Raising a Riot

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. 

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. 

Novice Obedience - Week 6

Riot has really made great strides in this session. He’s gotten a lot better at paying attention to me during class. His heeling is getting so much better. He still had a great recall and his front is getting better at the end. We’ve gotten so many tips on how to improve things and he even let someone examine him on stand for exam.

The last exercise of the night was the class made two lines facing each other and we had our dogs sitting next to us paying attention to us while we each took a turn recalling our dogs through the channel created by the lines of dogs. Riot did really well. He did occasionally look at the person as they called the dogs name, but he immediately looked back to me. And his recall through the lines of dogs was really nice. The sit at the end was a bit crooked, but hey, he went by six dogs without stopping to visit. What more could I ask for?

Novice Obedience - Week 4

We actually had a very good obedience class. Our heeling is getting better — still has a long way to go, but there was a lot less forging tonight.

In our group practices of changing of speeds, he actually stayed with me instead of racing to catch the dog in front of him. There was no real attention to me and he was a bit ahead, but it was a great improvement over weeks past. We heeled past 3 groups of distractions and while he glanced at them, he stayed with me. As soon as I released him at the end of the exercise, he made a bee-line for the last stuffed toy and picked it up. But hey, he had been released. That got a nice chuckle from the class.

We did some really nice figure 8s with “air cookies” I was having a hard time getting his attention before that, but air cookies seemed to do the trick. I also picked up my speed which helped a bunch.

Our heeling pattern left a bit to be desired. The instructor was too busy chuckling that she forget to give us the slow. She said he is so driven and it was like he was on a mission. He did a VERY nice job staying with me through the exercise and even the fast part. Put his head was focused straight ahead. He had somewhere to go. 

Our stays, he’s still on high alert. During the long down I turned to the person next to me and asked if we could drug them before the exercise. Seriously if I could get him to relax just a bit, it would be awesome.

Overall, much improvement over two weeks ago. We still have a long way to go, but we’re having a ton of fun.

I asked what we should take next session — whether we should repeat novice obedience or go back and take attention for obedience again. Karen said he’s so high drive that going back to attention for obedience was probably beneath him and wouldn’t do much for him. But I needed to work the concepts of that class into our novice class. She says he’s going to be a lot of work, just cause he has so much go. But he’s still young.  

We did have a complete breakdown about 40 minutes into class where he completely lost focus and was watching agility. It took about 5 minute for me to get him back and he started working for me again after that. Kind of the same thing that happened during our last sequence in agility the night before. So he may just need a little bit of a break before class is over.

Novice Obedience - Week 2

Tonight was quite the challenge. Riot is still having issues focusing, but I think he’s getting better. I also think I need to bring yummier treats or find a way to work toys in as rewards better — I’ve never been good with toy rewards in obedience classes and Cisco and Berkley would always work for their kibble. Riot was not that thrilled with the pumpkin treats he had last week. 

We’re still having trouble with our circle work and need to practice. Hopefully Sunday will be nice enough that we can go work outside. I’m planning on taking him to the local dog park and working in the grassy area outside of the park — starting at the far end away from the park and working closer to where the dogs are. 

I got lots and lots of tips this week for fixing things — crooked sits and fronts, his sphinx downs where his elbows are on the verge of coming up, etc. And getting him to slow down on approach for his recall. Right now, it’s pitter-patter, pitter-patter, slide, halt. I’m glad he’s so enthusiastic, but the slide into the front is a bit much.

Our stand for exam needs some work too. He’s doing some foot shifting I need to fix and someone other than me touching him? Oh it’s way to exciting. The instructor was able to walk around him with me six feet away. The actual exam part we’re going to have to work up to. 

Obedience class is far more frustrating for me than agility. It’s harder because I don’t know a lot of the rules and there is a precision that is expected of you that isn’t there in agility or rally. But it’s a great learning experience for us both. 

Novice Obedience - Week 1

Last night Riot and I started taking obedience classes again. It’s been a while since we took Heeling, Fronts, and Finishes which is the prereq for Novice Obedience, but we’ve been practicing our heeling, our fronts, our finishes and other random obedience moves pretty regularly, so I had pretty high hopes in us being prepared for this class.

Riot had a really hard time settling down in class. It didn’t help that a couple of the other dogs we were around were also pretty wound.

We started the class learning some positioning/attention exercises. The we moved on to practicing some heeling in circles. Riot is a bit ahead of me in left circle work, but I got some good pointers for getting him into the appropriate position. Overall, that exercise went okay.

After that we practiced stands for the stand for exam. Riot and I have a love/hate relationship with stands. We end up cramming for them every time we’re getting ready to go in the rally ring. If he is really excited, he can’t focus enough to do the stand. Other times, he’ll stand and immediately sit back down. But last night he was doing really well and would pop right up into a stand. Karen commented there should be a prize for that.

Next we were to practice speed changes. Everyone lined up in two long lines at one end and the objective was to heel across to the other end of the room with a speed change (slow or fast) in the middle. Well, I could not for the life of me get Riot’s attention for this. As soon as we started moving he was so interested on everything going on around him, it was not pretty. We got absolutely nothing out of the exercise (other than me learning I need to figure out how to get him to work in that environment — and I have no idea how?)

Next we practiced recalls and I have to say, Riot’s is pretty damn awesome! The point of the exercise was to get them to come to you in a drive-y manner so people were bending over clapping, cheering, doing all sorts of things. Me: “Ri, come!” standing perfectly still and he made a beeline for me nearly skidding to a stop to sit in front of me. We need to work on a straight sit and getting him to look up and me, but I couldn’t have been happier and I got quite a few compliments on that.

Finally we practiced our stays. They were really short in duration, so they weren’t an issue. During the down/stay, the instructor was standing next to me and asked if Riot always did the sphinx thing. I said yup. We had done one match and it was the most nerve wracking 3 minutes of my life willing him to keep those elbows down. (It was at a golden retriever club match and there were two other Gaylan’s dogs in the novice class that day. All these golden retrievers were nicely relaxed into their downs, with the exception of the three Gaylan’s dogs — all three had their heads up and were just as alert as Riot.) I did get a few tips for dealing with this too. So I’ll have to play and see what works.