Raising a Riot

Field Training Class

This was the second week of Riot’s beginning field training class. 

He was supposed to take this class last year, but he got sick after the first class and we had to drop. In this case, it probably worked out for the best because I think both of us are a lot more ready for the class this year.

We started out on water yesterday and the first retrieve was of a Doken. We have a doken at home, but I’ve never managed to get much interest in it from either dog. We had one to familiarize the dogs with before we went up to the line. Riot really wanted nothing to do with it and I had to result to force fetching him to get him to hold it. Which he did quite nicely and even with lots of praise, he was not happy to be holding it. 

Since we had limited success with the introduction (re-introduction), I was worried what would happen on water. Riot does seem to be having some confidence issues when it comes to distance on water. He did launch himself right in on the first throw (which was the doken from a winger).  And swam nearly all the way out but got distracted by a bug, snapped at the bug and then came back. 

He doesn’t respond really well to “hey, hey, hey” and once his focus is lost, it’s really hard to get him to go back (both in water and on land). 

We did a couple of shorter throws with him with the dokens and we went out and got them and brought them back each time. He even brought them out of the water, but his hold did fall through after that. 

We then tried the bumper from the other station, which again was too far out. He was very hesitant leaving the shore on that throw and wouldn’t commit. A couple of shorter throws and we got him out to the bumpers. He does seem a lot more easily spooked on water than on land. His hold still wasn’t as solid as I’d like with the bumpers, but I did get the bumpers before they hit the ground.

Up next was land. We worked on line manners some and he’s doing pretty well. The first throw was very reminiscent of last week. He ran a little further toward the bumper before getting distracted and starting to sniff, I had to walk most of the way out to the bumper before he went oh hey this is what I’m supposed to do. He dropped it about half way back and I was having none of it. Even though Roger was telling me not to worry about it. I was putting that bumper back in his mouth and he was going to walk the rest of the way back to the line holding it — which he did quite nicely. 

Roger then did a really short throw with him and he went out, retrieved it, and brought it back to heel position very nicely. Finally!

We then did a throw that entered a bit of cover up a fairly steep hill, and Riot when right out, found it after a tiny search and brought it back holding all the way.

We got to repeat the marks a little while later and he did so much better on them. The first one he dropped almost right in front of me, and I was going to put it in his mouth and Roger stopped me and said to back up a few more steps and make him pick it up. Which he did and returned to me with it. The last mark was nearly picture perfect with his hold and return to heel :)

Finally Riot got to be used as a demo dog as a dog that had a pretty good hold already. He did really well letting Roger work with him even with his tail going a mile a minute. I think we were moments away from a complete wiggly mess, but he got through it and he held it except for one drop when no one was paying any attention to him, but it was just what was needed as part of the demo session. 

Overall I was thrilled, we do need to work on focus and confidence. Sue suggested I stay after and get someone to throw longer and longer marks on water for him. But I wanted to end of the high note of his last retrieves on land. Hopefully I can either get him out this week to work some on distance or if we get there early next week get some throws in.

Novice Obedience Week 5

Besides the usual getting a ton of tips to help us improve, Karen said two things that left me on cloud 9 tonight:

1. We’d be able to qualify in the ring — our score wouldn’t be great, but we could get in the 180s. I told her I wanted to wait until we could get in the 190s and she said that was a good idea because he certainly is capable of it.
2. She said if he had an OTCH handler, he’d be well on his way to an OTCH by now. It’s nice to know that the potential is there, now if only I could learn how to handle :)

Novice Obedience Week 4

Tuesday was week 4 of our obedience class. Riot continues to improve every week. I love that Karen always has tips for us on how to improve and as we improve the tips get more and more refined so we’ve never felt overwhelmed with everything we’ve needed to know, but we keep tweaking and refining as we get better.

The highlight of the class was probably how well he did his figure 8. It was very nice and he paid very good attention to me. Our stand is getting more and more solid without only one slight foot movement.

We’ve finally gotten to the point where Karen asked if I had a goal for when I wanted to have him in the ring by and suggested this fall. I told her I was hoping by the end of the year. But it was nice to know she finally thinks there is hope for us to get into the ring. 

Letting Dogs Be Dogs

This morning RIot and I headed out to Purecellville for a Hounds on the Town class. Today’s class was a short hike to practice heeling followed by some time off leash (or on long lines) for swimming.

I didn’t let Riot off leash before we went on the hike. There were some dogs that were already swimming on roaming around off leash when we got there. The whole scene was very exciting and stimulating for Riot. We practiced sit-stays and down-stays while waiting for the hike to start. Admittedly with all of the distractions, this was very hard for Riot. He did really well other that needing a few reminders of which position he was supposed to be in. He was approached by 5 or 6 dogs and did very well letting them sniff him. One did growl at him and Riot just kind of looked at him like “what’s your problem?”

The hike was fairly short as it was already quite hot. I made Riot walk at a heel on the flat sections of the hike, but on the hills I let him have more freedom and just walk on a loose leash. He did really well. This was probably more of a challenge than he was ready for with so many dogs as distractions, but he did well.

The heeling I made him do was not the formal obedience heeling, but just walking by my side (as would be acceptable for field or just normal walking). I’ve been distinguishing the difference by my arm position. Arms down at my sides is casual heeling, arm in front of me is obedience heeling. He did have him heel about 20-30 feet formally which he switched to very nicely. The walk was too long and too hot to ask him for that the entire way. 

After we got back from the hike, the dogs hit the pond. Riot enjoyed swimming and even retrieved a couple of bumpers before a border collie took his bumper away while he was showing another dog how to jump in. We never did get our bumper back :( 

There were approx. 40 dogs around and Riot went and visited nearly all of them. He was very polite and well mannered and it was nice seeing him interacting with dogs in such a casual environment. There was one border collie that he just couldn’t get enough of. She was a younger girl and I’m not sure if she was spayed or not. 

I finally had to go and get him to leave this poor girl alone. I put him on a sit-stay while her owner was putting her into another yard that was fenced off. I released him right as the gate was being closed and he made a beeline and got there right as someone was opening it snuck in. That was the only time all day he did not listen to me. I went in after him and made him down before he got a walk of shame out of the yard. Other than that one incident, he listened to me incredibly well despite all the distractions. I was able to call him to me whenever/wherever and even put him on stays with all the chaos. 

He’s so funny. There was a shepherd that was barking at everything and he just stopped and looked at him with the quizzical look on his face like “why are you doing that?” 

After all this excitement it was back to work. We went and met Leslie for our very first force fetch session. Riot worked really well for her and I’ve got my homework to work on with him. Fingers crossed this goes well. 

A Busy Week

I still have a few things to catch up on, but we’ll skip over that now to get to this week.

Riot had obedience on Tuesday night and he’s constantly improving. His attention is getting much better and he’s getting better at every exercise. I’m picking up a ton of tips for working on things, so we’re learning a lot. 

This week, Karen decided to work backwards and had us do stays first. Typically when we work stays it’s the end of class and a lot of the dogs are more tired. We also did stays down where there was more agility action so that made them even harder. Riot did well through he stays even if he was craning his neck as much as possible to see the dogs running agility in the next ring. He sat through the dog next to him getting up and having to be put back, and downed through it too. There was a little sniffing, during the down, but he’s getting much better about that too. 

I had him on a down while waiting our turn for another exercise later in the class and another dog came over and sniffed him and he didn’t get up or act like he was going to play with her. Which is a huge step for him too.

He’s getting much better about his stand for exam. I just need to learn not to lean into him upon returning. Karen said he’s even got drive for the stand. Which he does pop up almost instantly — much like his down. 

Most of the heeling work was done towards the end of class this week and I typically start to lose his attention towards the end of class. He works really well for about 40-45 minutes and then I think he’s ready to be done. But even though his heeling wasn’t as good as I’ve seen, he did watch me throughout the exercises. 

I had asked him at the end of class if he was getting tired and one of the other handlers asked me if he ever got tired. I said yeah, that he was actually a really easy dog to live with and had a great off switch. I think that really surprised her because he is a lot of dog and a bundle of energy in class :)

Wednesday night we crashed an agility class and Riot ran really well. He knocked a couple of bars on the first run and seemed to jump kind of funny on the last jump — which was not that far from a barrier so that might have had something to do with it. We re-ran the sequence and ran it perfectly. The second sequence had a two really difficult weave entrances and he hit both of them. He actually he all of his weave entrances all night. Not bad for a dog that’s been off from agility for nearly a month :)

This weekend we’re finally making it out to a field training session. I’m looking forward to seeing how our work in the backyard over the last couple of months translates into the field. 

And Sunday, I think we’re going to hit a rally show-n-go to work on heeling with distractions in a new environment more than anything else. 

Mary Ellen Barry Seminar

I’m a big behind, but Riot and I attended a foundation sends and recalls seminar with Mary Ellen Barry at the beginning of May. 

I had a moment of panic first thing in the morning since Riot was one of the greener dogs at the seminar and most of the other working spots were filled with very motivated border collies. But Riot did really well holding his own. We learned so much and Riot as always provided the comic relief.

We were working on a lateral motion rear cross and the jump was positioned so that he was jumping toward the seminar participants. E-Z was hanging out with the crowd, so initially when Riot jumped funny over the jump paying no attention to where I was going, we assumed he was looking at E-Z. So Mary Ellen sat down in front of E-Z and we tried it again. His jumping was even more odd the second time — he was springing over the jump rather than jumping and he was wiggling his body really funny in mid-air. Apparently the look on his face while he was doing this was quite comedic too. The look of puzzlement on Mary Ellen’s face was pretty priceless too. Apparently Riot was hamming it up for the audience, because we turned the jump 90° and he proceeded to perform the exercise perfectly. 

One of our exercises later in the day was practicing recalls over the jump. I could see Riot’s brain thinking hard through every repetition, so we stopped a few times while we were practicing and did some spins and some hand touches and just some goofing off. He did really well on all his repetitions and I didn’t want him to burn out, so we were having a good time. 

Overall, he did really well. I was very proud of how well he paid attention to my body cues. Now to get him to pay that much attention through an entire course. We got a lot of good exercises to work on this summer. I was just bummed we couldn’t have attended the other two days too. Hopefully we’ll be able to take them in the future.

Sheltie Trial

This weekend we were at the Shetland Sheepdog of Greater Baltimore Agility Trial. We had never been to the facility before and the surface was a bit older and bit slicker than the indoor turn we’ve seen in the past. The course on both Saturday and Sunday were quite technical and challenging especially for a young green dog — not that excellent courses shouldn’t be technical and challenging. All four courses were nice to run, if not a bit tricky.

I was not thrilled with his contact performance this weekend, so I’ll have to add board work to the list of things we’ll work on this summer. His weave pole entrances were all really nice this weekend. And he paid very good attention to me while waiting his turn up until the dog before him was running. I didn’t get any barking out of him this weekend, which I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Saturday started with Exc A Std. I had a hard time running on this course. I felt like there was lead in my shoes. I knew it was risky to do the rear cross between 4 and 5 will a young dog and ideally I would have liked to have fronted, but really I was just trying to make it though the course. So I’m not too upset about the off course. His a-frame performance shows I need to work on independent behavior with him a lot more. I was initially planning on front crossing after the double, which I started and then didn’t complete, but he read the rear cross beautifully. I pulled him too far off the jump two jumps later and caused the refusal and that was just me over-handling the baby dog. I’m very proud of him for coming with me, but smacking myself for that.

The Exc A JWW course that afternoon was a really nice course. Riot came out of the tunnel (the second obstacle) on fire and there was a long line, but after my lack of running this morning, I took off booking it down the line to not fall too far behind. I’m not sure if my booking it, Riot’s speed, or if he slipped on the surface, but he knocked the bar on 5 or 6. This was the first time he knocked a bar in a trial. I don’t have it on video and no one I know saw the run, so I still don’t know why it happened. The rest of the course ran really nicely. If only he had kept the bar up.

Sunday, Riot ran really well. It was even more hot and humid than the day before — well into the 90s when we ran JWW in the afternoon. I crated them out of the car today which I think helped as there was an occasionally breeze and it was a lot less chaotic than the space inside had been the day before. 

Our Exc A Std run was pretty nice. He didn’t hold his dog walk contact, but we got through all the tricky parts. I was a bit worried about the entrance to the weave poles since more experienced dogs were having issues with it, so I booked it from the chute so I could get up there in time. I was so thrilled with him for nailing that entrance that I told him what a good boy he was and that caused him to come out of the poles. <smacking forehead> The rest of the run was clean but he did seem to lose speed on the second half of the course. I’m not sure if that was heat related or what.

Out last run was Exc A JWW in the afternoon and it was hot and humid and sticky. People were pulling dogs left and right and those that were running seemed to be melting. Riot did seem a bit less motivated than he usually is, but turned it a very nice run. I probably should have/could have put in a front cross after the weave poles, but I was a little hesitant to do that on course. Riot saved my butt after the tunnel. I forgot for a moment that there were two jumps in that line before turning and started to pull after the first. fortunately, he listened to my “go” (almost a little too well) and took the next jump. He was about 8 seconds under course time and was the only Exc A 20” dog to qualify and the Q-rates on the course overall were not that high.

Riot OA and OAJ!!!

This weekend at the PVGRC agility trial, Riot completed both his OA and OAJ titles!

Saturday

First thing Saturday morning was Open JWW (not on video). The course was nice and flowy. We had a refusal early on on a jump and I’m not sure what happened. I don’t know if I pulled him off of it or he wasn’t paying attention to it, but I managed to pull him back around and we finished the course without any other incidents. He even nailed his weave entry. Riot Q‘d with a 95 and 3rd place. This was his third leg and completed his OAJ title.

That afternoon was Open STD and Riot Q‘d with another 3rd place. Riot’s a-frame contact was not very good and his teeter wasn’t great, but he had a nice dog walk contact. I’m still holding contacts longer than I would normally with him as we have plenty of time to spare and I want to reenforce good habits. I made a bad assumption and didn’t support the dog walk after the tunnel the way I should have. Riot got a refusal there, but otherwise had a very nice run.

Sunday - Riot’s Excellent Debut

First up was Riot’s first time in Exc A STD. Riot’s contacts looked great this run. I did release him quickly off the teeter to the table, but he held both his dog walk and a-frame today beautifully. We had a bit of a bobble in the middle of the course with Riot taking an off course jump before the tire — something none of us saw as possibility (and I don’t think any other dog took it either), but Riot was absolutely determined to take it. I called him back around and then I have no idea what happened on the weave polls. He completely blew by them for some odd reason, initially I wasn’t going to fix them, then I decided I was going to go back and fix them, but even on the fix he didn’t stay in which was very odd. On video he looks like he’s say “come on there are better things to do.” I have no idea what that was about, and I don’t know why I was so lax about his not weaving. I don’t think my wishy-washy-ness (nice word, huh) helped the situation any and I’m not sure if that’s why he didn’t complete the weaves the second time. The rest of the course was really nice and I’m especially happy with how he read the closing sequence of jumps. Riot’s first attempt at Exc A STD ended in an NQ, but it certainly did have “moments of brilliance.”

Our final run of the weekend was our first Exc A JWW run. Riot was a little distracted and pokey for this run, but still managed to run clean, Q, and come in 3rd place! I’m not really sure what the pokiness/sniffing was about, he was nice and drive-y for the first 3 obstacles, but then had his nose down after jump 4 and after jump 6. The rear on the flat into the weaves worked out nicely and he nailed his weave entrance (no sign of any of the weave issues we faced in the morning). I did pull him out really early for this run. I think they weren’t even half way down the first page of 20” dogs when I brought him up to the ring and he was the 7th dog or so on the 3rd page of 20s. In addition, they weren’t even moving that fast even though the course was a fairly fast course. I was also really nervous for some reason running this course, so he could have picked up on that too.

Riot also decided against treats again this weekend. He did it a bit on Saturday, but then took treats later on. Sunday, I upped the ante and brought better treats and cheese (because of his stomach issues earlier, I try not to change up the variety of treats that he’s getting too often). Well, he refused cheese! I brought cheese with us to warm up for his standard run and he either spit it out, or refused to take it. I did get some really good tugging out of him shortly before entering the ring which was really nice. He still refused cheese before his JWW run, but he decided he would work for his kibble there. I’ve never had a dog that’s so picky when it comes to food. Last night he got a green bean that dropped while we were preparing dinner. I made the other dogs leave him alone because I wanted to see what he’d do with it. He carried it around and played with it for a good 10 minutes before he got bored with it and someone else ate it.

First Mini with Paulena

Riot got to attend a mini session with Paulena Hope tonight. He was on fire tonight — probably the most drive-y I’ve seen him. We did four courses over the two hours and he really did well on all of them.

This is the first time Riot had seen the viaduct and he didn’t miss a beat.

Our first course started out with a big loop that started with the tunnel to a couple of jumps, then the viaduct, and then the weave poles. He did miss that weave pole entrance but that was the only one he missed all night. He had so much speed built up from the loop, I was pretty sure we’d miss that entrance. 

The courses weren’t easy and for being the youngest dog in the session, I think he did really well. Paulena really liked him. She was very impressed with his speed and drive. 

I did get two barks from him on the second course. One as he was entering the weaves and another as we were leaving the dog walk. He was quiet on the remainder of the courses, but I find the barking fascinating. I’ve never had a dog that has barked on course. 

By the fourth course things were starting to become unhinged for the both of us. I think both our brains were a little fried at that point, but we still had some nice moments.

Living Up To His Name - PVGRC Speciality 2010

Riot and I had a wild ride this morning. It was the PVGRC speciality and I had him entered in Rally Advanced A and Wildcard Novice. Nothing counting towards any titles because I knew being outside on grass was going to be enough pressure for us. 

I knew going in the grass was going to be a challenge, but I didn’t realize exactly how big of a challenge it was going to be! 

Riot warmed up pretty nicely. He had a few minutes of excellent attention and the rest was not great, but adequate. He was really doing a great job even with all the distractions around and being on grass. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but I completely lost his attention about 30-45 seconds before the judge called our number. We got to the entrance to the gate and I was continually having to pull his nose off the ground. The judge warned me that when we got into the ring I couldn’t do that or she’d take points off. I didn’t realize they could take points off before you actually started, so I guess that’s good to know. 

We got to the start line somehow and he sat with me with probably some of the best attention I’ve had from him at the start line. He was actually doing a very nice job watching me. 

The judge told us we could start, and I said heel and proceeded to walk forward. Riot sat there and looked at me. I said “heel” he continued to look at me. I said “heel” and he finally got up. I don’t know if I had told him to “stay” or “wait” at the start line while I was taking off the leash or what happened. Usually I don’t use any sort of word that means stay with a sit or down command since it’s redundant for him (his sit and down mean stay until I release or give you another command) and it does tend to confuse him when I give him a stay and then another command — he give you this look like, it that a trick?

He caught up to me (nose mostely on the ground) and somehow we got the sit at the first obstacle, which was a sit to a fast. Well the fast turned into a yee-haw lets run around the ring smelling everything. The judge yelled “block the gates.” I got him back around the normal sign, did a really messy left turn and then had a beautiful call front, finish left, halt. The next two signs he mostly kind of stayed with me, nose on the ground though, and then he had the jump, which he ran ahead of me, nose on the ground after. The next two obstacles were pretty much a mess.

And then we got excused. 

Ugh. She said she didn’t think Riot was ready for this. I knew it was going to be a challenge for us, but never in a million years did I think we’d get excused. 

Of course as soon as we leave the ring, he goes lunging for the closest dog to go visit. I gave him a good tug on the leash, and a pretty serious “no.” Which got me pulled aside and warned that I could get written up and reported for that on show grounds. Whoops. So I guess no correcting for inappropriate behavior at shows. 

I put him back in his crate and sat there for a while while he pulled himself together. He was being such a goof in his crate. Once he settled, I opened the door and we sat there calmly watching to other dogs pass. He was doing pretty good, but was trembling every once in a while. I’m not sure if it was excitement, nervousness, or if he was possibly a little cold. We sat there for a while with me debating whether or not we’d stick around for wildcard novice. 

I was really torn, because I wanted to see how he’d do. I did consider opting out of the off leash healing part and just doing the rest, but ultimately, I decided I was going to be too paranoid after his performance in rally and that I didn’t want him in the ring again if I couldn’t correct him for the nose on the ground or the lack of attention. 

I had so many people come up to me and say he sure was entertaining to watch and he was named quite appropriately. And I really can’t be mad at him. A little frustrated, yes — especially after seeing so much improvement in our obedience class over the last 6 weeks. 

On the way home we stopped off at the dog park and worked on our attention from the opposite side of the parking lot. He was doing a bit of avoidance initially where he’d kind of look at me and kind of not, but he got better as we worked more. We’ve got all summer to work on our attention in new places, so I think we’re going to take advantage of that.