Last weekend we spent most of the day Saturday in Auburn at the Cascade Coursing Club hosted CAT (coursing ability test). I wanted to see how the border collies would do and although I was hesitant to run course Pax on the type of lure they use (continuous loop), I entered him too since he was there. The border collies both did well. They stayed with the lure the whole time and were fast until the end when they got tired. We didn't stay long enough to see the results, but we guessed that Pax won...which wasn't really fair because the test is supposed to be for non-sighthounds. We have to enter the border collies two more times to get the CAT title on them.
I enjoy this sport because it's really great conditioning for the dogs and requires no training. I did notice all my dogs slow down at the end, which means they need endurance work! We do something with them 6 days a week, but we need a new conditioning plan for them.
Here is what we do now:
Monday - chuck-it + free running at the field 45 minutes
Tuesday- day off
Wednesday- dog park free running 45 minutes + agility for Pax & Indigo
Thursday - dog park free running 30 minutes
Friday - chuck-it + free running at the field 45 minutes
Saturday - usually dog park 1 hr
Sunday - herding for Goose and flyball for Indigo or Goose and Pax
We need to add more sessions and keep running them longer. We also need to add swimming and free running on the trails following the mountain bike. Some long hikes wouldn't hurt either. I usually run at the gym on the treadmill, but could start taking them with me and run outside. I also need to get balance balls and start working on strengthening exercises. We have a swim appointment for the three of them on Thursday, so we are off to a good start on their new exercise plan!
**********************************
Last weekend was especially dog activity filled! On Sunday morning I went herding with Goose and had a really good session. His natural talent is amazing. Diane surprised us with some light trial sheep to increase the challenge for us. Goose and I went in to work them and they all scattered and it was a huge mess. I was surprised since he always does so well. These sheep were so much harder! This made me realize that I need to work on his lie down and give him more instructions to keep a good enough distance from the sheep so they stay calm. After we worked a bit on widening his outrun and an immediate lie down (rather than 3 seconds later), we had those sheep totally under control. It was a very rewarding lesson.
**********************************
The way it's been lately is that on Sunday, I rush home, grab my flyball stuff and run out to get to flyball practice in time. Last weekend was no different...I dropped Goose of and grabbed Pax and Indigo. Indigo doesn't really need practice anymore, but I do bring her to help with training and for lineup practice. Pax is getting so much better, although I need to start having other people run him because I need to see how his box turn and striding look. The work I've been doing with him has payed off. His times have come down a bit at practice. We was running all 3.7s and 3.6s at practice. We will see if that holds up at a tournament with no gutters.
Speaking of gutters. I am proud to say that we finally fixed my most challenging gutter problem!
Georgias striding has been off for awhile, but everytime I put in the standard gutters that help most dogs, she jumps them! She needs to take three strides after hitting the box before jump 5 and to not take off so early for the box. Mission accomplished with lots of tweaking.
We have been working on planning Spring events for the dogs. Here's what we've got so far..some of the dates are tentative
Feb 18th AKC coursing ability test in Auburn, WA
March 4th AFSA lure coursing Auburn, WA
March 24-25th NAFA tournament BC
April 7-8th UFLI Victoria, BC
April 28-29th UFLI Amana, IA
May 5-6th NAFA tournament Greenfield,MA
May 19-20th NAFA Seekonk, MA
June 22-23rd NAFA Coconut Classic PA
July 7-8th Starkville, NY ASFA lure coursing
August 11th-12th UFLI Richmond ON
August 18th-19th Rocket Relay ON
Oct 12-14th Indianapolis, IN CanAm
Ben is taking a break from agility until he finds a new trainer in
Massachusetts and will probably just focus on Indigo and less on Pax. We
are mostly doing flyball and lure coursing this year.
We will be driving across the country in April. We will drop our daughter Finley in Reno with her grandparents and then Ben and I and our three dogs will drive across the country. We plan to stop at one flyball tournament that is on the way in Iowa. It's always fun to play flyball in a new place. Indigo and Goose will run on pickup teams.
I've been going sheep herding a lot lately with Goose and feeling bad
that I haven't taken him more. He is so good at it and it's been lots of
fun. Our instructor, Diane from Deltabluez Stockdogs thinks that we have the potential to enter a novice
trial. If we get sheep someday I'd like to be more serious with sheep
herding, but now it seems very unachievable. Either way, Goose and I
have fun on Sunday mornings going out to the farm together. It's a pretty drive and I always treat myself to coffee and a scone from Caffe Ladro, my favorite coffee. They give out biscuits so Goose doesn't mind making the stop.
Sometimes I'll take Indigo for the ride. She knows the farm and has no interest in working the sheep. She is a true performance bred border collie. She runs out of the car, past the gate that leads to the fields, finds a stick and brings it to me to throw and crouches, waiting for it. This usually involves the pond and me throwing the stick into the pond. I did bring Pax once, but quickly realized that whippets and small farm animals aren't the best combination. Lets just say I can tell he would be a good hunter!
We finished our recallers class and I actually really enjoyed it and found it to be extremely valuable. I plan to continue to use lots of Susan Garretts games and may even take the her online puppy class. I'll keep taking her courses, but I draw the line at a certain amount of money. I certainly wouldn't pay $5000 for any training class.
This weekend we are going to attempt to go to the AKC CAT with the three dogs...even though it's kind of a joke for Pax to do this type of lure coursing. I really want to do it with the border collies and I can't just leave him at home! On Sunday we will hopefully go herding and to flyball practice.
Speaking of flyball, I have a new favorite drill! It's something I've done a lot with Pax, but I need to do it more.... I'm going to try to do it at every practice until the next tournament in March. The things he needs work on are passing into another dog, speed TO the box, tighter, more controlled turn. This drill accomplishes everything I need to work on. Here is a video of us working on it last week at practice . The first dog does a full run and then I have someone release Pax from where I would normally pass him, but I am standing up at the box and calling him. Because I am calling him, he is focusing less on the pass and is running faster to me/the box. As he hits the box and run into the middle of the lane and pull him off quickly, not giving him an opportunity to go wide. I can really see the difference in this video. After March, I plan to run him in singles a few times but not on a team until he gets used to his new teammates and figures out his striding.
I enjoy taking dogs for training. I find that I have the most success when I can do 2-3 sessions everyday, especially when working on big problems. Right now we have Jitter, a ball obsessed border collie. He pretty much has no off switch unless he is in his crate and is very antsy. He came to me with not a lot of self control, but is well socialized and willing to work. He is actually fun to train and training him became more enjoyable when he realized that he can't get away with cheap shots! He has started to trust me and is way more focused than when we started. It's fun to watch his border collie mind work!
This arrangement works out well for both his owners and me, as I needed to test some of the new ball obsession games on him. We are making progress, but it's slow. Very slow. And we have setbacks. He is extremely ball obsessed. The worst I've ever seen. I've had him for about a week and a half and I've been focusing on the following:
- impulse control with everything in life including balls
- recall, my ultimate goal is to recall him past tennis balls on the ground
- ball to hand. I'm working on the "hand" command.
- I will throw a ball while he stays, if he gets up during my throw I go and pick up the ball and start over. He isn't allowed to get his ball until I say "get your ball". Before I release him to get his ball, he has to tug and then when he gets the ball he has to put it in my hand immediately.
- I made up another game, which I really like. First I play some tug with him. Then I have him stay and put a ball and a tug about equal distance from him on the ground. Then I say "go get your tug!" He obviously has two choices at this point. If he picks the ball, I pick up both toys and the whole game starts over. If he does immediately go for the tug, I pick it up and play with him and then sometimes I'll while we are tugging I'll say "get your ball", which then immediately HAS to be put in my hand for a click/treat.
- Premack!!! I'll put a ball on the ground and then offer him either the ball or the cheese in my hand. If he does well with that, I'll wait longer and longer before giving him the cheese (lower the rate of reinforcement). This game has been advanced to choosing to wait for a cheese reward while being released to go chase a rolling ball. I've also done this with a tug instead of cheese. I'll put a ball on the ground nearby and then play really exciting tug and while we are tugging I'll say "OK go get your ball". If he doesn't go for his ball, the tug game gets even more exciting.
The challenges are when he steals the ball because I trusted him too much and then chomps on it. When this happens, I feel like we take a few steps backward. Also I can't get him to immediately come to me with the ball without relying on a leash about 1/2 the time. I STILL cannot get him to spit the ball for a tug, regardless of how crazy rabid pony I am. He just stands there chomping on the ball, which is extremely frustrating. I only have him for a few more days before I take my next dog for board/train and my focus will be RECALL, ball to hand, and hopefully get some ball tug exchange.
I also have realized that Jitter would really benefit from some mat work. When left loose in the house he paces, looking for tennis balls. I think he would be a lot less obsessive if he learned how to relax.
We have Imp Ben staying with us right now. He belongs to Diane our herding instructor. He is from Bobby Dalziel's Joe X Pippa. He is a lovely dog with a great temperament. He's learned our house rules quickly and is fitting in very well. He hasn't had a single accident in the house and is quiet all night...what more could I ask for from a puppy?! Goose enjoys him. They must relate to each other with some sort of sheep herding connection. Ben has been to the grocery store and the park and did great with both. He is also learning how to wait before leaving his crate and he already knew "lie down and learned "sit" quickly. We may have to bring him back soon though because we are taking Jitter from our flyball team for some training and I don't think we are quite ready to handle 5 dogs right now. There might be a bit of an overlap though, so we will see how that goes.
In flyball we obviously want the tug to be the highest value thing..the ultimate reward for a job done well. The ball on the other hand is something we want them to be willing to put in their mouth in order to get the big reward. We don't want them to savor the moment of getting the ball out of the box, but rather the box should be something that they want to get away from as quickly as possible. Dogs that tend to spit balls early are faster than those that chomp on the ball all the way back and don't spit for the tug. I will never understand why some people YELL at their dog to drop the ball and TUG! Or those that wave the tug in the dogs face while the dog is chomping the ball until it's time to run again. The dog in these examples did not get a reward.
New people to flyball often think of flyball as a sport that is great for dogs that love tennis balls. I think it's more of a sport that is great for dogs that thrive in overstimulating environments, love to be with their handler and willing to work hard to tug.
The key parts of starting out a puppy are building tug drive, building value for being with their handler and dealing with very distracting things. Until you have a dog that can tug with enthusiasm in the presence of balls rolling, dogs running, people running, loud noises and other flyball craziness, you are not ready to introduce other parts of flyball, especially the ball retrieve. In training for flyball I find the ball to be an afterthought in the early stages of training. It doesn't hurt to do flat recalls with a puppy with balls rolling everywhere as a prevention for ball obsession.
This early training needs to be happening at home as well. Lots of tug building activities and most importantly lots of time spend interacting with the handler. I don't agree with the idea that tennis balls should be restricted. It doesn't make logical sense to me as a method to reduce the value, but I do think that the dog shouldn't be encouraged to find value in chomping any toy including a tennis ball my himself.
If your dog is already obsessed with tennis balls. It might be hard to fix, but at least you know that your dog finds SOMETHING valuable and has drive. It's just for the wrong thing. I've come to realize that it's not helpful to use "leave it" with balls on the ground because people don't tend to train a solid enough leave it so that the dog WANTS to leave it. It's more of a replacement for "NO". I haven't found that pool noodles are helpful.
Here are some ideas:
1. Teach a SOLID recalls. Extremely solid. You should be able to bet $100 that every time you call your dog he will come to you in all situations. With the ultimate challenge being his ability to recall to you past a ball on the ground or several balls being scattered on the ground.
2. Teach a solid "drop it" command using the technique HERE . This will help with the dog to drop the ball quickly and possibly go for the tug (depending on tug drive). It doesn't help with balls in the run back though. Also to teach "drop it", when the dog brings the ball to you (if he doesn't bring it train him in a small enough area on a leash so that he does) grab him by the collar and put your hand on the ball without tugging and wait patiently. As soon as he releases it, throw it again as a reward. Repeat
3. Toy exchange game. Take out 2-4 toys (no balls to start) and spread them around the training area with no other distractions to start. Pick up one and start flipping it around and act like it's the coolest thing ever. As soon as your dog comes over and starts playing with it and tugging drop it and run to the next and do the same thing. Keep switching to the next toy so that your dog learns that the most fun toy is the one that you have. Eventually add balls into the mix when your dog is reliably going for the toy that you have rather than the ones on the ground.
4. Use the ball as a reward in your training. Instead of keeping balls away from the ball obsessed dog, use a ball as a reward for the behavior that you eventually want - enthusiastic tugging. With the dog on a leash and a ball in your pocket, tug with the dog with no balls in his view. When he is tugging to the level of enthusiasm that you want (this shouldn't take more than 30 seconds), say "OK" or other release word and place the ball on the ground for him to get.
Refer to # 2 on this list to get the ball back from him. Put the ball back in your pocket or hide it with easy access and repeat. If the dog tugs for 3 seconds and then looks for the ball, he doesn't get it. ou decide when he gets it.
You can advance this game by releasing him to a ball you throw or several balls to choose from and eventually without a leash. Eventually you will find that when you say "OK" and throw the ball, he will chose the tug over the ball. It takes time though.
If the dog is already doing box work, you can play the same game. Require that your dog tugs with you and then release him to get the ball from the box when you are happy with his tugging. In this situation tugging after the ball would be ideal too. Make sure he can't reward himself with the ball, by having the box loader put the ball in just as you release the dog.
5. Premack. This is similar # 4, but only works if you use something that is currently more valuable than the ball. With the dog on a leash and lots of high value treats, click/treat when the dog looks at you. When he is doing this reliably, put a ball on the ground and wait for him to look back and you and reward him with a click/treat. After doing this for a few sessions, after you click/treat for orienting to you, say "OK" and let him get the ball if he wants. And then wait. While you are waiting you are holding his leash and not moving or saying anything at all. At this point he has to decide between standing there playing with the ball by himself without moving more than a few feet or looking at you and getting a treat. After a few times of trying this, he will likely find the ball less rewarding in this situation than the high value treat. As he gets more reliable with this, start lowering the value of the treat or use a tug instead of food and increase the value of the ball by giving him a long line, taking the leash off in a small area, throwing the ball etc.
6. Ball on a short rope. Add a short rope to a tennis ball and play fetch with your dog, when he brings it ball, play an exciting game of tug. play keep away with this toy. While holding your dogs collar, put this rope/ball toy about 10 ft in front of you. Push your dog behind you and race him for the toy. You win the first two times and then on the third one let him win and play a fun game of tug. When you get the toy from him pretend that he is trying to get it from you and you are keeping it away from him. Tease him with it and then let him get it. Sometimes chase him or sometimes turn around the run away while he has it. Everytime he comes to you play with him. Never swing it in his face, but make him think it is a valuable resource that he is getting as a reward. Once he LOVES this toy, start putting plain tennis balls in view and slowly add more and have people roll them around. Continue to play tug drive building games in the presence of balls, expanding to a tug with a longer ball and less rope.
7. Self Control. Teach your dog impulse control. I use Susan Garretts game "It's Yer Choice". to teach my dogs to not steal food. It can be expanded to teach them not to steal toys or basically that they have to "work" to get something they want. They chose to either do what you want them to do and get their reward or neither. In this case you can require that your dog does a basic command (nose touch or sit/stay) and gets a ball as a reward or if you want him to leave the ball practice this game and give him a very high value food reward for choosing to not go for a ball.
8. Balls in the Crate. I'm not sure how well this works, but I've that some people have had success with filling the dogs crate with balls with the thought that eventually he will be annoyed by them rather than excited about them.
These thoughts are based on my reading and experience I've had with ball obsession. I'd love to hear other peoples experiences and especially if you've tried any of these things and if they work. I currently don't know of any dogs that have been completely cured of ball obsession.
Today was a snow day! We went herding with Goose and had a great time. He is so much more confident and could probably trial if we put enough time into his training. It's difficult because of the price for training and the driving distance. Perhaps we will get our own sheep when we move to New England. We're just doing basic outruns, but he is very confident and honest. I enjoy going because of the pretty drive and the experience of being on the farm. Since Goose is our only herding dog, we took Indigo, Pax and Georgia (Amy's dog) to the field for a run after herding. Amy took this amazing photo of Indigo. It's one of the best I've ever seen of her.
With a break from dog sport competing. We've had time to work on basic manners training and problems. Pax has a few issues. He doesn't like to be left alone without other dogs to cuddle with and he has been doing some resource guarding. We are working on him being left alone by doing Susan Garretts crate games and just generally rewarding him whenever he chooses to go in his open crate. The plan is to slowly wean him from being near us while he is in the crate. We will start to do that once we know he loves the crate. First we will keep him in the crate, but near us while we are home and then we will move the crate downstairs into the dog room. I know it's been working because for the past few nights I've invited him on the bed to cuddle and he instead chose to go into his crate! We keep a container of stinky salmon treats and drop them in anytime he goes in. Crate games is a great place to start working with dogs that don't like to be left alone.
The resource guarding was created by us and our lack of attention to a building problem. We have always fed the dogs all together outside when they eat raw food. They each get a bowl and it's never been a problem for them to all eat their own food. We noticed a few times that Goose started stealing Pax's food and apparently it happened a lot more and we didn't notice. At some point, Pax started getting annoyed, which is understandable. He started barking and defending his food. We let the problem go even longer, which was not smart of us. A few months ago we realized it's a problem and it affected the relationship between Goose and Pax negatively. Now they can't eat near each other at all (other than treats) and Pax has started guarding people and beds from Goose as well. 100% our fault. Anyway, now Pax eats inside and the border collies eat outside. Pax reacts to Goose through the glass door when Goose comes running toward the glass for his next piece of meat out of his bowl.
We have been working hard to fix this problem using classical conditioning. Here are some instructions. Resource Guarding with Other Dogs We personalized it. Every time the dogs eat we stand near the back door with Pax. He watches Goose (who is outside) take his first piece of meat, which is fine with Pax and doesn't cause a reaction at all. Then as Goose is coming back for another piece and we see the initial signs of Pax getting stressed we immediately surprise Pax with a delicious treat. We are now at the point that when Goose comes running toward us, Pax looks up for a treat. We still haven't worked on the guarding of people or beds, that is next.
We also need to work on jumping up on people and "stay" for all dogs and lunging at roller blades for Goose. There is always something to work on. Despite that, I really want a puppy. I don't need a puppy, but I want one!
1. I have a 4 year old Westie. He
is a chaser, we are slowly working that out. I too have found that
desensitizing him has done nothing. He goes down and gets his ball without chasing, but often chases on the way back from the box. In the left lane, that split
second of turning off the box and losing sight of the dog in the right
lane sends him in to a craze. What
he typically does is cross over and shake the ball he
has in his mouth. Once the other dog acknowledges that, he then after
some herding makes his way back to me. We have tried gates, loud noises,
everything. All of that does nothing. If I don't get a hold of him and
quickly, he will run back down the lane after the dog.
2. Do you have good method at teaching
tugging? Currently he is super food motivated. I am working on tugging. If I really get him amped up, he
will tug, but he still isn't really latching on, more rather gumming
it. And if a ball rolls by, he is done. He is way in to the ball, not
more so than chasing other dogs, but more into a rolling ball than
tugging with me.
In my opinion ball obsession and chasing are the two hardest problems to fix and this guy has a little bit of both.
Here are some ideas for this type of chasing:
1. Don't ever give him the opportunity to chase. Chasing and getting access to the other dog is very rewarding. From this point on, don't ever give him the opportunity to practice the chasing behavior. After awhile the chasing becomes a habit, force him to break the habit!
If he is more likely to chase with multiple dogs running, run him with one other dog until he is reliable. Run him against the slowest dog on the team. Use gates along the whole lane including the run back, removing them one by one over the course of several weeks. Do head to head box work with you and him completely enclosed in gates. If you don't have gates, get a few people to block and make sure they understand the rules and are quick. Make sure the blockers know that they are in charge of forming a barrier around the dog being chased and ignore your dog. They should not allow access to the other dog at all. No one should be yelling at him. With these precautions, he should never get full access to the dog he wants, but he still might try to chase. If he does, calmly pick him up and put him in his crate until his next turn or at least a few minutes. Letting him run again is a reward.
2. Build positive associations with moving dogs. starting outside of flyball practice try doing some control unleashed & premack
type training. I would use LAT (look at that) with moving dogs,
click/treat for attention to you, relaxation protocol, parallel games,
Give Me a Break (GMAB)
- LAT: go to a spot where he is under threshold and reward him for orienting toward running dogs.
-GMAB: teach him the basic rules of the game in a non
distracting environment. When he knows the game, go to practice and set up gates around you and your dog near the
flyball lanes ( as far away as needed to keep him under threshold), making a box around you.
Put a chair in the box. While standing, ask the dog to do a behavior and
click/treat at a high rate with about 10 treats. And then release the dog to go do whatever he wants and you sit down. As soon as the dog looks back at you, get out of the chair and repeat with another request for a sit/lie down and click/treat. Do this for short sessions several times during practice.
3. Work at the point just before he tends to react. If he always goes and gets his ball and brings it back over jump 7 before chasing, set up a short course (2 jumps in both lanes) have someone else release him and you stand right in front of the last jump on his way back and reward him before the point that you expect him to chase. You could even remove all the jumps and have someone else release him and then reward him just after the box and slowly move down the lane until you are far enough back to release him, adding the jumps back in later. It really isn't necessary to use full runs to work on this. More running makes the dog have to think more and a more tired dog is more likely to chase. If he chases on the flat during recalls, work there. Try separating the lanes as far apart as you can. Also try staggering the dogs, alternate between releasing him first and releasing the other dog first.
4. Build value for you and a solid recall. When I say "solid recall". I mean that you want your dog to run fast to you. This is where the tugging comes into the picture. I'll have to do another post on building tug drive and a few recall games, but here are a few quick tips. Start training at home and then add distractions slowly. Ask him to sit and then say "ready set TUG" and run away, dragging the tug. Push him away from you, play keep away. Throw the tug, push him back behind you and race him for the tug. You win the first two and then let him win. Once he gets the tug, run away and get him to chase you. Always end the game when the dog is most excited about tugging. Never wait until he decides to end it. Try the tug exchange game - get two tugs and leave them on the ground, run and grab one and act like it is very exciting. When he comes over, play keep away, pushing him away and teasing him and then let him get it. As soon as he is tugging at his peak, drop the tug and run and get the next one. Keep tugging sessions very short (30 seconds). Try using a ball with a small rope on in and play fetch, tugging with him each time before and after you throw it. Also read these articles
5. Play games that will desensitize him to motion. Even if it hasn't worked before, it might work eventually with the right methods it might help.
- Focus on the Handler: get one other dog that you can rely on to go fetch a ball and bring it right back to his handler and two tennis balls. With plenty of space in front of you, and the other handler holding his dog, throw the ball 10 feet in front of you and release your dog to go get it and give him a cue to bring it back and put it in your hand. If he can't do that, keep working on it. If he can on the second round, do the same thing but just as he is getting back to you, have the 2nd handler throw the ball for their dog and release to get it. Alternate who starts first and keep it under the point of chasing.
- Get out Game: I'll have to post a video of this one. With no other dogs around and your dog off leash, throw a treat to your side and say "get out" as soon as he gets it, say "get out" again throwing it in the other direction. Keep doing this, throwing in a request to come right to you every so often. In the next session, add another dog playing the game nearby, slowly getting closer and adding more dogs playing the game.
- Three boxes: set up a box in between the two normal flyball lanes and put the chasing dog in the middle. The thought is that it will blow his mind and he won't be able to choose someone to chase.
- Chase games: without jumps, have someone hold the chasing dog and a non-reactive dog near the box. The holder releases the non-reactive dog first and then the chasing dog. The handler of the first dog should run much further (to 60 feet) and the handler of the chasing dog to 15 feet. In between 15 and 60 feet, have people prepared to block the chasing dog.
Final Thoughts -
1. Allow the chasing dog to experience other dogs and being off leash and running unless this is dangerous. I think this often happens to dogs that aren't exposed to a lot of motion and never have the opportunity to interact with other dogs off leash
2. Some people have had success with slamming pool noodles on the ground, Ecollars or water guns. I have had sucesss with water gun, but never with pool noodles. Be careful with Ecollars as you may end up with a dog that never wants to walk into the building again.
3. If he does it right, respond appropriately. give him a HUGE payment.
4. Talk to your vet about medication. Your dog might benefit from some psych meds
4. This takes a lot of patience and could take many years to fix.
