When training is fun

Maybe it’s the unusually warm late December. Maybe it’s having a whole week off work between Christmas and New Years. Maybe it’s the days getting longer.  Whatever, today was one of those days when training was a blissful joy.  It wasn’t that the dogs or I had any major obedience breakthrough or did anything spectacular.  We just had a great time.

I rented 1.5 hours of time in an agility barn this morning and brought Alder the poodle boy, Maple the wild young golden girl, and the oldest old lady, Camas.  Camas is retired from showing, except for an occasional amble through Veterans, but she complains piteously if she is left behind.  Her complaints usually work to get her what she wants because I am all too aware that, at her age of 13.5 years, her days with us may be growing short.

With Alder and Maple, I worked a little heeling, a little directed jumping, and a fair amount of directed retrieving.  My focus this winter on giving clearer body cues during heeling (Look where you intend to go!) and having the dogs pay better attention seems to be paying off, at least in a no-distraction environment. This is my first time teaching Utility with any degree of seriousness.  I don’t know if Alder has UD potential somewhere in that fuzzy poodle brain, but he is certainly enjoying the process.  The more breaks we take for playing, the happier he is.  He is lobbying hard for 95% play and 5% training.  Maple is more goal-oriented. Play is okay, but her philosophy is treats first, then play.

I had only five minutes of rental time left when I got to Camas.  She could hardly contain her joy about it finally being her turn.  She has the cutest way of bouncing on her front legs when she is happy.  She got a big jackpot for a short bout of heeling. 

We went home and I shared some leftover spiral-cut ham from Christmas dinner with the dogs for lunch.  Life is good.

Winter training on the Palouse

The Palouse is the area of high steppe grassland in eastern Washington and northern Idaho south of Spokane.  Most of the pre-settlement grassland has been plowed under and planted to wheat.

Winters here are less extreme than on the other eastern side of the Rockies but no where near as mild as in Seattle.  The usual pattern is a few inches of snow that hangs around for a few days or weeks, followed by melting or partial melting, then more snow, etc.  Where I live, winter usually means wind.  Some winters, the snow comes early, forms inconvenient drifts across the yard, and makes any outdoor training nearly impossible for months.  I am stuck doing most of my training in a crowded utility room where the longest clear diagonal is about nine feet in length.

This winter has been unusually snow free.  When I was mostly training for Novice, snow-free wasn't all that useful.  Novice is heeling, and more heeling.  My usual winter attire over my midsection is a thin shirt, a flannel shirt, a vest, a thinsulate coat, and a parka.  My head is covered by a hood and I'm wearing gloves.  I can't see my dog in heel position unless I dispense with the parka.  I can't handle the treats or leash with the heavy gloves. So training often consists of me dashing outside with no gloves and only 4 of my torso layers (no parka), doing a spot of heeling down the gravel driveway, shoving a few treats at the dog, rushing back inside to defrost my fingers, switching dogs, dashing back outside, etc. 

These high-speed training sessions served another purpose: getting in a little training after work while there is still a smidgeon of twilight outside.

By comparison, training this week, has been a dream.  The high temperatures have been above freezing.  Today, temps were in the high 30s with light rain and not too much wind.  Moreover, I've discovered a big bonus of Utility training over Novice. Many of the Utility exercise parts can be done in a parka in the rain.   To top it off, I have the week off for the holidays.  I can train outside without a flashlight.

Today, I worked on directed retrieves and scent articles with Miss Maple, the golden girl, and my fingers didn't even turn too blue.  She is still having trouble resisting the pull of the middle glove when sent to Glove 3.  I simplified by removing glove 2.  I gave Alder the poodle boy a break from training and only did a little jump work with bars on the ground.  He is a marginal jumper, so I've decided to follow the Zink program for teaching jumping, starting from the beginning.  Maybe it will help.