Resolutions for 2015

For Alder, the poodle boy, who will turn 9 yrs in summer 2015:

·        Finish his RAE.  He needs 4 legs.  He has only NQ’d in Rally once when I missed a sign for a turn and walked off the course  early.  So, barring accident or illness, this should be an easy goal.

·        More importantly, HAVE FUN!!!!  He is enjoying training again.  The UD training was too hard for him and was ruining his attitude.  In Rally training, because he is so happy, it’s tempting to push too hard to try to get straighter sits and cleaner pivots than he is capable of.  Poor Alder has all the coordination and muscle control of a Great Dane puppy going down the stairs for the first time.  He kind of flops into fronts and finishes.  He is what he is.  Realistically, he is only likely to be with us 2 to 4 more years and I just want to enjoy my lovable, dim-witted, klutzy curly-top poodle boy. 

 

For Maple, the golden girl, who will turn 6 yrs in summer 2015

·        Get the UD.  Pretty simple.  If the UD is unattainable, goals will change.

·        Assess OTCH status.  By the end of the year, it should be clear whether I can put an OTCH on Maple.  The priority this year will be OB, OB, OB.  I’ll assess by the end of the year whether to continue the OTCH dream pursuit with her.

·        Field Work.  OB is, far and away, the priority this year.  I’ll continue working on blinds and trying to deal with our many problems created by my inexperienced training (first field dog).  I don’t have any title goals.  I don’t want to show in AKC Senior again until I am really confident on blinds, but I’ll probably show in the local NAHRA trials to support the club. 

 

For me, as a trainer:

·        No winging it during training.  I have a terrible habit of trying to solve unexpected issues on the fly.  For example, yesterday, on a whim, I decided to work go-outs outside instead of training in the cramped loft.  I pointed Maple towards various trees.  We had issues of angling off to the side and pausing partway out and looking back.  What I SHOULD have done is simplify to get success in that training session, quit, and draw up a plan to work on the issues in the next training session(s) instead of what I did, which is to keep working without a clear plan, jumping back and forth between the angling issue and the pausing issue.  It was about 20 F and I was wearing a light jacket, with no gloves, because I don’t like training OB in a bulky parka.  I was cold and rushing through random exercises to get her to understand.  I do stuff like this all the time, and I know I cause more confusion than clarity for my dog.

·        On trial trips, have an objective in addition to a Q.  Why?  I get too wrapped up in expectations and hopes for a good Q in Utility, especially for trials that involve long drives and 2 or 3 nights in a hotel.  The need for that Q to justify the time and expense makes me too tense to relax in the ring.  If I plan to add some other objective (a side trip to a good hiking location, spending time in the hotel or at the trial working on my great American novel, or whatever), I think it helps relieve some of the performance anxiety and (if the OB trial doesn’t go well) some of the disappointment on the long drive home. 

·        Take more pictures!!! And print them out!!! I promise to do this every year, but I’m not very good at it, then I’m bummed at the end of the year when I don’t have many photos. 

What I learned in 2015

Maple hates to travel.  She hates riding in a vehicle and she doesn’t like being away from home.  Through Novice and Open, she mostly moped through the exercises.  We got our Qs with scores in the mid-180s to low-190s.  This is a dog that loves training, and, in her own yard, looks like OTCH material. 

In Utility, things got worse.  Not only was she unenthused, she became less and less confident.  She was even doing things that seemed deliberately wrong, like veering drastically off course to get glove #1 instead of #3.  It dawned on me that maybe her problem was not entirely a travel issue, as I had been assuming.  Maybe, without food reinforcement after an exercise, she was unsure of whether she was doing it correctly and was actually experimenting to see if doing something differently got a treat.

Now, if you had asked me, I would have said that, yes, we did training sequences without treats.  Thinking carefully about it, however, I realized that I rarely did more than two or three exercises in a row without a treat and, more importantly, Maple never knew in advance that she was not going to get treats after each exercise.  I did a lot of jackpotting, in which I would randomly give a big reward.

I tried an experiment at home.  I did run-throughs in which I would go through a warm-up outside my ring area, with a couple of treats, followed by a phrase that would always mean that we were entering the ring and there would be no treats until a big reward at the end.  The first time or two, she did things well, although she would become increasingly uncertain by the end of the run.  She soon figured out the pattern and started making the same odd mistakes and showing the same uncertainty she had in the ring.  For example, she’d get the correct glove, then stop halfway back, apparently thinking she must be wrong because no treat was going to immediately follow. 

I know many trainers would conclude she would only work for food.  Of course that was true.  Few dogs work only for praise, but I think there was more to it.  She was working for a treat at the end.  What she did not understand was the concept of a delayed reward and that the reward would be proportional to what she had done.  If a person is not gambling for a living, he expects that his pay check will be bigger if he works more hours.  I think dogs are fully capable of understanding a proportional, delayed reward.   My dogs, who do not care that much for mice (they are not terriers!), will sometimes expend some effort to chase voles if it easy and there is nothing distracting them.  They will work obsessly for HOURS trying to scare a rabbit from under a deck. The rabbit chase (and sometimes the catch) is a huge reward for them and they are willing to expend a proportionately larger amount of effort to get it. 

I had never really taught Maple that there could be big delayed rewards in training. I think teaching delayed rewards is not the same as teaching according to the gambling theory that is so prevalent in dog training.  That’s the idea that, if you randomize rewards, and sometimes make it a very big reward, the dog will never know when the jackpot is coming and will therefore work hard when no reward is in sight because they think there might be a random big reward..  I think a dog would have to be dumber than a box of rocks to not quickly learn that, in a real trial, there are no unexpected jackpots.  The reward is always at the end.

Strangely, I had never had the ring issues with my other dogs that I had with Maple.  Alder is a happy dope, who loves being with me in the ring.  He wants the food reward, but he considers praise and play to be great, too.  He doesn’t have it in him to do Utility, but it’s not because of the reward issue.  Camas, my bygone mixed-breed girl, whom I started training for Novice when she was nearly 10 yrs old, VERY quickly learned that a complete run-through meant a big reward at the end.  It probably helped that she tended to gag on small rewards fed at my hand level and she preferred the one big payoff to a sequence of small rewards. 

I think another factor with Maple was the time I spent on fronts and finishes.  Because she is my first real OTCH prospect, I spend far more time on F&F than I ever have with any other dog I’ve trained.  Because “straight” is not a concept easy for most dogs to grasp and F&F is intrinsically motivating, it takes a ton of repetition and a lot of treats to keep attitude high for all those reps.  I think I really drilled Maple to expect treats regularly during training.  I also used lots of random jackpots and, I think, reinforced the idea that the value of the treat was random and not proportionate to the amount of work done.  I am well aware that there are a lot of animal behaviorists and theorists that are strong proponents of the random reward and they get good results with a variety of animals.  I may be totally wrong and may eventually totally recant these ideas.

In the meantime, with Maple, I plunged into the deep end of the pool on teaching delayed and proportionate rewards.  I would make it very clear when we were starting a run-through with a delayed, big reward at the end. My goal was to get her working briskly without the expectation of an immediate reward and to make her understand that a lack of reward did not mean she had made a mistake.  Initially, I ignored all the fine details, like straight fronts and finishes, but I absolutely insisted that, on each exercise, she HAD to work briskly.  If she moped on any step of the heel, I backed up, put the leash on, and insisted she look up and move briskly.  Then, I’d take the leash off and start again.  Any moping, the leash went back on.  Repeat until she finally realized that she needed to move briskly and keep her eyes on me.  On gloves, if she got the right one, but stopped, uncertain, on the way back, I’d put the leash on, have her hold the glove and back up saying “Front, good girl”.  Then we’d do it again. And again, and again, until she’d get the right glove and come back without hesitation.  We’d do the entire utility routine with no treats and without moving to the next exercise until she had completed an exercise with alacrity and no uncertainty (but not caring about F&F).  The first couple of times, it took us as long as 45 minutes to get through a whole routine.  Then understanding finally clicked in. 

I stopped giving random big jackpots.  For individual exercises when I’m teaching, she gets only small parceled rewards of dog treats.  When I tell her that this is a run through, she knows nothing is coming until the end, but it will be a big payoff, like a bowl of cut-up hot dogs or pieces of meat.  I say “It’s our turn. Show me what you can do.” I go through the ring-entry sequence of handing a leash to an imaginary steward and talking to an imaginary judge.

She was a changed dog in the ring by the end of summer.  Sure, she made lots of NQ mistakes (those articles are killing us), but she looked good doing it.  For the most part.  She still has the travel phobia, and it still causes problems.  She tends to get dog show diarrhea and an upset stomach from the stress of traveling.  (I bring water from home and give her the same diet.  It doesn’t help.)  So, sometimes, if she’s not feeling well, she gets lackluster, but she still tries.  Last fall, after a miserable trip back from Wenatchee, during which she panted for 5 hours straight, I went to the vet and got a prescription for Valium for the long travel days.  The initial results were positive.  She was a lot calmer on the long drives for the last couple of shows.  My hope is that will begin to associate traveling with (Valium-induced) pleasure and it will improve her travel attitude, long term. 

I wouldn’t recommend the total immersion method of teaching delayed rewards.  I should have started early, during Novice training as a puppy, stringing together 2, then 3, then 4 exercises.  Live and learn. 

On to 2015 resolutions.

How did those 2014 resolutions work out?

Well, I can see how the resolution to keep up this blog worked out.  I wrote a whopping three posts, all in January.  Here's a toast to crashing and burning on resolutions!

The year's news:
We had to say goodbye to the two elderly ladies.  Camas was about 15 yrs old and Burka was nearly 14 years old.  I miss them both.  It seems strange to have only two dogs again.  I intend to keep it to only two for at least a couple more years.  On to how the resolutions went:

How did those 2014 resolutions work out?

 

For Alder, the poodle boy, who turned 8 yrs in June 2014, I had only one goal:

·        Get legs 2 and 3 for his UD or give up on Utility with him.  He got his first Utility leg the third time I showed him in Utility at the end of 2013, so I was somewhat optimistic.  However, I could not get another leg in all of 2014.  By summer, he was not showing any improvement.  I gave Pre-Utility a single try in early fall 2014.  He was no where close.  He wasn’t showing any improvement in training, either.  I decided Utility was just too hard for him mentally, and his poor vision wasn’t helping either. (He’s always been a bit near-sighted.)  It was a monumental struggle to get him through Open (it took 25 tries) and I should have quit then.  He wasn’t enjoying training anymore.  So, I gave him a crash refresher course in Rally.  He had 2 RAE legs but I hadn’t done any Rally with him for a couple of years.  He LOVED doing those silly Rally exercises and he remembered almost all of them.  We showed 4 times and picked up 4 more RAE legs, and even a few ribbons other than green.  C+ on that goal.  (I figure an F on the UD but a big A+ with bonus points for switching to Rally for the old guy, which averages to C+.)

 

For Maple, the golden girl, who turned 5 yrs in June 2014:

·        Reliable jumping on mats.  We have no local training facility.  We train almost entirely on grass.  For eight weeks last summer, I adjusted my work schedule to 9 hrs/day 4 days a week and 4 hours on Tuesday morning to be able to take Tuesday afternoons to drive up to Spokane (about 2.5 hrs going and 2 hrs returning) to take a Utility class and get work on mats at the Spokane DTC, which is also where many OB Trials are held.  It really paid off in more confidence on mats and in learning to go out to the same white wall she sees in trials there.   A grade of “A” on that goal.

·        Last leg of Open.  We wrapped up the Open title fairly easily with the third leg at the first trial of the year in April.  We got first place as the only Q with a mediocre 187.  The mats were terrible but Maple had no problem on the jumps.  (Hooray!)  A- on that goal.  Would have liked a higher score, since I’m aiming for an OTCH.  Won’t happen with that kind of score.

·        Utility Title.  That was a pie in the sky dream.  Spring was a disaster, with terrible performances.  I essentially abandoned hunt work to focus on obedience and deal with some serious issues we had had since Novice.  She greatly improved and was looking really good in trials by the end of the year.  The articles have been our last major stumbling point.  She missed a Q in the last 4 tries on the articles.  B- on that goal.  An F on actually achieving it, but A+++ for vast improvement and for turning me into a better trainer.

·        Field Work: Blinds, blinds, blinds.  The goal was to be able to run a 200 yard blind by the end of 2014.  With Utility goals taking complete priority, field work was kicked to the ditch.  We ran a couple of mid-level hunt tests (Senior in AKC and Intermediate in NAHRA), but we crashed on blinds.  Maybe next year… Big old F grade on that goal.

 

For me, as a trainer:

·        At the start of each training session, have at least one specific weakness to work on, and a specific plan for improvement.  In other words, don’t just go out without a plan and go through some rote exercises.  I am getting better at this, but would probably still give myself no more than a C+.   I train after I get home from work.  I’m usually mentally tired, and it’s an effort to get creative.  I need to make a plan early in the day, maybe before work, when I’m thinking more clearly.

·        Be more creative about distractions at home.  I live several miles outside of town, surrounded by wheat fields.  It’s nice and quiet and I love it.  I have a big yard, a complete set of ring gates, and regulation-sized jumps.  What I don’t have is distractions.  I try to get into town on weekend mornings when the weather is good, but never as often as I should, so I tried to get more creative with distractions at home.  I give myself about a B on this.  I’m getting better at coming up with challenges, but I get lazy.

·        Keep up my training notes.  I like to read back on my training notes now and then.  (It’s often very entertaining.)  Some years, I’ve practically written a novel by the end of the year.  Obviously, the blog posts were virtually nil last year.  I was better about taking pictures now and then, but didn’t take the time to print out many of them.  I give myself a “D-“ on this goal. 

 

 

 

Freezing Fog

I grew up in the Los Angeles and the Dallas area.  Outside of the occasional dreadful ice storm in Dallas, neither region is known for its winter weather. 

Eastern Washington has an honest-to-god actual winter.  Ameliorated by being within a few hundred miles from a honkin’-big body of water (the Pacific Ocean)  our Palouse winters don’t hold a candle to, say, North Dakota, but it has taken a while for this former Texican to sort of get used to multiple variations of frozen water.  There’s snow, of course, which comes in a lot more varieties than seem possible, from big wet sticky flakes that glue themselves to the leaves of the old spruce tree near our house and bring branches down to graupel, also known as soft hail.  Look it up on Wikipedia, ‘cause graupel isn’t the topic of the day.  Freezing fog is. 

Winter has been incredibly snow-free so far. I see on the news that the east and mid-west are getting their full dose of winter this year.  We had a spell of bitter cold in early December and a single day when we had about 5 inches of accumulated snow.  Since then, most of the snow has stayed east of the Rockies.  And they are welcome to it, as far as I’m concerned. 

The MLK weekend was so nice, with no significant precip in the forecast for at least a week, I hauled all my ring gates and jumps out of the garage and set everything up in the yard.  Sure did feel great to be outside working with the dogs instead of in the small loft in the garage. 

But back to the freezing fog.  The fog’s been rolling in an out for a couple of days, mostly acting like normal, above freezing, fog.  Last night, the temperature was low enough and the fog heavy enough that it became freezing fog.  The moisture in the fog freezes on trees, fences, and everything else above ground, coating it all with a fuzzy layer of ice crystals.  The fog has stayed all day, with the temperature hovering close enough to freezing that the frost melts away from some surfaces, then returns. 

All in all, this was a pleasant dose of freezing fog.  The surrounding black-soiled farmland was softened to gray.  The noise from the highway a mile from our house was damped out, making our normally quiet country yard even quieter. 

You see, the first time I experienced freezing fog, I was enthralled with the way it turned the world into a soft, quiet stillness.  Outlines of trees and fences are blurred with their fuzzy coating of white.  The green of the conifers and the yellows of the winter stalks of vegetation are muted to grayish. Then, one winter three or four years ago, a winter when we had plenty of snow and the fields were covered with a blanket of white, the freezing fog rolled in.  And stayed. And stayed, and stayed, for nearly two weeks.  White snow, white air, fuzzy white-gray tree branches.  All sound muffled into cold silence.  No wind.  No horizon.  White sky, white ground, light-gray ghostly trees, barely visible across the yard through the heavy fog.  Very cool the first day.  And the second.  By the third day, it had started to get a little old.  After a week, I was feeling like a subject of one of those sensory deprivation experiments, where they put a person in a soundless, dark room on a padded bed, with their hands wrapped in padding so they can’t feel anything.  Those people start hallucinating after a few days.  I was getting there. 

It the years since that long spell of freezing fog, I have gradually come to like the muffling, cold fog again, although in the back of mind is always the possibility it will settle in for a long time.  Today was pleasant.  The fog got thicker all day until the hills outside the yard were blurring.  But, it didn’t bother me, because Weather Underground says it will be bright and sunny tomorrow.

They had better be right.

Resolutions for 2014

For Alder, the poodle boy, who is 7.5 years old

·        Simple: Get those next two Qs in Utility.  I won’t water down the resolution this year with TRY to get the next two Qs.  Alder will be 8 years old in June.  He’s never been the most athletic dog.  If he can’t finish this year, I’m not optimistic about his continuing to be able to jump 24” beyond 2014.  I so often hear the dog training advice “It’s not a race.”  Well, sometimes, it is a race.  The prime of your dog’s life fades to old age far too fast. 

For Maple, the Golden girl, who is 4.5 years old

·        Reliable jumping on mats.  We built a garage this year.  It has enough space to put mats down on the concrete so I could work on Maple’s confidence on mats.  Problem?  We spent too much money on the garage to afford mats. 

·        Last leg of Open.  This goal will be a lot easier if Maple will jump indoors on mats.  If we can only Q on grass, we’ll have a tough time finding enough venues around here.

·        Utility Title.  Probably being too confident thinking I can get all 3 UD legs (especially if we can’t jump on mats!). 

·        Make the OTCH/no OTCH decision.  This year, I think will be the decisive year for the OTCH possibility.  If I hadn’t gotten into hunt training, I’d probably aim for an OTCH, regardless.  Hunt training has opened up an alternative path if the OTCH looks like too arduous a slog.  I’ll persevere through a UD, but I think it’s a make or break year for the OTCH pursuit.  Maple will be 5 years old in June, in the prime of her life.  If her enthusiasm and performance in obedience hasn’t improved by the end of 2014, I’ll likely give up serious pursuit of an OTCH.  I’d rather spend her middle age pursuing something she loves. 

·        Field Work:  Blinds, blinds, blinds.  In 2013, I went to a lot of hunt tests and only a few obedience trials, but I did a heck of a lot of obedience training.  I expect 2014 to be the opposite.  I plan to go to a lot of obedience trials and not many hunt tests, but I plan to train, train, train on handling for blinds.  Ideally, when we do our next hunt test, I want to step up to the line and KNOW the blind will be a piece of cake.  We’ll probably show in a few hunt tests at the Senior level to support the local clubs, but my real goal by the end of the year is to have a dog that can do a 200 yard blind. 

For Me, as a trainer

·        At the start of every training session, have at least one specific weakness to work on, and a specific plan for improvement.  It’s all too easy in training to march through the obedience exercises or do a handling drill without asking yourself what, exactly, did you NEED to work on and did whatever you did actually help.  For example, I know our weaknesses in heeling.  I’m awkward at about turns at a wall or ring gates.  On the first halt in a heeling pattern, my dogs tend to forge ahead.  Etc.  I can go marching through a heeling pattern and not make much improvement, or I can zero in on the awkward about turns in a session.  Or the first halts.  When working on angle backs (field work), I can run through a handling drill in the same spot and in the same way we’ve done it before, knowing Maple will probably do it just fine, OR, I can improve her understanding by adding a little bit of a new challenge each time, by changing the distance between me and her or setting up with a different factor, like up a hillside or through a patch of tall grass.

·        Be more creative about distractions at home.  It’s tough for me to train in town with other people to try to simulate ring conditions better than home.  My annual resolutions to train more often in town don’t make much difference.  I’ll get into town as often as I reasonably can, and probably no more than I have the past few years.  So, instead of resolving to get into town more often than I know I will, I’m resolving to get more inventive about proofing at home. 

·        Keep up my training notes.  I keep my notes – blog posts, trial and test results sheets, training progress scrawls, and email posts – throughout the year in a 3-ring binder. At the end of each year, I bind the notes in a folder.  Last year was an enormously important year for me.  I learned so much about training in obedience at the higher levels.  I learned even more about training for field work.  I regret that I didn’t put more of my thoughts to paper.  My 2013 folder is about a third the thickness of my 2011 and 2012 folders.  At the end of 2014, I want to have a much fuller showing and training folder, and I want it to include plenty of pictures.

 

How did those 2013 resolutions work out?

Well, one of my 2014 resolutions will be to post to this blog more often.  Only 5 posts total in 2013!  However, before I get to 2014, there is taking stock of 2013.  How did those resolutions stack up against reality?

For Alder, the poodle boy

I’ve noticed a trend of becoming more cautious in my goals.  Both Alder and Maple have contributed to that caution, but Alder gets most of the credit.  I was so optimistic about Alder when we first began showing in Open. I remember during one of our first few runs, when I was standing with my fellow handlers commiserating while waiting to be called back during the groups.  One of the handlers was bemoaning how her dog didn’t yet have a leg and it was her 11^th run.  “Cripes,” I thought to myself, “No way will it take us that many runs to get a first leg.”  Glad I didn’t say that out loud.

When Alder and I got our FIRST leg after FIFTEEN runs, I was REALLY glad I hadn’t said that out loud.  When we got our third leg after nearly 2 years of showing and 25 runs, I wasn’t thinking UD.  Any and all UD training had fizzled out long ago as the CDX was looking like a climb up Mt. Everest.  I walked around on cloud 9 for about a week after we finished the CDX in spring 2012, putzing around a little with Rally, thinking about an RAE (and also about how much I dislike Rally), and then I started working on Utility exercises.  At first, it was just a few sends to a paper plate with a treat.  I was training Maple for Utility and Open, so it was no big deal to work on Utility with Alder, too. 

By the beginning of 2013, after about 7 months of training, we had all the exercises more or less roughed out.  My goal in January 2013 was NOT to GET a UD; I am way too cautious for that kind of confidence anymore.  It was to TRY to get closer to a UD.  In my 2013 resolutions, I planned to make Alder’s UD debut in spring 2013.  I backed off that goal and didn’t show him until fall, and not until he had done surprisingly well (to me) in a Grad Open class.  Not a Q, but he’d given me enough confidence to dip a toe into the real thing in fall 2013. 

Alder got his first UD Q at a show in Wenatchee on a sweltering hot day when I expected him to wilt, on only his 3^rd run in Utility.  No one was more astonished than I.  We ran two more times before the end of the fall show season.  We didn’t get another Q, but that first Q made me think Alder, the poodle boy, might be able to pull off that UD after all.

For Maple, the Golden girl

Hard to believe Maple is 4.5 years old.  Maple, Maple, Maple, my brilliant, eager girl with the fatal flaws of hating to ride in a vehicle and be away from home.  She is so smart and so loves training, but only if she doesn’t have to leave home. 

By the beginning of 2013, my hopes of Maple becoming the OTCH dog I’ve wanted for so long had mostly faded away.  She had finished a CD and RE.  I had continued to show in Novice B for a while, trying to tackle her travel anxiety and raise her heeling scores.  That strategy was failing miserably, so I decided to try a few runs in Grad Novice and Open, while focusing mostly on hunt testing and training. 

I showed her only once in spring 2013, for an NQ in Open (for refusing all jumps on mats) and a Q in Grad Novice, which was outside on grass. She jumps on grass, but not on mats.  (We virtually never have the chance to train on mats.)  We worked on the jumping, but also aimed for outdoor trials in fall.  She ended the year with two Qs in Open (both outdoors on grass) and blew the Q in the last trial of the year on her most reliable exercise, the Drop on Recall.  She had an attack of sniffing and totally forgot what she doing, standing up and intently sniffing while I was waiting for the judge to give the recall signal.  Oh, well, I knew the sniffing in the ring was becoming an issue and it was a kick in the pants reminder that I needed to deal with it.

But the weirdest thing?  At the fall obedience shows, Maple was a whole lot less stressed than she had ever been.  I had changed a couple of things about our warm-up routine.  I quit giving any treats before we entered the ring and I quietly played tug with her before we went in, instead of doing heel exercises.  But, while those changes seemed to help her attitude in the ring, I don’t think they were responsible for her better attitude about traveling.  It was more like she finally crossed some mental line.  Maturity?  Better attitude towards traveling because of the hunt training? 

I don’t know, but the dying ashes of OTCH hope have gotten a little puff of oxygen again.  Her Open scores weren’t OTCH scores, but I can deal with training issues better than anxiety issues.  So, with some slightly revived glimmer of hope, we shall see how things go in 2014.

Hunt training was the other part of the 2013 Maple goals.  I wanted to finish her beginning hunt titles (the NAHRA SR title and the AKC JH title) in 2013, which we did.  I thought she might be capable of finishing the mid-level titles as well.  I was overly optimistic with that goal.  With a more experienced trainer, I believe she could easily be at the Master level (highest hunt test level), but we are both in the learning process with hunt training.

Maple brings back her duck at a hunt test in Carnation, Washington in August

 

For myself and both dogs

·        2013 Resolution 1:  Make time to play during training, especially when the exercise is difficult, and especially with Alder, who responds well to playing.

Result: I’d give myself about a B grade on this resolution.  I slacked off on the play towards the end of the year as the days got colder and darker and I rushed to get through training.  Playing takes more time than feeding a treat.  Alder showed increasingly less enthusiasm.  I recognized the error of my ways and started making the time to play.  He perked up.

·        2013 Resolution 2: Work on the things we need to work on, not the things that make me feel good because the dog already knows them.

Result: About a B+ on this.  I’m getting better, but could still be more inventive in pushing the dogs a little instead of being lazy and zipping through a few easy things when I’m tired.

·        2013 Resolution 3: When in doubt, simplify.

Result: About a C+.  When I think I’m getting better, I backslide and throw something too advanced at the dog, and then, instead of immediately scaling back, keep persevering until my dog is too stressed.  Kind of the opposite of the prior Resolution, and more likely to be a issue in hunt training, where I’m less experienced at knowing what to expect my dog to be able to do.

·        2013 Resolution 4: Make the effort to take the dogs into town to train in different places more often.

Result: About a C.  I just find myself too busy on the weekends to load training equipment and go into town.  Saved myself from a D by showing up at a few group sessions with fellow training group members. 

·        2013 Resolution 5: When training with a group, TRAIN, don’t test.

Result: I give myself an A on this goal.  I rarely let myself fall into the testing mode anymore in a group.  (Yeah!  One personal goal accomplished.)

 

And now….On to 2014.

Across the Pass and into the frying pan

Oh, gosh.  I can't believe it's been so long since I added a blog post.  Guess I got out of the habit.

Why a new post now?  Mostly because I'm in a hotel room without much else to do.  My last post was all about my spring schedule and how overwhelming it was.  In fact, it turned out to be very underwhelming.  I decided Alder wasn't ready for Utility.  Maple, while she can do the Open exercises, is not crazy about jumping on anything but grass.  Not too many outdoor shows near me, and most are at inconvenient or hot times.

The upshot was that, so far this year, I've shown Alder once in Grad Open, which he NQed but did far better than I expected, and once in Utility, which he also NQed, but also did better than expected. I can't believe it, but I think the boy may actually be capable of getting a UD.  I showed Maple once in Grad Novice, which she Qed in, partly because it was outdoors on grass, and once in Open, which she NQed by not even giving a single thought to attempting any jump on mats.  We are working on the issue.  I'm trying to get her to watch Susan Salo jump-training DVDs with me, but Maple usually tries to run off with the DVD holder to try to get me to take the hint that she'd rather be retrieving something.

On the hunt test side, Maple is a pass away from both a Started Retriever title in NAHRA and a Junior Hunter title in AKC.  The quest for the JH title is the reason for this trip.  Maple blew her chance to finish the JH at a convenient location to home by coming into heat the day after I had entered an eastern Washington show.  Faced with a year of putting no titles on any dogs, I took the plunge and entered a trial on the wet, west side of Washington.  For readers unfamiliar with Washington geography, the state is divided roughly in two by the Cascade Mountains.  West of the Cascade crest lies Seattle and what most people think of when they think of Washington: wet conifer forest and Microsoft.  East of the crest is drier forest and steppe vegetation.  (Most of the latter has been turned into farmland).

It's been a long time since I crossed Snoqualmie Pass and entered the land of humidity and high volume traffic.  OMG, the traffic on I-90 was insane, and I'm not even close to Seattle.  I'm in a hotel in North Bend.

Except for the I-90 portion of the drive, most of the trip from Pullman was pleasant.  I am the slowest traveler in the world.  Even when I'm not traveling with a dog, I like to stop every hour or so to stretch my legs.  With Maple along, I planned stops in places where she could take a swim.  We took a detour into the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge for a swim in one of the potholes lakes among the sagebrush and rocks and another detour to Lake Easton State Park for a stroll among conifer forests just east of the Pass.  Also a short side trip to the Gingko Petrified Forest interpretive center for a lunch in the shade.

I was sorry there was so much dust and smoke in the air that the Cascades were invisible for most of the drive in the haze.  By the time they were close enough to see, I was too overwhelmed with fear at being among hordes passenger vehicles weaving around the millions of semi-trucks lumbering up to the Pass to enjoy the view.  Cool to see avalanche chutes among the dense green forest, as long as I tried not to think of the freeway as an avalanche chute and me as loose debris

This particular hunt test has Junior for only one day, Sunday.  In a fit of insanity, I entered Senior on Saturday.   Not because we are especially ready for Senior, but on the rationale that, as long as I'm making the drive anyway...  Not the best strategy for entering a trial, but it will be good experience for me and Maple will likely get to retrieve a couple of ducks before we flame out on the blind.

And speaking of the little orange demon, she is asking for a walk, so off we go.