From the Competitive Obedience Grab Bag - Go outs and directed jumping with Lars

Oh wow, I didn't anticipate not blogging for 10 days! Transcendent Trainers has seemed to take on a little bit of a life of it's own. I ended up just getting my butt in gear and moving forward on that much more than I thought I would at the start of it. The positive feedback I've gotten on the products thus far has pushed me to make it more of a sister site than just a section in the Tasks website. Now, you can find the Transcendent Trainer Gear at www.transcendenttrainers.com and I'm planning on adding new things with new designs on a regular basis. So, so, SO excited about that project.

Things have been a little bit quiet on the training front here these past 10 to 14 days. Summer has hit us for one of those weeks...we had a heat wave which will make me (and the guys) hide in my basement where it stays cool. When I have felt motivated to train at dusk, it's been short sessions just to give the guys something to use their brains. But there was one night that I did video Lars' obedience training session of directed jumping.

Lars and I have taken a good chunk of time off from serious obedience training after the beginning of May. We both needed a break from working so hard on getting that UD. Not to mention, May was the beginning of Ocean's agility trial season. So, I just shifted gears and let Lars be a dog for a couple of months while Ocean became my focus. I've started to bring obedience back to the front training burners again. Lars and I did an obedience run thru a couple of weeks ago and a few things were rusty, as to be expected.

That was the full gamut of  what was pulled the night I worked Go Out's and directed jumping. Some of you Task fans might remember that Lars had a soft tissue injury in his shoulder last year. He earned two UD legs back to back right before the injury sidelined him for 7 months. Before that injury, he had rocking go outs and he would sit in the middle of the ring. After this 7 month rehab, his go outs became very inconsistent. Sometimes he would run straight but more often than not, he would hook hard to the right and line himself up to the high jump. That was just points. It was fine if the high jump was the jump he had to take. But....not so much if he had to run across the ring and jump the bar. Sometimes he would run somewhat straight and sit just to the right of the middle stantion. I've done a ton of thinking about this whole issue....and I more or less have come to the conclusion that Lars has forgotten where his end target it or that he feels as long as he's someplace along the back fence, that's correct.

One thing that I had done before the injury was use a target box for Lars to run and sit in a target box sort of like a picture frame. It was out there all...the...time when Lars did go outs. But it was big and clunky and a royal pain to lug around to run thrus. So, after the injury, I naively thought we didn't need it anymore. That's where the door to interpretive go out positions opened up. After these 2.5 months off from obedience, the box is coming back....but in a different form. I'm going to use a collapsible yard stick that I can make any size for Lars' go out target....and it will always be there.

Cutie pie Lars exhibiting where he must sit when he must go "AWAY!"

I bought this yard stick after we got the UD and I hadn't used it much this summer. Lars seemed to think that he should sit just to the right of the "box". Nope....Lars, that's not what I'm looking for, pal. That has become his default position when he does head out back straight.

We spent some of our directed jumping task time working on the idea of  your butt must be in the box for me to click my clicker and you get treats. (See...this is again why there are no exercise descriptions on the back of the task cards. You work on what you need to do that day.) I am big, big fan of using clickers in training and this is a perfect application for it. Lars and I use clickers for me to get across EXACTLY what I am looking for him to do. And Lars is a funny guy....because he will do things incorrectly, sort of incorrectly, and correctly to figure out what I am actually looking for. It's like...he's processing it all himself with "If I sit here....nope, okay....how about here?? Nope again huh....let's go back to where I got that click....yup, alright. Let me try 3" over from here....nope. okay." I let him be wrong....because that's how he figures it out.

Raised bed veggie garden beds make great go out distractions...

In that training session, he figured out what I wanted: his butt squarely in that v-shaped box. Then I started to add some distance with each attempt....clicking and rewarding when he nailed it. And there was no click and no cookies when he didn't. We got to this point at the end of the training session which I was very pleased with!

One thing I have to also work on is getting Lars to mark the go out spot better. That was one thing I didn't teach because I didn't know better. We're going to be adding that to our things to do list when go outs or directed jumping tasks are pulled.

Obedience trial season will be ramping up for the fall soon and this will be my project for the next several weeks. I'm sort of looking at this as a re-train instead of fixing. But, I think this will help us with our "where exactly am I supposed to be" question that seems to pop up more often than I like in the Utility ring. I will be reporting on how this turns out for us. ;)

Transcendent Trainers

So...I've been playing around with something that I think could be really, really cool.

I notice that there aren't a lot of wearable things for us dog people that strengthen us as trainers/handlers. There are a ton of shirts and stuff out there that poke fun at us and our shortcomings... things that don't build us up. I know we've all seen shirts that say "Dog Wants New Handler." or "Great Dog, Shame About the Handler." If we wear those negative, self defeating messages...what does that say about what we really feel about ourselves?? Why do we project our negative self image to others around us and out to the universe?

I saw and bought that one shirt I got from a vendor at the USDAA New England Regionals that says something about believing in myself and my dog. The couple of agility trials I wore it to and after posting a chest selfie ofmy shirt, I had a bunch of friends say they needed that shirt or where could they get one. I went off and googled thinking I could locate it in a page or two. I was surprised to see that I couldn't find anything like that online. I found that actually disappointing.

Being the creative entrepreneur that I am, I set out to fix that.  I'm now offering clothing and gifts with empowering messages for us and our dogs on the Tasks site. I'm calling it "Transcendent Trainers."

http://www.trainemtasks.com/collections/transcendent-trainer

I have been asked about other styles of t-shirts like v-necks and long sleeves....unfortunately the printer that I am using in conjunction with my online store doesn't have those available. But, Zazzle does and I'm offering Train 'Em Tasks and Transcendent Trainers merchandise there too. http://www.zazzle.com/train_em_tasks

I see Transcendent Trainers becoming a sister site to Train 'Em Tasks...but that will come down the road in a couple of months. This is seriously just starting out and I have literally a ton of  transcendent ideas floating around in my head. I'm excited about it especially since I've been on my own big self improvement path this year.

Suggested use for Rally Task Packs...

I just love talking with my Tasks Customers because they show me new and cool ways to use my products that I haven't thought of. I get to hear about great ideas from various sources. When someone purchases anything from Train 'Em Tasks, they get an invite to our Tasks Customer Community Group on Facebook. The Tasks Customers group is a great place to bounce ideas off of other Tasks users and they come from all different walks of dog training: Obedience, Rally, Agility, IPO, French Ring, Herding, Mondioring, and etc. I get Facebook messages and emails from past customers where they share how Tasks have changed their training sessions. Lastly, past customers find me at trials, run thus, and when I'm out and about training my own dogs and we chat about how we are using Tasks stuff. I think sharing info between trainers is so valuable. Sometimes having someone's different perspective on something you have been working on or through can help us see it on a much different angle.

One awesome idea that was passed on was for the different rally task packs we offer. This customer has the Train 'Em Tasks AKC Rally Novice Task Card Pack, a small Train' Em! grab bag, and the Full Sized AKC Rally Novice Sign Packs from us.

They were using the AKC Rally Novice Task Pack and grab bag to pull different task card signs so they could build their own course at home. Once they had enough cards that they could have a full sized AKC Rally Novice Course (10 - 15 signs,) they would arrange them on a table like they would be on a map you would get at a trial. They took a photo of what they pulled and built with their phone and then headed outside with their full sized signs. Using their phone pic of the tasks, they can build a rally course on their own.

This is brilliant and I love it. The more I do Train 'Em Tasks, I find that people do not have regular access too classes and run thrus like we do here in New England. A lot of people are going forth and learning rally on their own because they are in remote areas or in places where competitive dog sports is not popular. Using our rally task packs and our full sized signs with the exercise descriptions on the back can totally work for someone who doesn't have access to rally maps because they are new to the sport. It can also work for someone who may have a limited amount of rally maps or outdated (pre 2012) rally maps from past trials. I have blogged in the past about using Tasks in the classroom. This method of using rally tasks and signs could absolutely work there too. The students could pull the task cards and arrange them into a course they want to work on. For anyone who is in levels higher than AKC Rally Novice can do this same method of pulling cards with the AKC Rally Taskmaster Collection (Novice - Excellent and a large grab bag) and our Full Sized Complete AKC Rally Sign set.

Right now we have task card packs and full sized sign packs for WCRL (formerly known as APDT) rally and using them this way would totally work too. I'm hoping to finalize the task packs and full sized sign packs for the other venues of rally we carry in Prep Pack form this fall.

Train 'Em Tutorials - AKC Rally Obedience Signs #7 and #8

The next installment of the Train 'Em Tasks Tutorials are the #7 and #8 signs in AKC Rally Novice. These two signs are the straight forward about turns - one to the right and the other to the left. I do talk about some troubleshooting where people can run into issues with the Left About Turn, like if your dog sits or has problems moving to the left because they don't have good rear end awareness.

Sign #7: About Right Turn - While heeling, the team makes a 180° about turn to the handler’s right. 

Sign #8: About "U" Turn - While heeling, the team makes a 180° turn to the handler’s left.

Train 'Em Tasks Shop updates to make life easier for all...

Okay....I am laughing so hard at myself. For 3 months, I have been banging my head against the wall trying to figure out how to do drop down menus in the shop so finding stuff for you guys is easier. I just could not figure it out.

This morning? By sheer accident...discovered how drop down menus work. ROFLMAO!!!! So, now there's no more digging around the site to find what you're looking for!

And...I'm branching out into something fun: Train 'Em Gear you can wear!!! This will end up leap frogging into something else I have kicking around in my head that will come later this year.

Anyway, please come and check out the WAAAAAAYYYYYY easier to navigate website.
www.trainemtasks.com

From the Agility Obstacle Task Pack - A-frame!

The agility grab bag gods knew exactly what we need last Friday morning, right before our last agility trial for July. Ocean's a-frame contact behavior goes between 2 on and 2 off at home and at class to running at shows. Sometimes that running ends up being striding just above that much needed yellow zone. So I sat with this card for a couple of hours and thought about what my plan of attack would be.

I ended up opting for this little course out of Clean Run's Exercise Sourcebook Volume 1. I swapped out the tunnel for my a-frame and kept the teeter as bonus contact training. I ran the black circles for our session. Since we would be showing for two days right after this session, I also swapped out the jumps for my hoops and jumps with no bars. For two trials in a row, I had jumped Ocean for three days straight...I wanted to give him and his body a little bit of a break from that. I really like working handling at home with those hoops because it's essentially working flat work with an obstacle.

 

This video is of our entire training session and it's nine minutes long. But, at least you can see how the hoops work and I wanted a visual for anyone who might want to use the impulse control exercise I worked with O at the bottom of the a-frame.  In class last Wednesday, we worked on getting O to hold his 2 on, 2 off and not self-release to something very high value (a tug toy.) For him, running agility is very self rewarding and his "running contact" is him quickly self-releasing from the a-frame. I used this same exercise here at home...and will continue to when we have an A-frame in practice. The exercise itself is pretty simple. I place the tug toy on the ground about 4 to 5 feet away from the bottom of the a-frame. If you're training with a friend, you can have them place the high value reward for you. The high value reward can be anything your dog loves...it could be really yummy food/treats or their favorite toy. Tugs and balls are much more valuable to Ocean than food is. When Ocean runs to the bottom of the a-frame and holds his 2 on, 2 off....I release him to the toy and we play as his reward. The first attempt he does self-release and grabs the tug which is what he shouldn't do. But he figured it out the next and following attempts. Another thing I like to do which you will see closer to the end of the video is to play tug with Ocean while he is in the correct position on the a-frame. I'm more or less rewarding for position like how you would feed your dog a treat in the correct a-frame criteria position. This idea would work for any pieces of the contact equipment and the table. If the dog moves out of position off the equipment....the play stops. If the dog moves back into position...play more. If your dog is very tug play motivated, they will really enjoy this sort of game and reward.

Welcome to Excellent Agility Ocean!! New Open FAST title

Yes!! I am so happy to announce...I FINALLY HAVE AN AKC EXCELLENT AGILITY DOG!!!!! Little Mr. Ocean earned his Open FAST title Saturday!! Ocean is my first AKC Excellent dog despite me playing in agility for a bunch of years now. Lars has always been very challenging in agility....so the Kidd-O at the age of 3 got farther than his genius brother ever did in AKC agility.

Going back to my earlier post this week about spiritual gangstering...I can't tell you how much of mind game it was to me that I struggled and struggled to get a dog to Excellent levels in AKC. I was convinced that I was that limited of a handler that AXP's and MXP's were something that would always just be out of my reach. I didn't step back and say, my dog's (meaning Lars)  strength wasn't agility. It wasn't me as a handler...I had challenges facing me that even most very experience handlers would have struggled with. My work on my inner self has allowed me to step back and get some clarity that it would come. That my dog (meaning Ocean) and I were getting a little bit better each time we stepped into an agility ring. And...it did finally come when I let go and just enjoyed the journey with Ocean. How about that shiznit??

I have some video of some of the awesome NQ's we had the rest of the weekend. This Open JWW had two bars down in the closing line. And the Open Standard here was an NQ because Ocean leapt just over the yellow on the dogwalk. I crowded him on the weave pole entrance. But....this was identical to the Ex/Masters Standard run. It was only missing two jumps at the very end. :)