Stage Fright and Being Naked!

Posted on March 11, 2015 by ffluffy

I was listening to Ted Talk the other day and Joe Kowan was discussing stage fright; the next day I was experiencing stage fright first hand as Bob and I did our first REAL disc demo. I do agility every day, I run in a trial some weekends, I have trialed at the highest level in agility; I can do agility in my sleep. Disc on the other hand, is new to me. And even though I practice, I find it hard. And even though Bob likes it, he is not perfect. We have a looooong way to go.

Performing in front of other people causes anxiety and stress, for both the DOG and the HANDLER. Don’t deny it! Embrace it! I knew that doing a Frisbee demo with Bob would be hard. I had run through my routine a million times in my head, I had done it a few times in real time. I like to visualize my disc performance or agility run from start to finish, including getting my dog from my crate, pottying them, warming up, doing the run, finishing, rewarding and cooling down. While this set of steps can help you be successful, don’t get too caught up in the “routine”, you have to be prepared for the unexpected and be flexible with your habits. Esteban Fernandezlopez discusses this in a Bad Dog Agility Podcast on Improving Mental Game. I like to plan what I am doing before an agility run but I am not going to freak out if I don’t have my special toy or certain treats. A routine is a great way to generate confidence at a trial! Read my post on getting organized for your agility run called Crate to Crate.

The disc demo went well because I trusted Bob to do what we had already done! And NO! I didn’t have treats out there! Just discs and my dog! We had also trained for this, practicing disc with the treats over on the table (although most of the time the Frisbee is the reward, some tricks like roll over, were taught with treats). It was hard to step out there in front of a crowd of people, my heart rate was elevated, and my breathing was faster, my thoughts were not clear; I couldn’t even remember all of the steps in our performance!!! But I took a deep breath, threw the first disc, and FAKED it!!! And I was naked! And so was Bob! No treats! No collar! Just trust and love for my dog and doing disc together!

Make sure you practice you AND your dog being naked! Train like you show, show like you train! Nothing is worse than your dog going through an extinction behavior (like not releasing from the dogwalk) because they are suddenly not getting treats at the rate they gets treats in training. Set up your training so that it is similar to how you trial!

When you are new to agility, obedience, flyball, schutzhund, tracking, fill in the blank with your dog sport of choice, you need a list of steps (called steps to perform) that you are going to mostly follow from start to finish, you need a positive attitude and a smile, you need a love for your dog and a trust in what you have done during training and you need to remember that you are doing this because it is FUN! Force yourself to smile if you have to!

If it isn’t fun, if it is too stressful, if your dog checks out and you can’t get them back, if you are vomiting in the bathroom (Cynosports 2009, not me but some unknown GP finalist), you should probably reassess your goals. We are NOT curing cancer!!! It is a dog sport! It is a hobby!

Here is a worksheet to help you design your own list of steps to perform, . This is just one of many worksheets that help my clients and I to be successful on our agility journey!

bob disc demo

Are You Nagging Your Dog?

Posted on January 22, 2015 by ffluffy

I have been thinking about dog training lately; specifically about how we communicate with our dogs.

In the basic essence and over simplified philosophy of dog training you are rewarding what you like and ignoring what you don’t like. Although negative reward markers MIGHT have their place in training occasionally, I do see them being over used. Things like “eh”, “ah”, “no”, a heavy sigh, slouching of shoulders, blaming the dog for a mistake, etc can turn your dog off from their task. And corrections certainly have no place in our made up “fun” sport of agility. Instead, try ignoring what went wrong, or laugh like a silly goose as you say “let’s go try again” in a happy voice!

These two articles (links below) are great at describing how things we do as trainers can shut a dog down. Nancy Tanner’s article says “Wanting or expecting a behavior from your dog that is perfect, and not allowing it to happen with time and maturity, will in fact shut your dog down.” And the Dogwood article says “Imagine if every time you raised your hand and tried to answer a question in class your teacher screams at you “NO YOU ARE WRONG”. No matter how many ways or times you tried to answer the question, you were told that you were wrong and never told what the correct answer was.”

Anecdotal evidence from my experience training Bob tells me this is true (my friend Amber was present and can corroborate this story). Bob is VERY soft, and doesn’t have inherent drive for agility. When I was teaching his weave poles he started out awesome! And then we had a session where things went south, I responded in a “eh” sort of way, put too much pressure on him, slouched and sighed, as I tried again and again, and he was done. It took many sessions to regain what we had. And I created even more worry for agility in his mind. I re-experienced this with him training a Frisbee trick just the other day! I was teaching a backwards circle through my legs. He didn’t quite get it, and started to worry (I can see it in his eyes and body posture). I decided to go all the way back to using food and going step by step because Bob was not having fun. I took my time, NEVER marked anything with a negative, ignored when it went bad, and partied when it went well. IT TOOK 2 WEEKS! Which, in my mind is a really long time. But that is Bob. And now???? You can’t get him to not to the trick, and he slams through it like it is the funnest thing ever (ouch, my poor knees and calves). But if I had made those “no” noises, I doubt if we would have gotten the trick to happen. And we just did our trick in public, Bob was HAPPY to do it, no worries!!

Bob backwards circle through legs

In a Bad Dog Agility Podcast Denise Fenzi used a great example about negative reward markers by describing the of teaching of math to a little kid. If you are going through the multiplication tables and you get to the sixes and the child starts having a hard time with 6 X 3, do you say “NO that is wrong?” and make them repeat it 5 times? They probably aren’t going to get it right no matter how many times you do it. Better to go back to the basics, talk about 6 X 1 and 6 X 2, do the three’s, show a number line using sixes, etc. And praise the child when they are correct, even if it is a small piece. Those pieces add up over time! Would you want to work for someone who only told you when you were wrong? Or verbally pointed it out every time you made a mistake?

Try it! Go run a small sequence, and notice if you are correcting, using “no”, making the dog repeat, slouching, etc. If you are, try to ignore the things you don’t like, just be quiet and focus on the things that are AWESOME, reward those things! And then go back and break down the things your dog is struggling with, chances are you were causing the mistake anyway 🙂 so why would you correct or negatively mark something that was your fault? Agility is a game we play with our dogs. We are NOT curing cancer. And no body died.

Here are the two articles:

http://nancytanner.com/2015/01/18/shutting-a-dog-down/

http://classes.dogwooddogtraining.com/preventing-shut-down-or-learned-helplessness/

Hug your dogs! Run EVERY run like it is your last, because you just never know. 🙂

Human nature vs dog training

Posted on August 14, 2014 by ffluffy

As I continue to help people with their dogs, I do believe, as humans, we tend to LUMP and SKIP steps that our dogs are not ready to LUMP or SKIP.

The Dr. Karen Overall Relaxation Protocol is an awesome tool to help your dog deal with stressful and stimulating situations.

This “mat” behavior, as we call it, needs to be proofed beyond all doubts. Generalized, tested, etc. AND THEN YOU NEED TO USE IT! Please do not show up to any class, trial, training, etc without your mat. It is a tool. Your dog may need it for the rest of their life. And just when you think your dog “gets it”, they don’t. You need to proof more. You need to take it to a trial and see if your dog can do it within sight of the ring. You need to take it to class and use it instead of your start line, or as an obstacle. You need to take it to a busy, crowded area. You need to throw treats and toys around it. You need to do it at night, during the day, in the rain, and in the sun. And you need to do it with other dogs or kids or people working near it. And, and, and.

IF and WHEN you find that your dog is not coping or functioning you have over stepped your training. WE want to do agility. BUT what if our dogs aren’t ready? What is the point of being able to do 20 obstacles if your dog can’t function around other dogs or people?????? Is it better to train more agility at that point? Work handling? Or help your dog cope with different situations? I say that it is better to help your dog cope. Deal with stress. IT DOES NOT MATTER HOW FAST YOUR DOG IS OR HOW AWESOME YOUR HANDLING IS if your dog can’t function around other dogs, or step to the start line and stay focused.

Anecdote: I paid for and attended multiple sessions of an obedience class with Hunda when I lived in Little Rock, CA. The class cost was $20 per class for 1 session of 10 classes ($200 total) and was 1 hour away in Lancaster. I did multiple sessions. Hunda couldn’t function inside the fenced portion of the class. I think we went inside once or twice. Mostly we did short behavior chains outside of sight of the ring. He was so overly stimulated that we couldn’t go near the other dogs. I worked and worked and worked, and some days he was ready to go near the gate, loose leash waking all the way (don’t think your instructor doesn’t notice when clients let their dogs pull 😦 this is a VERY sad comment on our dog training skills and your relationship with your dog), and if Hunda could let me open the gate and step inside without spazzing out we would go in, do a behavior and leave. That’s it. Very rarely we actually worked on LLW or something more complicated within the ring. He just couldn’t do it. BUT it really helped him with self control and stress. And I learned to recognize when he could and couldn’t work. And I took that with me to the agility ring. If Hunda could bark on command and do a trick on the start line I had a dog, if he couldn’t he was too stressed and we would leave the ring. And even if he did bark on command and do a trick, we would do 2 – 3 obstacles and leave having fun, being happy, focused on me and not stressed and visiting the ring help or judge. It was very $$$$$$$$$$$$ and worth every penny to do 6 months of trials without actually running a full course. My first actual Q with Hunda, as well as his Novice titles, mean WAAAAAYYYY more to me than going to South Africa with Ho because I had to work so hard for them!

So sit back and think about your goals with your dogs. And keep their stress and your relationship in mind when you start choosing agility over calmness, agility over relaxation, agility over teamwork, etc. Which is more important? Agility or your relationship with your dog? The sad part is, I am seeing A LOT of clients choose agility because agility is fun for the human and dog training is hard.

I leave you with some quotes:

Someone once said to me, “It doesn’t matter how fast your dog is if your dog drops a bar”

I say, “It doesn’t matter how fast your dog is if you can’t function at an agility trial, do a start line stay, etc”

I love my Hunda Looney Tunes, he teaches me soooo much! Our teamwork together has taken us many places! Granted, my goals with him (like the AKC Invitational) had to CHANGE significantly as our training progressed (he will never be able to attend due to running in Performance at 8″) BUT that first agility title hangs on my wall, right next to our CD title, HUGE accomplishments that we both worked very hard for. And this year, Hunda placed 3rd in JWW at Westminster! You never know where your dog training journey will take you (and that’s why my business is called Journey Agility)!!! Hunda just turned 7, Happy Birthday Looney Tunes and here’s to many more journey’s together!