The princess and the pea

Cai approves of his new mat... on top of his old mat, on top of his regular crate pad and blanket.

We're all packed for Clicker Expo in Reno!

Raw egg

When I collect the chicken eggs in the evening, I put them in my jacket pocket since I need both hands to hold the flashlight and lock up the coop and run. This evening I came in the house, squatted down to untie my shoes, and an egg rolled out from my pocket and across the floor. Before I could even see where it had gone, Chimera snatched it up and carried it up his little steps and onto my bed. He bit down on his treasure and spilled the contents onto my blanket. He then had fun crunching up the shell while I cleaned up the raw egg. He was so proud of himself.

More agility and rally-free practice

Last weekend was busy for Chimera. We went to the Boxing Day agility match hosted by Jump'n Java on Saturday, then to rally-free/freestyle practice hosted by REDD on Sunday.

Agility went well except for Cai doing the teeter fine twice, then bailing the third time, then not wanting to go onto it at all. With weaves he also did them perfectly twice, then started skipping random poles (not the last two, which have been a consistent problem). I suspect a physical issue, and will schedule a visit to his chiropractor as soon as they open again in the new year.

He focused well for about 6 minutes of "ring time" in San Lorenzo DTC's building, then became increasingly distracted by smells / needed a break. After that he was pretty much done with training, even after a break. Tired pup!

Winter solstice and new year's pictures

(Click on any image to see it pop up larger.)

Agility and obedience practice

It's been tough to find opportunities to practice agility outside of classes or private lessons. Fortunately Jump'n Java scheduled 4 fun matches around the holidays, and we were able to attend the one after Thanksgiving, plus we'll be at the upcoming one on Boxing Day.

Cai and I are totally out of practice. This was a new location, outdoors on grass. Despite these things, Cai did super well! He was focused the entire time we were out on the field, other than one time he couldn't resist the allure of the tall grass along a fence line. But no staring off at barking or running dogs, like when we did a fun match a year ago. The power of fresh-cooked rabbit meat helped, but he's definitely gained maturity and focus.

On the Jumpers side, we did a Novice course. The first time I got lost, but the second time went smoothly. I actually heard a few "oooh"s as we finished up. We also did some on-the-fly sequences.

On the Standard side, we mostly practiced the weave poles. We have 10th pole syndrome. I'm going to take some more time to heavily reward the completed poles, and put him back in if he pops out early. If that doesn't make a difference, I'll have to schedule private lessons to help us figure it out.

The best part was that he was eager and fast on the teeter! I babied him and lowered it just a tad slowly the first 2 reps. Then I let it fall normally. He slowed down briefly at the tipping point (which was almost at the end of the board, since he's so fast), then quickly moved up to the edge. The next time, he leaned back when it tipped but was at the end as it hit the ground. WOW!! Then I had to focus on rewarding him for staying at the end, to prevent fly-offs in the future. So proud of my little guy.


On Wednesday we returned to the drop in obedience practice at SLDTC. There were only two other dogs this time. We practiced playing, heeling with tricks, recalls, stays, dumbbell retrieves, and the broad jump. No one bothered to ask why Cai didn't sit on the halts and fronts. (It's because rally-free and freestyle are higher priority than obedience.) We also practiced crating with me 10 feet away or briefly out of sight. He's slowly improving on that front - no barking this time, but a little scratching at the crate door.

Stays with a Yorkie and Sheltie.

Nose touch to object

Chimera has always loved to put things in his mouth and chew them up. I've managed to change that to putting things in his mouth and bringing them to my hand. However for training Match to Sample, I waned an indication behavior that won't involve always messing up the objects he's choosing from. I chose a sustained nose touch. Today I finally got a nose touch to every single one of the 13 kinds of objects I've set aside for this training.

We'll still need to repeat this a handful more times before the nose touch is fully reliable. Also, realistically, the nose touch will still slide them around when he's indicating, but at least he won't be destroying the object.

Rally-FrEe Intermediate leg 1

Recorded at ARF for the West Regional 2.



We only scored 137 - yikes! Cai was pretty distracted, but also the scoring is a bit more rigorous now that we're out of Novice. We need to practice a lot before the live trial in March if we want to qualify then.

There is no audio because I played music for us to work to, and YouTube has removed it due to copyright issues. Sad.

Zoom Room practice

I've been hunting for drop ins and matches to work on proofing Chimera's teeter and weave pole performance, but it's been hard to find anything that works for my schedule. On Wednesday I rented the Zoom Room in Walnut Creek with Sherry and Jacques. They have mini-obstacles, but it was worth it considering how long our break from agility class has become.

Cai popped out of the poles here and there (and especially at the 10th pole, ugh), but he fell into the groove better than I expected considering that their PVC poles have a big PVC base in the middle.

I did a quick review of the training method we'd finally settled on to teach him happy teeter behavior. I held the top of the teeter from underneath the first couple of times he ran up and fed right at the end. Then I let it drop a little bit before I caught it, then more and more. At the end he was running nearly to the end of the board before I stopped it just above the ground. He still slowed down when he felt the tip, but then scooted to the end to get his treat. I'm satisfied with that. I never let the teeter actually hit the floor because it was an exceptionally noisy one and their floor is a thin layer of rubber mats over concrete - yikes!

The trainers at this place were very discouraging of having a tiny dog run to the end of the teeter, both during this visit and when we'd gone in for an assessment (before being allowed to rent the equipment). They're worried about a tiny dog getting bounced when it lands, which is a valid safety concern (especially on their horrid teeter and flooring). However both of them had this weird spiel where they asked me if I had agility experience and had watched "real agility," stating that "real agility competitors" (as a whole, apparently) NEVER train tiny dogs to run to the end of the teeter, but instead to stop at the tipping point and continue down after the movement stops. Um, what?

I explained that I was "over-training" the teeter, meaning that in practice I was encouraging him to come to the very end, knowing that in competition he'd be less comfortable and therefore probably slow down at the tipping point anyway. She was skeptical. Sherry and I finally got them to leave us alone by saying that we trained under an experienced agility competitor/trainer and this was what she wanted us to do.

I might rent the Zoom Room one more time to be able to set up proofing exercises like having toys and treats next to the weaves, but otherwise the value of its mini-obstacles is short lived, and I don't want to spend my training time arguing with them.

Can NOT wait until Sherry has her agility field all set up with equipment!!

Apple core

Chimera surprised us by nibbling on an apple core my dad offered him.

We were in Monterey last weekend and he got to run on the beach off leash. I had the last of the rabbit jerky I'd made a few months ago and his recall was almost perfect! I took a lot of pictures with my fancy new camera but haven't had time to go through them yet.

Rally-FrEe practice

We rented the training pavilion at ARF and set up a rally-free course. My goal was to 1) work on engagement first, and only do the full course if Cai was showing me that he could do it with enthusiasm, 2) if he was able to do it, use as few treats as possible, in preparation for the next time we trial (end of October), 3) crate him and walk away between training, to help him get used to quietly resting (a big problem if we're in a new place).

Well Cai blew me away! We only needed to do one round of sniffing around the edges of the ring before he was fully ready to work. Then I had his full attention for the entire run. It certainly helped that I had rabbit jerky on hand! We did two runs, and each time I only stopped to reward once, but I gave multiple treats and lots of praise when it was time. Here's the video of our second run:



As long as he's confident in the skills that are needed for our next Intermediate course, we should do very well!

In the crate, he whined and scratched at the door the first time I put him away. I just waited him out, and returned with treats during moments of quiet. The second time he was quiet, and by the third time he was relaxing with his hips rolled to the side and his head on the floor.