The other day I started working on Sue Ailsby’s scentwork with both Katy and Ellie.

The first step, at Level 3, is taking a single item and placing a piece of food under it and then letting the dog find the food. I used both a towel and some big plastic party cups. Both dogs “got” the game and found the food.

The next step, at Level 4, requires the assistance of a stranger. I took two of the plastic party cups to work and had my co-worker handle them for about 30 seconds each. He then put them back in a plastic bag and I didn’t touch them.

Today I took out one of the cups, being careful not to put my hand in the bag or to touch Ben’s cup and put my scent on the one that I pulled out. We played the game where I put just a little bit of cream cheese on the cup and send Ellie to “find it”.

After about eight successful “finds” and three times when she picked up the cup and brought it to me, I brought out Ben’s cup and placed it next to mine (mine has writing on it so that I can tell the difference between the two cups). Ellie found my cup about eight out of ten times. I changed the relative position of my cup on each trial so that she wasn’t picking the cup based on it’s positioning. Twice, I set the cup down while she was in a sit-stay in the other room, so she couldn’t watch me put it down. She got those right as well.

As Sue indicates, the hard part for the dog isn’t the scent discrimination. It’s learning that what I want is for her to pick the one that smells like me! The only thing that I wonder about (well not the only thing) is whether she’s playing this like the hot/cold game. I don’t think she is - as she’s going straight to the correct cup at a high rate. But, I’ll have to work a few more sessions to determine if I think she really get’s that it’s my scent that she’s working for. The other difference between this and the H/C game besides the fact that I had Ben stink up the cups is that the items are identical in appearance. When we play the H/C game, I use items that are very different physically from each other.

Finally! The vet sent Katy’s blood up to the lab at Michigan State for a comprehensive thyroid level test. She’s definitely hypothyroid and we started her on levothyroxine yesterday. I’ve got my fingers crossed that in a few weeks, I’ll have my “agility Katy” back. She loves the sport but has been so dog reactive and physically lethargic, practicing agility just hasn’t been much fun. I’m looking forward to the possibility to doing some good work with her outside this summer.

7:45am - Walk up to the art center and back up. GL and fried chicken. Not so good LLW on the way up. Good LLW on the way back. I’ve decided that it’s not acceptable to be over a dog’s body length ahead, even if the leash isn’t tight. Because that’s just way to close to being wrong. The criteria is that the plane of her body has to be somewhat aligned with mine. It can be her hind end, but it still has to be there. As soon as her whole body is ahead of me, action stops and I move backwards.

I’m also waiting to click and treat until after she’s back with me and has taken a few steps. Otherwise I’m afraid of setting up a “stop, comeback, treat, go back out” habit. Everyonce in awhile I will treat her for fixing her position on her own (rewarding the initiative!).

Worked attention in the driveway across the street.

8:00am - In the house. Played with the furry toy. It took her at least 5 minutes to show any interest (while I sat there second guessing the GL). It seems that as soon as she gets the urge to play and interact, she drops down on the floor to rub the GL on the rug, then I interrupt it and her energy drops down. Maybe I need to play with her on the hw floor. I tried playbows, having fun with the toy, etc. Throwing it seems to be a good initiator. Once she got going she tugged pretty well. We did some wobble board and tugging and some crate games with tugging.

8:15am - In to Katy’s crate with a frozen kong. Katy is in her crate. Musical crates.

1pm - Katy didn’t want to go out, so I left her in the house.

Ellie and I walked up to the art center and around the two paths. LLW with cheddar cheese. Not so great on the way up. Much better on the way back. Using new criteria.

Let Ellie and Katy out together in the backyard for about 10 minutes.

Put Ellie in crate and worked with Katy first. Walking backwards up the stairs.

Then worked Ellie walking up the stairs backwards (!) and just a few jumps onto the wobble board. The wobble board is still on the carpet. Next step will be to move it on to the rubber mats upstairs, then to the porch (wood). Played some tuggies - started off by throwing it around and it went much better.

Played “Ready, steady” with Katy - grabbing her collar and getting her going. She did really well at this game. Threw the furry toy out and she got it.

6pm - Took Katy out first. Practiced some heeling and left pivots. Did some ready, steady games and then let her go outside. Lots of tuggies with the “new” toy (braided with rubber tube)

6:30pm - Brought Ellie out. Went upstairs to play on the table and some jumps (I bumped the jump up one notch and she didn’t even notice). Once again, as soon as I initiated play, she wanted to rub. I played with the toy by myself and had a wonderful time for about five minutes. Finally, she joined in and played for a few minutes. I’m trying to make sure I always end these tug games before she does. Fun!

7pm - Walked around the block - up to the art center, down Highland and back up Elm. Really, really worked on LLW with cheddar cheese. It’s her choice - her body position drives my movement. She may be about ready to see the light as we had a few moments of brilliance.

7:30pm - took Katy with me in the car while I ran to the drugstore to pick up a few things. The new Katy-sized crate does NOT fit in the car. Darn.

8:00am - Out in the backyard with Katy. No GL, no supervision. While I took a shower.

2:00pm - Walked down to the corner on GL with fried chicken for LLW. OK. Worked attention in the front yard.
Quickie session on wobble board - working comfortably at about 65% confidence. Setup cool-cot and shaped it like the mat.

5:30pm - Out in the backyard with Katy for quick potty with GL on (on all afternoon). Back in to crate after some tugging while I took Katy to the vet (drew blood on Katy for thyroid testing).

6:15pm - Out to play tuggies, go to cot. Upstairs to practice on jump. Very good. Got her tugging and she jumped even better. Did just a few front crosses over the jump and quit while it was still fun. Crate games and tugging - retrieves with the squeaky mouse and then back in the crate while I walked Katy.

7pm - Took Katy to play frisbee and walk around the block. She carried her frisbee home - and we went the long way around the school. We walked by two labs on the other side of the street and she didn’t even mind!

8:15pm - out for walk on GL with fried chicken. Down and around school. Worked on just a few little recalls, LLW, walking backwards up stairs. Shaped getting up on the bottom of the slide on the playground. Attention across the street from Addy’s house. Quick romp in the backyard. Tugging in the LR - wobble board and a few crate games to come out and tug.

10pm - late dinner - frozen lamb bone on mat next to me.

Started some object discrimination. She will learn which toy is which! Started with the little shark. Turned out to be more of a polite retrieve session.

Lots of swimming tonight at the lake. Ellie braved some rather large waves and did quite nicely. Katy, of course, was only willing to retrieve a log. Thank goodness Frank has a good throwing arm(s).

Katy: Two foot touch to mousepad. Experimenting with target for contacts. Try it out on Katy and then decide if I want to use it with Ellie. Plans to tape Ellie, Katy, Pete and Woody running and pausing on contacts just to get a good image of body position. May use other dogs in Julie’s agility class as well.

Katy: Also practiced backing up. Added the verbal command. She loves to do this. Silly girl.

Ellie learned how to swim! She’s no longer scared of going in over her head! Yeah!

Victoria Farrington, Bob Bailey and Gary Wilkes all describe using a NRM (no reward marker) during shaping sessions.

Victoria’s explanation from the agility.uk forum really made it clear for me. Why waste time and energy during a shaping session letting the dog try every trick in the book. A simple NRM will help get the dog on track without a huge amount of handler interference.

I worked one NRM session with each dog today using Bob Bailey’s description. They both caught on right away (Katy was a whiz kid, of course). The only confusion that I have is that Bob seems to indicate that a cue is already in use for the initial hot spot. I’m wondering if the same cue (Sd) is then used for the *new* hotspot. Guess I’ll have to ask the experts…

For the session, I used pyrex refigerator bowls - a green round one and a red square one. I used un-unh as my NRM, but I think I’m going to use “not that”. It’s more concise.

After making a list of things we need to work on, I realized that I have start moving Ellie’s contact training along. We’ve been stalled at hand touches for the exact reason that was given at the puppy camp. They’re boring! But, the excitement will be our incremental but observable progress!

So, today at lunch, I worked with the plexiglass target. My mechanics are better, but still rough. As soon as the target is within an inch of the floor, Ellie wants to hit it with her paw. For the next couple of sessions, I need to have her practice hitting it high for a couple times, then low. Set her up for success. She will get that even when the target is parallel to the floor, it’s still to be hit with her nose. She’s so fast that she sneaks her paw in there right as I’m saying “yes”.