magnus « Lessons From and For 4 Legs

The Roller Coaster Ride of Life

By katie, on February 17th, 2012%

I know when I’m getting tired from the daily do’s- I always end up writing as a way of sorting out all the going-on’s. Really it’s just a fancy sort of procrastination.

The pup’s are doing well. I’ve been so busy, but we’re getting in a ton of training time. I’m taking a CAP class. CAP is The Competency Assessment Program by Kay Laurence. We have one of the only accredited instructors in the States working at my training center so it’s an amazing chance to get to take CAP class in person. If you want to improve your training skills I’d highly recommend it. I can’t believe the things I’ve learned in just two weeks. I think we want to train all the “sexier” things, tricks and Rally and stuff, but CAP has taken me back to basics and since it’s really about what I’m learning not what the dogs are learning I’m using a lot of foundation behaviors to practice with. The result is I’m cleaning up a lot of things in their training that I let get sloppy and when we train the funner things they’re doing so much better. I LOVE CAP class!

I have three classes of my own now. I have a 12 different dogs I’m teaching and boy does it push my brain! Dog training is amazing. Each dog is an individual and has individual needs, but you also have the handlers needs to consider then it gets really complicated when you start adding in families and family dynamics. 12 dogs represents way more than 12 students when you put it all together. My biggest class is only 6 dogs and I really appreciate the chance to work in more depth with the smaller classes. It sure presents challenges in dog training I’ve never run into.

My dogs each have their own set of talents and challenges and the dogs I teach are no different. I have to say there’s a huge difference between studying and writing up a behavioral plan and actually teaching someone how to apply it. Dog trainers need to think on the fly and adjust second to second as the dog responds. It’s not as easy as it looks!

Then there’s the amazing amount of paperwork that comes with training. You’d never believe the behind the scenes stuff that goes into a class or session. Rosters to maintain, lesson plans to write, lesson plans to adjust to each classes needs, issues to research, the list goes on and on. Writing it all out sounds sorta droll and dreadful, but it’s not! It’s wonderful and though I worried the more I trained at work the less I’d train at home, it’s exactly opposite. Of course my dogs end up being Guinea Pigs, but they like it, it means we play a lot more games.

Magnus gets to go to work with me sometimes now. He makes a very boring shop dog, but boy does he love it! You can see in the pictures the main job he wants is napping! Everyone that was worried about the torturous snoods will be glad to know he doesn’t hate it anymore. Association is a powerful tool in the dogs brain and now he’s diving into it, just like Mary Beth said he would. He even brought it to me the other day like, “MOM! Here’s the good snood now where’s my good stuff!” He just keeps me laughing.

I’m still keeping up with everyones blogs, just don’t have time to comment much. We’re still here though. Just adjusting as life changes. Isn’t life like a roller coaster that never ends? You strap in and there’s no getting off. You just take the highs with the lows and ride the ride. Scream loud when it gets too crazy and try to take a breath in between. At least my life. It makes me love the quiet moments with me Monkey’s snuggling close and keeping my company.

The most exciting news is we get to shoot with Seth Casteel of Little Friends Photo’s. He’s hard to miss lately as his underwater stuff has gone viral and is everywhere, I saw his stuff on GMA this morning. We get a couple of hours with him and I’m just thrilled. I’m worried about how Maizey will handle two hours of that much stimulation, but it was an opportunity I just couldn’t pass up. Can’t believe it but our shoot is next friday so I better start getting prepared!

All in all we’re good. Taking the ride as it comes for us and hoping it wasn’t designed by a maniacal roller coaster builder. It’s a hope I think we all share!

Snoods are Good

By katie, on January 30th, 2012%

Since was all serious business and ranting around here last week I thought I’d let the Monkey’s lighten the mood by FINALLY posting thank you pics of them in their Embee Cavaliers’ snoods.

We think snoods are just an evil conspiracy to humiliate all Cavaliers!

Snoods may not be good, but the foods you get wearing a snood is liplickin' goooood!

When I first saw snoods I though I would never use such a humiliating torture device on my Cav’s.Then I actually got a Cav and learned how much grooming is involved and now I’m very thankful Mary Beth was generous enough to give each of my pups a snood in her giveaway. More on my grooming woes later, but suffice it to say if you don’t want to spend hours each week cleaning bits of goopy dried food of all sorts out of Cavalier ears you’ll want to invest in an Embee Cavalier snood. Trust me it’s worth it.

I thought about doing a whole bit on desensitization of the snood before you put it on. I have to admit I haven’t done it myself and chose the lazy trainers route of just putting it on and letting the yumminess of whatever sloppy, messy, and thus yummy to them, food I give them do the work for me. Magnus of course still doesn’t love it. He basically doesn’t love anything resembling handling, or clothes, or harnesses, but he does love the num yums he gets when I put it on so I think his association with it is will be okay over time.

So after all this blah blah blahing let me get to the point and say THANKS Mary Beth, I love their snoods!

Magnus doesn’t think I should be able to post anymore humiliating pictures of him after last weeks Speaking of Dog’s where he made his newspaper debut as a but sniffer, but a little humialtion for the greater good of comic relief is okay so I didn’t listen and now you all get to see how cute they look in their little “bonnets”. Thanks again Embee! You guys are the best!

Wordless Wednesday: Baby Boy

By katie, on January 18th, 2012%

These pictures were taken in the St. Louis airport the day I met Magnus and he became part of our family. He was nine weeks old.

An Interesting Day of 4Legged Lessons

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!