By katie, on January 14th, 2012%
Magnus and I failed the CGC today.
As a trainer that’s one of those sentences I may be sorry for writing later. As a dog mom and a writer I feel no shame about it. I learned something more valuable to me than a set of letters after my dogs name.
We arrived for the test and the neutral dog that was there is one that Magnus just loves. I have no idea why, but he just goes crazy with excitement for that dog. I immediately thought he will never do Test 8: Reaction to another dog with that dog. Perhaps that’s a trainer fail on my part, since according to the test he should, “show no more than casual interest in [the other dog]. Neither dog should go to the other dog or its handler.” Technically it shouldn’t matter who the dog is, so mark that one down for more practice and as a lesson learned. That was not the main problem though.
Our downfall was stress. I wasn’t stressed when we got there, but due to the way the test worked out we didn’t have a chance to get settled before we did the parallel walk past the other dog and start the rest of our test. It was a bit of a sink or swim with no warm up and we sank.
After the first dismal pass of the other dog he started stress sniffing. I have never had a dog that expressed stress that way like Magnus does. This is so totally the opposite of how Maizey tells me she’s stressed that I haven’t ever learned how to deal with it. That’s my second lesson: learn how to help a dog that disconnects when stressed.
After blowing the pass another dog part of the test we went out the the room to wait our turn for the rest of the test. I knew he was stressed and we tried to jolly out of it, played a few little recalls and took some sniffing time, but then it was our turn. Even though it didn’t go good I’m proud of my choices from here on out.
Based on his performance in passing the other dog I figured we had already failed so I told our trainer if that was the case I didn’t want to test with him stressed. She said if he passed the rest of the test she wouldn’t fail him so we got started. He did fine for Test 1: Accepting a friendly stranger and Test 2: Sitting politely for petting, but even at his best my boy does not like to be groomed and the next test item is, Test 3: Appearance and grooming. According to the test, “The evaluator then softly combs or brushes the dog, and in a natural manner, lightly examines the ears and gently picks up each front foot.” He accepted the brushing, but when it came time for his ears he was having none of that and backed right up out of reach. That’s a fail. Since it’s the brush he’s had the most trouble with we practiced the most on that and slacked on the ears. Lesson number three for me: Practice it all, practice more and more thoroughly.
At that point since we’d already failed she offered to work with us on a few things, but I declined and that’s where the most important 4legged lesson of the day came into play. I just wanted to take the pressure off of him. If it’s not something that’s a quality of life issue or a life or death skill, like a recall, the most important thing to me is listening to my dog, not if he performs or not. If I was to do it again I would advocate for him at that first stress sniff. I would speak up and say, he’s stressed and we need to regroup. If that failed us, so be it. I listened when my boy spoke and next time I’ll advocate for him even better and that’s what makes me proud of us.
I’m not discounting the value of the CGC or any other title, but there are no letters after our names that matter more to me than building our relationship. I listened to my dog tonight. There are so many human expectations I could have succumbed to. I’m a dog trainer by profession. Now I’m a dog trainer whose dog failed the CGC. That’s reflection on me, not him. Trust me I feel the pressure of that. I could easily have let that push me to push Magnus to continue the test for my ego. But I didn’t. I also didn’t succumb to the pressure of wanting to please our trainer, who by the way, happens to be my boss. I want to do a good job of course, I want to be worthy of being a trainer there and I want the respect of my boss, so all of that could have crowded in my mind when I saw him start shutting down. Now I have to go back to work on Monday and face all the people I work with who actually know what the CGC is and understand what it means to fail. I’m not immune to those thoughts and pressures, but I’m proud to say in the moment I didn’t think of those things. I thought of Magnus. I listened to him and I hope I conveyed to him it’s okay to get stressed out. Now my lesson is just to learn how to help him work through his stress and find success in a new way. That’s a 4legged lesson learned that I know will make me a much better trainer and mom.
So while I guess I should be feeling a sense of failure, I don’t. Which if you know me is ironic, but I’ll take it as a sign of growth. What I feel is that we learned a lot, have a good plan of action to improve and at the end of the day the title that matters most to me is one that Magnus has mastered: that of Master Toe Warmer and Mom Snuggler!
By katie, on October 4th, 2011%
The value of planned training sessions can not be underestimated. But these are rarely my favorite training sessions.
My favorite sessions are the ones like tonight with Magnus. He went to my human class with me for an hour and half. Even that’s some good training. Tonight I used a piece of paper for him to park it on since I didn’t take a mat. He has to greet people without jumping. He has to be quiet and settle while I listen. He gets plenty of leave it practice since there are usually drinks and purses and what not on the floor by people’s chairs. All in all it’s good practice, but no fun for him at all.
Since he was such a good boy and it was too dark to be safe for a walk we went to our little park. We ducked into the park to play fetch and have a quick run, but it turned into a great training session!
We’ve been working on his stays. He’s doing really well, but we still don’t have much duration. We’ve worked more on distance since he needs to have a 20′ stay for the CGC. The stay was pretty much the last thing we needed to get solid and now I think we’re pretty much ready to test the CGC.
I keep getting off the subject. . . back to tonight. We were just playing fetch and goofing off, but I thought I’d see if I could proof his stay with a toy. He does a really good job of sitting and waiting before I throw his toy, so I started really easy with putting him on a sit-stay and set the toy right in front of him then released him with an “okay, get it!” He broke the first time, but after that we kept working the duration of how long he sat and how far and enthusiastically I tossed it. By the time we left he was doing really well.
It’s not like that’s all that impressive, but it reminded me how much I love our impromptu and real life lessons. I tend to get bogged down in the details and neither of us has as much fun. When I keep it light and playful he really does better. He’s always needed shorter sessions than Maizey and tonight reminded me of how much he needs to play to stay in the game.
Granted I’m not looking for obedience level precision, but I still think I have pretty high standards. I get a lot better work out of him when he doesn’t think we’re working. Plus we both just have a lot more fun!
So what about you? What kind of training do you find best for you and your 4legged friend? Do you use more formal sessions or do you enjoy informal training?
For me tonight’s 4legged lesson is: Keep it fun! Training happens all the time and for my boy the more fun the more learning he does. It’s a lesson I suspect applies to all of us!
By katie, on March 5th, 2011%
I always read these succinct, short, to the point blogs that are so easy to get the news you want without wading through extraneous fluff you really don’t care about.
Then I read mine. . .
So, I am going to endeavor to keep this short, which should be difficult since I haven’t kept up on the news around here lately.
I promise to do my best.
Monday, February 28, 2011 Magnus took and passed his AKC S.T.A.R. puppy test! Enter a proud Crazymomlady moment when his instructor said, “He’s almost ready for his CGC.”
Now that he is officially a S.T.A.R. and my life is trying to resume some sort of normalcy (whatever that is) he’s starting back to Agility For Fun class. On March 24th we will join one of our favorite instructors, Astrid, for the last 4 classes which we missed due to “real life” getting in our way the first time.
Since the instructors at Calling All Dogs are so wonderful they have agreed to help me work Maizey through the Petite Pals class there on Saturdays. She starts on March 12th.
Yes, this means I am officially insane, as both dogs will be in different classes on different days. Something I swore I would never do. However my Notsocrazymomlady is taking Chloe to that class and when Nicole heard the progress Maizey is making both she and Michelle, the instructor of Petite Pals felt it was worth a try to see how my Princess Of The Shrill Bark would handle it.
I will take it week by week and have their assurance they will help me monitor her stress levels and if it’s not a fit for her we will adjust accordingly.
In Steps to Success news Maizey has completed 38 of the L2 steps. Magnus is close behind with 29 steps complete. With our weeks filled up with classes we will be taking a bit of a hiatus from the levels until Sue releases the new book. (Which we are hoping and praying and wishing and begging will be soon!)
There! How did I do? Succinct enough? Oh wait. . . I forgot to update about Maizey’s persistent Blepharitis, Corneal Dystrophy and Distichiasis. Then there’s the Walking Challenge, my new obsession with making leather leashes and the perfect treat bags.
I can’t forget to at least mention the great honor Magnus had of being named one of the naughtiest dogs at Embee Cavaliers! A great thanks to Mary Beth for including him!
Most important of all I need to come up with a registered name for Magnus’ AKC PAL#!
Goodness, this being succinct thing is hard. Oh well, I guess I will have to get caught up on a night when it’s not already 12:15a.m.
In the mean time why don’t you help me out by coming up with a clever AKC registered name which includes the words: Magnus, Magnificent, and Moments. Who knows one of you could have the honor of giving Magnus The AKC S.T.A.R. his registered name!
(Don’t worry if you’re drawing a blank my next post is about the confusing world of AKC Purebred Alternative Listing/Indefinite Listing Privilege and should make you all as confused as I am!)
Okay, Okay, I wasn’t short and to the point at all, again. All I can do is beg your mercy and hope you’ll keep putting up with my long windedness since I value your input so much!
By katie, on September 3rd, 2010%
One time I heard an illustration about the difference between a plan and a purpose. For the purpose of dog training it would look like this:
Your purpose is to have a well mannered, well rounded, skilled pup. Your plan to do so is to train that dog the necessary amount to pass her CGC and be able to perform the skills for Rally Obedience.
But on the road to your purpose there are a lot of “road blocks”. Reactivity rears its reactive head, other 4legged friends get Degenerative Myelopathy and require much more daily care, your pathetic 2legged body just doesn’t cooperate (ok thats a wimpy road block, but honest), real life just does get in the way of your plan.
Here is the superiority of having a purpose. A purpose is not so rigid that you can’t take a different route, bypass the road blocks and move on towards your ultimate goals.
A plan get derailed by the roadblock, not having a contingency plan to keep the purpose in focus the whole plan is derailed and failure looms! (Dramatic thunder and lightening booms here.)
I have a purpose so I do not feel failure loom, but I take a lot of refocusing to stay on the road to my ultimate goal of a well rounded, well mannered Maizey. It seems to take many adjustment in my plans that allows for contingencies.
It was only on August 11 that I did the last of these get organized and giddyup posts. Time for a new one, sorry! Maybe I should just make this a regular monthly feature to give forewarning to everyone!
Since this is the month of the walking challenge the plan is to work the rally skills we both know the basics of into our walks.
For an easy example, HALT: Handler stops, dog sits in heel position team heals forward. Should be pretty simple as we stop for each road crossing and can do random halts in any walk. Simple enough!
Another example, HALT DOWN: Handler stops, dog sits in heel position, then downs from sit. Team heels forward from down. Same application of above and all skills she knows well.
Okay, for the enactment of this plan I think I am going to need more flash cards! The same way I keep the TL’s skills for that session on a carabiner to my belt I can choose a couple Rally skills for that day/walk and put them with the TL’s ones. Ahh. . . now the plans are flowing.
For the CGC skills I want to focus on: obviously we will meet plenty of strangers walking so Test 1: Accepting a friendly stranger, can continue as aforementioned, with the addition of some increasing distraction level by walking past the elementary school near here, she LOVES kids! This also works nicely for Test 2: Sitting politely for petting and obviously for Test 4: Out for a walk (walking on a loose lead) also for Test 5: Walking through a crowd.
Again I can see the usefulness of more flash cards for this too. YAY! (I do love flash cards you know!)
Also this month I would like to work on Test 10: Supervised separation as the trouble spot to focus on. Having this nailed down more would have made our trip much easier on both of us. . . but that is its own post in itself!
Of course we will continue to work on Ricky’s Training Challenge, and finishing up our last 5 L2 skills:
distance, stand, stand-stay, target, trick.
So in conclusion I have a good purpose, which is what keeps me going and a lot of plans and contrivances. Perhaps a month in review may be in line here too! Goodness its, plans, contrivances and purposes, Oh my!
 "Do you think she is biting off more than I can chew? Good thing I'm such a snarf hog!"
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