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.

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.

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.

Katy hasn’t practiced her skateboard training in awhile.

During the last practice session, she was standing on the skateboard and easily tolerating lots of movement under her feet. Mostly, though, it was moving because of her weight shifts rather than moving because she was actually pushing it. I would like her to push it - moving with her front feet on the skateboard and her back feet on the ground.

Goal for todays first session: Orient the skateboard so that Katy’s body is closer to parallel with the board. Click for solid front feet on the board and a good position (between 12 and 3 o’clock). Any movement of the board is good as well.

Session 1 :: OK. So Katy isn’t clear on where her feet should be on the skateboard. Totally my fault - I never taught her that there was a preferred placement of her feet. The problem is that she tends to walk towards me on the board and ends up on the front, upturned end. And then she pops a wheelie on the board. Which is cute and she doesn’t mind it. But it conflicts with what I want the finished behavior to be.

Next session, she will be clicked for the placement of her front feet. Both feet, anywhere on the flat part of the board. I’ll stabilize the board a little bit so we can focus on the foot placement.

Session 2 :: Much better. I put the skateboard on the pink velour blanket so it didn’t move around too much. I’ll repeat this session a couple of times. After maybe one or two more sessions, I’ll change the criteria to putting her feet anywhere on the flat part except for the one inch before the upturned ends.

Session 3 :: Perfect. She’s getting and is successful at least 80% of the time. Next session, raise the criteria for feet being closer to the center of the board.

8a. Dog sitting in a solid upright sit, eyes on handler, Click for upright sit - two seconds.

Average session. One key thing to remember with Katy - don’t toss the treat so that she can lie down and reach it. Once she lies down, she may never get back up!

Many more sloppy sits were offered during this session than in the last session. I think there was an “aha” moment when I waited her out while she was laying down, then sat up kind of fast and I was able to click and treat. We were able to end with a couple of nice, 2-sec, straight sits.

We’re still on this step though.

Have You Washed Your Paws

8a. Dog sitting in a solid upright sit, eyes on handler, Click for upright sit - two seconds.

Excellent session with Katy. Started with three sits for instant contact of floor with butt - straight, pretty sit. Then clicked for about 8 sits that lasted for 2 seconds.

If nothing else, Katy will have a much prettier sit after we finish this exercise.

Next step: All 2 second sits.