A nice pat for the ego

I am very lucky to be surrounded by some amazing dog trainers.  They constantly motivate me to have a better trained dog.  Motivation and goals are great but they make it very easy for me to forget to look at how well trained Iggy has become.


Today I did a recall class and it was just two students so Iggy participated much more than he usually does.  He was his usual awesome and charming self.  These ladies where in awe of our skill and that made me pause and really appreciate how far we have come.  I purposely made him fail because I was trying to explain testing the value and the need to go to failure and then learn from the failure.  Wow the confidence I have achieved in myself and this dog to work through that process in front of students and not panic.


There are so many great quotes on failure I will just quote a few



Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
Winston Churchill


I have not failed.  I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.  
Thomas Edison


You can't have any successes unless you can accept failure.  
George Cukor

Another aha moment brought to you by Susan Garrett

I had another aha moment on our walk yesterday.

The last few weeks I have been focusing on improving our off leash walks.  Lately Iggy's range is increasing, his recall is decreasing and he is hunting more.  What I want shorter range, more checking in with me and responding to his name.

What I have done
1.  Carry a toy or food with me and throw it whenever he stops and looks back.  With the food I am cueing search when I throw it.
2.  Stopped calling him I was just getting the paw => build some value and working towards calling and me running away.
3.  A lot of walks in fields where I can change direction whenever his range is too long.
4.  Rewarding when he is sniffing and lets me approach, just throwing the food in front of him working towards collar grabs.

Overall I have been pleased with the results, we are both enjoying our walks more.

Back to my epiphany.  I have watched hours of Susan working Swagger and had seen this but not realized what I was seeing.  The other day in the Shaping course she said if your dog gets stuck make it harder, in that case she moved the object further away.  At the time I understood and saw the value in shaping.  After it had percolated through I realized the same concept should be used throughout training.  Not surprising because we are really always shaping.  Make it harder just goes so against the grain because I so want Iggy to succeed.  On our walk yesterday he got too far away from me at one point and I was in an open field so couldn't hide easily, I just started backing up.  It worked he came flying back :).  Such an easy solution, now to find more ways to put this into play.  I had already been doing it when I ask for RZ I had started backing up until he got into position instead of make it easier.  Another gem from Susan.

The definition of relax

It's been almost a year since I have blogged and what a year it's been.  I am regularly saying I think I am getting it which is a great thing to say.

I have relaxed.  I hate saying that because that is what everyone kept telling me when it all was going to shit and I kept answering what does that mean.  Christine who so understands my insanity, said everything is not an iceberg (in reference to a Susan Garrett comment), that at least got my brain on the right track.  So for today's blog I decided to define "relax" as I understand it.  I need to right this stuff down because eventually I will get another puppy and since I am me I am sure I will default to my intense behaviours that don't work.

Relax
- when it all goes to shit STOP, this is not quitting this is learning (as an aside I am constantly amazed as I get older that the saying

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.

applies to my life in all aspects, in this case I was so lacking wisdom)
- learn from watching others work their dogs but don't compare their dog to yours
- laugh all the time
- Iggy slows right down when he is thinking, that's OK you are not rewarding slow it's part of the process
- don't let the details overwhelm you, concentrate on one criteria at a time
- trust your gut, don't let all the learning interfere with what your guy tells you
- have faith in my ability to change anything I screw up and accept you will screw up
- hug and kiss your dog everyday 
- play with your dog, bug him, laugh at him
- the other quote that is coming to mind all the time is from Tony Horton in the P90X2 workouts "do your best, forget the rest" so true


Here is the video of our first trial.  He was with me and never got distracted which was great.  Gave us a nice view of where we are at and what we have to work on.  Very pleased with my little boy.