you can find the posts by clicking here - Katie Neurological.  It was thought to be a Fibrocartilaginous Embolic Myelopathy (FCE), but after speaking with Dr. Cuoto a few years later I learned it was probably a blood clot.

I am really proud of Katie and her rehab.  We tackled it like every other goal we had set out to achieve and even had fun doing it.  Katie's rehab is also well documented on this blog and you can find those posts by clicking here - Katie Rehab.

My biggest concern in Katie's last year was whether or not I was asking her to do too much.  The exercises and activity were important to maintaining strength, but they also could contribute to arthritis, pain, and ultimately breakdown.  She also continued to run and spin in the backyard.  At times, I felt I should stop her as the risk of injury was a concern.  Her toes were especially problematic and I feared that she would eventually be in too much pain.  I felt there was a great responsibility in deciding when it would be time to let her go due to something not life threatening.  I did not want to have to decide that. 

If there is such a thing as the right time, the bone cancer came at the right time.  Katie had been having some good and bad days.  Since the summertime, I had eliminated some of the exercises we used to do as I felt they were becoming too challenging.  She still felt sound enough to play and spin.  In fact, the video below was taken just ten days before I put her to sleep (it was taken with a phone so I cannot edit otherwise I would have cut out her peeing :-).

Katie was definitely deteriorating, but it makes me smile to know that she was still feeling sound enough to play.  Obviously, the amount of rehab, exercise, and activity kept her strong and energetic enough to make it to her cancer diagnosis.  I am glad I never stopped her from playing as she never suffered any injuries from it.  No regrets.  We did just the right amount of everything. 

The cancer diagnosis was 100% black and white.  There was no treatment in her case.  The unbearable pain arrived overnight.  There was no decision to make.  It just had to be done.  It is one of the few times I feel no guilt.  I was not too early nor too late.  The perfect greyhound even exits perfectly.

After Katie passed away, my friend Kathy sent Stephen and I wind chimes in memory of Katie.  To say that we LOVE them is an understatement.  WE LOVE THEM!  They make us feel like Katie is still spinning in the backyard when we hear them.  Thank you so much, Kathy!

That concludes my time on earth with Katie.  Thank you for letting me rehash her old stories.  I cannot believe that more than three months has already flown by.  The other day I heard someone say that Katie died last year.... no she didn't.  It was just the other.... oh, yes, I guess it was last year.  Goodbye, Katie.  See you later.

Torturing Myself

As you know, Reagan's phobia to travel due to the sounds the vehicle makes (not carsickness) make her unable to compete in agility.  She cannot handle the daily trips to the agility field, hiking trails, or training building.  And she definitely turns inside out if we drive a great distance (i.e. agility trial).

Unfortunately, there is not much to do at the house.  The house is small and covered with slippery tile or hardwoods.  The yard is pretty much useless unless it is bone dry.  Except for late in the evening and night... I am not there.  It is not the most exciting life.

However, the husband has been really great about taking her hiking lately.  She does not like it, but she seems to fair much better in his SUV.  She hunkers down and shakes, but the ride is only about 10 minutes.  I feel so much better knowing that she is getting some decent exercise a couple of times a weeks.  Kongs, bully sticks, and Tug-A-Jugs just are not enough. 

The other day, Stephen brought her to the agility field for me.  Great chance for her to run and play fetch.  Of course, I had to torture myself by sending her through the weave poles twice.

Ahhh... such wasted talent and athleticism.  Oh well.