Shelley & Finn's Four Paws Posts!

Have you made your New Year Resolutions yet?

2012-01-04T15:17:00.000Z

So, here we are in 2012! Hopefully you're feeling inspired by the new year and the fresh start that accompanies it, and have written yourself a few goals and resolutions to aim for. Mine include getting fitter before the Spring so I can do my best by Whirligig when we start our agility competitive career in March!

What about your dog training resolutions? Have you thought of something you'd like to aim for or improve upon with your dog? Fancy taking up a new hobby? We've got some new stuff on offer to fulfil your doggy resolutions!

Want to take up a new hobby and enjoy time with your dog? Try out our Foundation Agility class.
Want to improve your dog's recall skills, responsiveness or your relationship? Sign up for our new 4 week 'Recall and Relationship Building' course.
Is your kid a keen dog enthusiast and budding trainer of the future? We have a half term 'Kids and their K9s' workshop planned for Feb.

The new year can be a great time to take stock of your dog's behaviours and think about what you'd like to see improved and how you might get there. Think of a behaviour you'd like to see improved, think about what your ideal response would be, and then think about what currently interferes with it or stops it happening. Once you know where you're starting from, what you're aiming for, and what distractions you need to train against, you can then begin to formulate a training plan to build that desired response. And if you need a hand with that plan, contact us or your local dog trainer!

Happy New Year, one and all. I'm looking forward this year to continuing to build Four Paws One Direction into a successful training business with proven results, to starting Whirli's competitive agility career, to further expanding my knowledge base through working with some great trainers, and to completing Lauren Langman's Accredited Agility Instructor Level 2 course at the end of the year! Cheers!

Prim taken by Pets 'n' Pictures

Santa Paws Photo Competition Results

2011-12-21T11:32:00.000Z

So, the judging has been done, and the results are in! Many thanks to Philip Watts of Pets 'n' Pictures for judging the competition. The theme was 'Doggy Winter Wonders', but actually the weather has been so mild so far that it was hard to snap many shots that really captured this, so most of the entries were dug out from last year's snow! Thanks to everyone who sent something through. The final results are:

1st Place: Bronwyn Harrison & Kaya

Judge's Comment: "It's a good quality picture that fits the category. The dog is nice and alert - looking for action!"

2nd Place: Kay Jennings and Willow & Ziggy

Judge's Comment: "Technically not such a good quality photograph as the winner, but full of winter energy and fun"

All the other entries can be seen on our website.

Keeping your dog safe and happy at Christmas

2011-12-12T10:40:00.001Z

I think dogs must find Christmas quite a baffling time of year - odd decorations around the house, lots of visitors, a tree suddenly appearing indoors, lots of food around, lots of rushing about...

We need to be careful to make sure Christmas is safe for our dogs, and as stress-free as possible, so here are a few hints and tips to make sure your canine friend enjoys the festive season too:

Make sure the tree and any decorations are out of dog-reach or are placed somewhere Fido can't reach them - he doesn't understand he's not supposed to eat this brightly coloured play thing!
Be careful if putting chocolates on the tree as the dog may be tempted to eat them, and chocolate is poisonous to dogs (my mum's collie Kiri ate all the chocs once, wrappers and all - we came down in the morning to find a few bits of string left on the tree where the chocolates had been!)
When visitors come round, ensure your dog has a quiet safe bed/den/crate somewhere where he won't be disturbed to retreat to, or pro-actively put him out there if you know he may find the extra people stressful. Not all dogs are social butterflies and some need their peace and quiet.Stuff some Kongs to keep your dog happy and occupied.
If you have children over visiting, be sure to set some rules on behaving around the dog - the most important one being that they should never disturb a sleeping dog.
Don't be tempted to feed your dog Christmas pudding, cake or mince pies as sultanas and raisins are toxic to dogs.

I hope you all enjoy the festive season!

A truly inspirational teacher...

2011-12-08T14:48:00.001Z

So I blogged the other day about finding myself inspired at the UK Agility Grand Finals at the weekend, and I said that we all need inspiration and aspirations - well, I'd like to offer you another of my biggest inspirations at the moment, and that's Canadian dog trainer and agility competitor extraordinaire Susan Garrett. She's been leading the way in agility training for a while now, and is a big name amongst those enlightened people in the know, but her methods and training games are also just as applicable to the average pet dog, and at the heart of all her training are the key words RELATIONSHIP and VALUE; what is your relationship like with your dog, and where is the value in your dog's behaviours - is the value with you and your reinforcers, or is the value with the other dogs across the park, or with the rabbits or pheasants? The concept of value is such a simple one, but once you understand it, it has the power to completely change how you look at your training, your dog and its behaviour.

Want to know more? Well luckily Susan is extremely generous in sharing her knowledge, and her blog post is always full of inspirational articles, including this one which is what inspired this post. Sign up to her email newsletter (press 'home' and fill in the box) and you often get sent free resources or links to free webinars (online seminars), and at the moment the offer includes a free audio download on training tips. Very few trainers are so generous with their ideas, and I find that really inspiring to!

Who is your biggest inspiration?

ADDITION:
Just had a look at this blog - these are the winning videos made by people who took Susan's last Recallers course (I've just started the new one) on how it has changed the lives of their dogs, and videos 2 and 3 in particular brought a tear to my eye!! Check them out yourselves and tell me you're not inspired?!
Winning videos here...

Is growling a bad thing? Or is it just information?

2011-12-07T23:35:00.000Z

Here's a great blog post that very much echoes a sentiment I came across a few years ago, and that's that instead of looking at growling as your dog doing a 'bad' thing, you simply look at it for what it is - your dog giving you information on how he's feeling in the only way he can.

We all need inspiration and aspirations...

2011-12-05T13:11:00.001Z

So I spent a very enjoyable (though chilly) weekend at the Hand Equestrian Centre in Clevedon watching the UK Agility Grand Finals. And boy was it inspiring! I know competitive dog sports aren't for everyone, but watching the dogs and handlers work so smoothly together as a team to tackle a challenging course was like watching poetry in motion; the level of connection and communication between the partnerships was visible, and that's what I love most about these sports - it's all about building a relationship with your dog so that you can work together as one. And competitive ambitions or not, I think that's something that every dog owner can achieve with their dog given a little effort and patience, and who wouldn't want that deeper relationship with their doggy family members? Building that connection also helps make everyday life so much easier for the average pet dog - our relationships with our dogs need to be two-way, so if we want them to pay attention to us across the field or while walking down the street, we have to invest in building that connection and desire to work with us as well. So come and join a class to get started! ;-)

Personally speaking, I found the weekend so inspiring and now have aspirations of qualifying for one of the finals for next year with Whirligig once she starts competing. That may be a big dream, but we all need aspirations, something to strive towards to keep us going and push us forward, and that's mine for the next 12 months!

What's your aspiration for your dog for 2012? It might be qualifying for finals, achieving a certain level in a sport, or it may simply be building a reliable recall, reconnecting with your dog, or teaching it a few tricks. Let me know what you dream of achieving with your dog during the new year. Dream big!

(photo of Tug-E-Nuff Performance Challenge Standard Winners taken from UKA Facebook page, photo by Emma Elliot Photography)

The dangers of throwing sticks...

2011-12-01T17:52:00.000Z

So, from here on out I'm going to try to make the blog more interesting and update on as-near-to a daily basis as my schedule will dictate. Posts will include helpful hints, training stories and ancedotes, photos, links to great info etc, so check back regularly! :)

The dangers of throwing sticks

I was reading through the latest copy of Dogs Monthly today, and there was a whole feature on this, and it seemed a good topic to start on as I was reminded of the dangers of playing with sticks at the weekend when one of my agility class members said his Collie Jack had a near-miss with a stick; someone threw a stick for the dog before his owner could stop it, it stuck in the ground as it landed, and Jack ran on to it. Luckily he got away virtually unharmed, but this isn't always the case. I knew someone years ago whose dog ran on to a stick and had to have extensive surgery to fix the damage done.

The seemingly harmless activity of throwing a stick for your dog becomes a danger when the stick lands upright stuck in the ground (kind of javelin-style!) and the incoming dog runs onto it and becomes impaled. So if you're a habitual stick-thrower, be aware of the risks to your dog.

There's a Facebook group called 'Throwing Sticks Could Kill Your Dog' - if you have an account, why not join the group and help promote the message?

Looking for an alternative to sticks? Why not try the SafeStix? Haven't tested it out myself yet, but it looks good!

Has your dog had a near-stick accident? Do you have any thoughts or opinions? If so, why not leave a comment below?

Looking to the future...

2011-11-21T12:01:00.001Z

So, it's been quite a while, I hear you cry (well, I imagine that I do!), but hopefully things are back on track now and I'll be aiming to post much more regularly!

Things are going well with the business - the new hall is working out well, classes are busy and bordering on all being full, and I'm now looking towards 2012 and the new things I'd like to be able to offer, so it's quite an exciting time! :)

There'll be more on all that later, with new and interesting blog posts coming soon so stay tuned, but for now I'll leave you with the link to my latest new-look Newsletter - have a little read and why not sign up so that in future these updates are delivered 'straight to your door'?!

Love and wags,
Shelley, Mr Finn and Whirligig

For all the broken hearts

2011-08-02T10:14:00.000+01:00

For my friend Becky who just lost her best friend and is heartbroken. We've all been there, and it never gets any easier. And yet we all do it all over again, for those moments of shared joy and companionship. To all our lost friends...

Sleep

	Your suffering shall end soon, though mine has just begun. I do not want to let you go, But I’m told the time has come. I’ll hold you while you go to sleep, and wish that I could too– I do not want to say goodbye; I want to go with you. Sleep now, my precious baby, Dream of your favorite toy, And hide n’ seek and tug of war– Those games that brought us joy. I’ll think how very blessed I've been For all the years we've shared, I'd not trade them for anything– Though this heartbreak would be spared. © 1993 Kathy S. Doerr

Does this make me a published author?!!

2011-07-24T22:54:00.000+01:00

Just a quickie to say I've now had my first piece published on the wonderful Dog Lovers Digest, and I have to say I'm proud as punch! It's a slight re-working of my article from here on Mr Finn's unexpected early retirement as I felt a personal story would be the best way to start, and I'm looking forward to writing more pieces - just need to find the time!

You can read my article here....

Wags and kisses,
Shelley, Mr Finn and Whirligig

I'm still here, somewhere....

2011-07-19T21:46:00.000+01:00

Wow, I have no idea how this blog has had 3000 views since April, but thanks to whoever is reading this!!

Anyway, I know it's been a while, and I'm afraid I haven't had any time to write any more articles yet, but I'll try to get working on something, I promise! In the meanwhile, here's a quick update on my various activities.

As anyone who has been following this for a while will know, I haven't had the best 6 months ever; I was forced to close down my training activities at the end of last year due to venue and financial issues, I then suffered quite a serious head injury at work and could do very little for most of February and March, I had to make the hard decision to retire Mr. Finn from his competitive agility career at the tender age of 4 in April, and have had a few other things to contend with as well.

But finally things are looking up! I completed my college course on teaching Adult learners so now hold a recognised teaching qualification, I have a new training venue (well, a new village hall to hire!), have launched my new 'Puppy Academy', am about to start some adult dog and 'Active Dog' classes, and on Sunday held my third annual charity Fun Dog Show. The show went better than expected - the weather was looking pretty grim during the set-up, but the showers held off for the show itself, loads of people turned up, and we raised £280 for charity (which was actually £10 up on last year despite the awful weather!). Huge thanks to everyone who turned up, and Phil's photos from the day should be up on his website here soon.

So all in all things are looking better! Wish I had a lovely picture or two from the show to brighten this post up, but alas I was running around too much to take any, and have yet to see the efforts of my photography chums! So instead here's a shot of Whirli looking happy after completing her favourite activity - burying things!! Blooming spaniels... :-)

Putting your dog's needs ahead of your dreams...

2011-04-27T11:49:00.001+01:00

This is a fairly emotive topic for me at the moment. Last month Mr Finn was retired from his competitive agility career after an incident at an agility show, all before the age of 4 years old (he celebrated his 4th birthday yesterday, which was a day of mixed feelings for me). His anxiety levels have been steadily becoming worse and worse, and he now has full blown 'Generalised Anxiety Disorder' and is finding life increasingly hard to cope with, and it seems despite LOVING agility, the competitive agility environment is just too much (although ironically he seemed as calm as I have ever seen him before said incident, but there you go, in hindsight the term 'knife edge' springs to mind!). So my plans for a summer full of shows have gone, my aspirations for my handsome boy have crumbled away, and he has had to pretty much retire from life for now (though when you start to understand a little bit more about the collie brain and what they've been bred for/not bred for, his behaviour starts to make a bit more sense - see my previous blog post).

So what do you do when it becomes obvious your performance partner isn't up to the task? When that puppy that was full of promise turns out to not be suited to the goals you have chosen for it? When the dog you bought for a specific purpose such as agility, obedience, flyball, showing or any other sport isn't suitable for that purpose (be it physically, temperamentally, or motivationally)? Well, this is where you have to start asking yourself some hard questions and make some hard decisions. And this is where I know this becomes a highly charged topic for others as well, because it can be hard to know what the 'right' thing to do is, and opinions differ on what the 'right' thing is.

I think the first thing to realise is that not every dog is cut out for the competition environment or group classes, just as not all of us are cut out for the pressures of performing on the stage or attending crowded parties, and we need to respect our dogs for who they are and what their limits are. Finn is not able to cope with the stresses of the competition environment, and I need to respect that. This does not mean that I've 'given up' on him or 'discarded' him to the reject pile, and he is currently on behavioural meds and we will be looking at training programmes to help him with some of his issues, but I have chosen not to push him past what is fair, kind or reasonable to expect, and I feel this is the right thing to do. At the end of the day, competitive agility is my goal, not his; dogs don't care about winning rosettes and trophies, only people do. If Finn loves agility but can't cope with the shows or classes, then he can still do what he loves in our field but without having a mental meltdown about it, and this is obviously the best option for him. I have to put my goals aside and focus on what he needs to make his life as stress-free as possible. It can, however, be incredibly hard to let go of your own ambitions.

At this point, I'd like to mention my friend Sarah and her collie Izzy. I'm sure Sarah won't mind me saying this, but Izzy is a little mad (large amounts of 'collie eye' and chase, very easily aroused), and Sarah isn't a particularly experienced dog owner or trainer. Her and Izzy have been on quite a learning curve during their 3 years together (Sarah first turned up at my classes when Izzy was about 1, having been to a local trainer since puppyhood who had managed to convince her that her dog was fundamentally 'bad', and every other word out of Sarah's mouth was 'sorry' every time Izzy did anything dog-like!). Sarah's been working really hard with Izzy, and has gone to great lengths to try to educate herself so that she might better understand her dog, and to learn techniques to better manage her, and I'm hugely proud of what they've both managed to achieve so far. But there was another point to mentioning Sarah and Izzy - and that is that I have enormous amounts of respect for Sarah for knowing her dog's limits, and not being afraid to sacrifice her desires if it isn't in the best interests of her dog. Sarah would desperately love to compete in agility, but she knows it's not an environment Izzy would be able to readily cope with, so she has put aside her needs for Izzy's. When Izzy was struggling to cope in a class situation and Sarah was finding it stressful, she dropped out of the class to do private training instead, even though I wasn't able to offer her the private training as regularly. When our little doggy 'social group' are planning which local fun dog shows we're going to over the summer, Sarah would always love to be able to bring Izzy along and join in, but she knows her limits, and is strong enough to come along without the dog. Sarah is actually better than Mum and I at putting aside her ego and her desires for the benefit of her dog, and I have huge admiration for her for that, and in that respect she has a lot to teach me. I think Mr Finn is telling me it's finally time to listen.

So what does the future hold for Mr Finn? Hopefully a more stress-free life! Quiet walks, calm and private training sessions in our field, naps on the sofa, games with Whirli, and lots of love from his Mummy. Time to start putting his needs ahead of my own desires. Not easy to do, and I'm hoping I can be strong enough to be the Mummy he deserves. If I'm not looking out for his best interests, who is?!

Wags and kisses,
Shelley, Finn and Whirli x

Choice - Luring the fearful dog...

2011-04-14T17:36:00.001+01:00

Having looked at the concept of ‘choice’ when training our dogs in a general sense, I thought I’d try to expand on one of the specific examples I mentioned. Some of this is me thinking ‘out loud’, but see if you can follow my logic – and let me know if you feel there isn’t any logic in here!!

Choice is empowering – it gives the dogs more control over their actions and their environment. Pressure (from the environment or from us) reduces choice, and a reduction in choice can lead to frustration or fear. We can all relate to this ourselves; how much pressure do you feel under at work when your boss is standing looking over your shoulder, however well-meaning or nice they might be? How much have your choices been limited in that moment (pretty much the only realistic choice most of us have is to do the job as fast as we can and ignore anything else that might need our attention!)? How much frustration, stress or even fear does that foster? And how bad emotionally and physiologically does that make you feel? Not a fun situation to be in! How much more positive and empowered do you feel when you have choice over your workload? So we all know that choice is good!

How does the idea of choice fit in with luring the fearful dog, the subject of this post? Well, I stated in the last post that even when we’re trying to train ‘positively’ we can be guilty of eliminating choice by the use of bribery, and I wanted to expand on that a bit.

Our sensitivity towards our dogs’ emotions has come along quite a way, and most of us in general no longer feel that the way to handle a fearful dog is to ‘make them get over it’ or ‘make them face their fears’; instead we’ve turned to using food or toys to make the scary thing seem less scary, which is certainly an improvement from the perspective of our poor fearful dogs! However, we need to make sure we’re using the food and the toys in the right way to get the best results, and ensure we aren’t putting the dog in conflict or inadvertently removing choice. The hope behind luring the fearful dog towards something or someone it’s scared of is to make a positive association in the dog’s mind between the scary thing and the food, so that the scary thing seems less scary. However, there’s the potential within this to end up putting the dog in a conflicted situation, – ‘I want the food but I don’t want to get that close’ – forcing him through use of the food to go closer than he felt comfortable with. Dogs lured forward towards people like this will often suddenly find themselves too close and end up snatching the food very hard or biting. There’s also the potential to accidentally ‘poison’ the reinforcer; what you’re hoping to do is make the scary thing seem less scary by the presence of something nice, but what you can end up doing is making the something nice seem scary by pairing it with the presence of something scary!

Let’s go with a little analogy…see if this makes sense to you! Say I’m scared of spiders, but I really love Galaxy chocolate bars (at least semi-true!!). My mum decides that she’s going to help me get over my fear by pairing the two things together, luring me towards a tank containing a Tarantula with Galaxy bars. Whilst I’m at a distance I feel comfortable with, this works quite well – I quite happily follow the trail of chocolate bars towards the tank, feeling safe in the knowledge that the spider is in the tank and I don’t have to get too close to it to get the chocolate. Then all of a sudden I find that the final bar is inside the tank next to the spider; how conflicted do I suddenly feel?! I want that bar, but I really don’t want to get that close to the spider. What if mum offered me a ‘jackpot’ by placing a giant bar in the tank? Well now I feel even more conflicted – now I really want the chocolate, but I still really don’t want to get that close to the spider. I might start to feel quite stressed about the whole situation. Even if I felt brave enough to reach in and get the chocolate, with all the stress chemicals currently flowing around my body, am I likely to be building a positive association? Might I actually decide instead that I’d rather never see another bar of Galaxy again?! What if instead of luring me, my mum decided to reinforce me every time I voluntarily took a step towards the tank? Would I feel a bit less stressed about it all? Yes, probably, because I have the element of choice – I can decide for myself whether I want to step forward or not, it is entirely under my own control, no conflicting feelings. Would I ever get as far as voluntarily putting my hand inside the tank? I might eventually, if I felt the choice was mine and that the reward was worth it (this raises a separate issue – the value of the reinforcer), and I’d certainly be less stressed about the whole thing, much more willing to participate, and much more likely to form a positive association.

When working with fearful dogs, and indeed when training any dog, we need to be careful to make the distinction between ‘luring’ and ‘reinforcing’. Certainly luring has its place in our ‘training toolbox’, but we need to be careful that we’re not compromising the dog’s choices or emotional state. Even ‘positive’ encouragement or verbal enticement from us can amount to pressure on the dog, and pressure reduces choice. So if you’re ever trying to accomplish something but you’re not sure whether you should be luring your dog or not, err on the side of free choice and reinforce the dog for voluntarily making small steps towards doing the task instead! :-)

Choice - a powerful teaching tool

2011-04-07T15:29:00.003+01:00

So, ‘choice’…I think few of us appreciate the power that choice has for our dogs in our training and in their lives in general. But choice is indeed a powerful thing!

I did one of Kay Laurence’s online courses on ‘Building the Confident Dog’ a little while ago, and giving our dogs choices was the central theme of the whole course. I was reminded of this yesterday when I read a brilliant article from one of the co-authors of the course, Christina Bond, on how choice really helped her shy puppy Skye overcome her fears. The article can be found here – please give it a read and watch all the videos, it really is fascinating stuff.

Our dogs have so few choices in their general lives – eat what we give them, walk when and where we want to walk, sleep when we say etc. And again in their training – do this activity because we want you to, do this behavior now or we’ll make you. Even when we’re using ‘positive reinforcement’ we can sometimes be guilty of eliminating choice by resorting to bribery – climb on that really scary object/go near that scary person or you won’t get any food; when rewarding, we need to be careful to ensure that we’re rewarding our dogs for making a choice to voluntarily go near that scary thing and not luring them towards it against their will. As horse training extraordinaire Alexandra Kurland said “Just because you are using positive reinforcement it does not mean the animal is having a positive learning experience.”

“Loss of choice, loss of the ability to control one’s own actions, escalates fear” (Kay Laurence). And fear is, in itself, punishing. Therefore loss of choice is punishing.

So what do I mean by loss of choice in a ‘training’ sense? Well it might be physical force – pushing the dog into a position, holding it on a piece of equipment so it can’t get off, pinning it to the floor. It might be through the use of barriers – leads to prevent escape, or placing the scary thing between the dog and his escape route. It might be through enforced proximity – placing the scary thing too close to the dog’s safety zone or forcing the dog to approach something scary. It could be a loss of choice through fear of reprisals.

When we’re training our dogs (or interacting with them in any way, really), we need to be aware of what our dog’s choices are at that given moment; does he have any choices? If he had a choice, would he choose to do this? The more choices we can give our dogs, the more control over their own environments they will have, and the more confidence they will have. We want to be setting up experiences where the dog is allowed choice in interacting with his environment, and then rewarding him for making good choices. We want to be setting him up to practice curiosity, discovery and success whilst avoiding fear.

In an ideal world all our training would be done off lead so that the dog has the ultimate in choice, and there would be no way for us to force him to participate, but this isn’t always practical, and our world is far from ideal! There is a balance to be had between allowing the dog choice to build confidence and preventing the practice of behaviours we don’t want. So what we need to do is manage the environment to minimize practice of these behaviours. By all means use a lead to prevent bouts of the zoomies, but it needs to be long and loose and not forcing the dog to do anything!

So next time you’re training your dog, just have a quick think about choice.

And just to finish, here’s a little phrase from Christina Bond that was said during the course, and which I am now repeating like a mantra!:

“Choice is reinforcing.
Pressure removes choice.
Lack of choice can increase fear.”

"Those who can, Teach"

2011-03-14T09:29:00.000Z

So, this isn't quite the rant I had intended to write, but it does kind of follow on from a point made in my last blog post - "...there are far too many trainers who might have dog skills but aren't good 'teachers'..."

One of the monthly dog magazines has an article in the April edition about what courses or qualifications to take if you're looking to become a dog trainer. The article itself is fairly inconclusive, but actually that's probably a fair representation of the minefield that is 'dog trainer qualifications' - there is no industry standard, and it's very hard to tell which of the courses offered by various 'institutions' are actually worth anything.

However, what I thought what was missing from the article was the same thing that is missing from the CV of most dog trainers - any mention of Teaching qualifications. When I'm running a class, it's the people I'm teaching, not the dog, and it drives me mad how little time or attention most trainers give to ensuring they know enough about how the people in their classes learn and how best to structure their lessons, write their handouts and impart their information so that the people gain the most value from their sessions. The methods used to train the dogs have (on the whole) come on a long way in recent years - isn't it time we, as an industry, started ensuring we're doing the best by the people paying for our services as well as their dogs? There are some trainers out there who have done exceptionally well with their own dogs, and/or who have a vast amount of relevant, useful knowledge, but that doesn't automatically make them good teachers.

I think it's about time the educational standards were improved in the dog training classrooms. We are, after all, providing a service for the people as well as for the dogs, and it is an educational service at that.

And to prove I am 'putting my money where my mouth is', I'm about to start a Nationally recognised Teaching Adult Learners course at my local college. I look forward to using the information gained from the course to rewrite my lesson plans to ensure everyone gets the most from my sessions. Even if the dog trainers of the world just picked up a copy of 'Teaching Today' and had a quick read through, they might find themselves learning a few things to make their lessons more accessible and more dynamic. The days of trudging round a hall have gone - lessons needing planning and structure, tasks need breaking down into manageable chunks, and the various learning styles of the owners need to be accounted for.

Isn't it about time dog training got a little more educational?

Wags and kisses,
Shelley, Mr Finn and Whirli (who is such a big girl now that she's having her first season!!)

Inspiration is all around...

2011-03-12T16:28:00.000Z

I was going to write a bit of a rant about something, but I'm feeling pretty positive at the moment so I'll save that for a darker day and instead focus on the good!

I feel very lucky and privileged to be able to train (albeit sporadically because of the huge travelling distances involved!) with one of the most inspiring and talented young trainers around, the ever smiling Lauren Langman of Devon Dogs. Just had a fab session with Whirli, and as always I've come away buzzing and enthusiastic (though with a slight headache, but I'm pretty sure that's more to do with the ongoing concussion than Lauren and her training techniques!!!).

The world of dog training is a funny old thing - there are so many differences of opinion on what the 'right' way to teach anything is (although as far as I'm concerned if you're basing your training on sound Learning Theory and scientific research you can't go too far wrong), there's so much outdated information still being reeled out by 'trainers', there are so many disagreements and fallings out amongst the trainers themselves, there are far too many trainers who might have dog skills but aren't good 'teachers', and there are far too many people trying to teach things they really know nothing about and charging extortionate rates to do so (rant on this last point to follow at a later date!!). But Lauren is the antithesis of all these things, and is one of only a very small number of trainers in existence that I've encountered who has a sound understanding of Learning and Behaviour, is constantly researching new ideas and techniques, is always looking to expand her own knowledge, is an excellent teacher of the people as well as her own dogs, and knows so much about her own field. She's truly inspirational, and I take my hat off to her! If I was half the dog trainer and teacher she is I'd be a very happy girl, and I aspire to be so in the future.

So many thanks to Lauren for today's session, and for trying to drag agility training kicking and screaming towards a better, more enlightened future; I know it hasn't been easy for her, and that she's encountered some problems and a small amount of opposition from less enlightened people along the way. Keep up the good work - you're slowly changing the face of agility in the South West for the better! :-)

Wags and kisses,
Shelley, Mr Finn and the Whirli Girli xx

Teeny tiny spaniel puppies! Weren't they cute?!!

Mad spaniels!

2011-03-03T17:53:00.000Z

God I love these two little spaniels!! They are such characters, and so very, very bright! And my, aren't they beautiful?! These lovely photos were taken by our Four Paws friend Philip Watts at training a few weeks ago.

I'm so proud of everything mum and I have achieved with the pair of them so far (and really proud of the progress of our new friends Jacky and Heidi as well, what a fab team they are!). It's been a large investment of time in terms of researching all these new training ideas with regards to Foundation Agility training, trying to combine all the best bits but make sure there are no conflicting ideas in there, adapting methods to ensure it all fits with our handling system (or Greg Derrett's handling system!), making sure it's all age-appropriate and fun, but it's definitely been worth it so far! The two of them are already showing more understanding of how to control their bodies, focus ahead, look for the next obstacle, hold a start line wait etc than Finn and Willow did at 15 months of age (and some might say more than they do at almost 4 years!!)! They're going to be absolute little crackers! And the best bit...they love their training sessions so much!

I feel we've managed to strike that balance between laying the foundations for later training and letting them just be puppies; all the exercises we've been doing are very low-impact (no 'jumping' at all at any point yet), we only do one or two short sessions a week, it's all done using huge amounts of positive reinforcement and play, and it's all done at their own pace without a huge weight of expectation on them or a desire to push them too hard - they deserve to be pups, after all! But the benefits are enormous - they're so confident, they have an incredible understanding of how to play the training 'game', and they have oodles of enthusiasm.

At one point I think I'd started to take for granted just how confident they were at interacting with any surface or object put in front of them, but the benefits of continuing this habituation work were highlighted for me at the end of January when I ran a little 'top up' class for some of the pups who used to come to class that I hadn't seen for a few weeks, and back in Novemeber they were at a comparable age and confidence level to Whirli, Dazzle and Heidi, but having not done anything much for several months I was amazed to see just how much confidence they'd lost compared to our three. Makes me wish I had the capacity to run puppy classes again, as I think we're doing a lot of things right! Maybe in the future...

For now my plans are a little hampered as I'm still suffering from post-concussion syndrome following that head injury at work, so everything has been put a little on hold for now. But hopefully in the near future I might have some more interesting things to report. In the meanwhile you'll have to be content with this 'ode to Whirli and Dazzle'!!

Blimey she's a cute little monkey...

Grid Work & Puppy Foundations...

2011-02-17T11:32:00.000Z

So, just in case you were wondering whether Finn and Willow had actually been replaced by the spaniels, I thought I'd provide some proof that they are still in existence!! They just haven't been doing much in the way of agility lately as it's been a bit snowy/frozen/wet or I've been concussed!

When we have had the chance to do a bit with them, we've mostly been concentrating on Grid Work to improve their jumping skills. We all assume our dogs can jump, and they can all 'jump', but that doesn't mean they know how to do it well! Us agility folk spend many an hour drilling weave poles or contact behaviours, but it's amazing how little thought or time we put into teaching good jumping technique, particularly since a course is comprised primarily of jumps!! And what I'm talking about here is teaching the mechanical skills of jumping, not the 'handling' side of things.

The ultimate source of information on teaching jumping skills is currently Susan Salo, who brings a wealth of knowledge from the show jumping world to agility through her 'Foundation Jumping', 'Advanced Jumping' and 'Puppy Jumping' DVDs. "When a dog understands how to jump - path, distance, appropriate take-off place, weight transfer, angle of elevation, and height - he will run more smoothly, efficiently, and decisively, and therefore, be faster and less prone to injury."

So give a little thought as to just how much time you've spent teaching your dog to jump properly, and consider investing in the DVDs or finding a trainer who knows a bit about Grids! It's definitely helping Finn with his awful jumping technique, although I think he will always be slightly handicapped by his short legs, long back and bad angulation...poor little midget man!

Here's Finn and Wills doing a little bit...

And as for the pups, well we're hoping to get them off to a better start, and have been doing small amounts of the Puppy Jumping stuff over tiny jump bumps, alongside the other Foundation basics. Here's the latest pupdate!...

Wags and kisses,
Shelley, Mr Finn and Whili-pants :)

Post-concussion blues!!

2011-02-15T21:26:00.001Z

So I've been M.I.A for a while now, I know, and I'm sure all my fans (yes, all 3 of you!) have been wondering where I've been!

Well, I'm a bit out of action at the moment as I have 'post-concussion syndrome' after an accident at my day job where I took a very bad blow to the back of the head!! It's been almost 2 weeks now, and I still have an awful headache that won't go away. Spent a morning at the RUH, have been to see my osteopath, and nothing has helped. Apparently it 'just takes time'. And the useful literature the hospital gave me simply said 'it could last a few weeks, or several months, or in extreme cases up to a year', so that's helpful! I've just been signed of work for a week, so I'm supossed to be taking it easy. It's all a bit boring though as my head hurts too much to really do anything useful with the extra time, and one of the other side affects is that it's quite hard work to focus on something for too long so I tend to space out quite a lot!

So I'm afraid I don't have much to bring you in the way of doggy-related news, and my brain is too bruised to come up with new articles, so you'll have to suffice with this vid of mum & Dazzle and our lovely new friends Jacky & Heidi (with a brief cameo from me and Whirli - blink and you miss it!) doing some Foundation Agility balance and body awareness work! Enjoy...

Wags and kisses,
Shelley, Mr. Finn and the Whirli Girli x

Dogs, Emotions & Causes - Fear

2011-01-11T18:20:00.000Z

So, I gave my one remaining class a few Homework Tasks over Christmas – one of which was to have a think about our dogs and emotions, and what emotions they might feel. While opinion differs on some (‘guilt’ for example is not one that I personally think they experience – what we read as a ‘guilty look’ is actually appeasement signals because they can tell from our tone or body language that something unpleasant is about to happen), I think opinion is unanimous about the definite occurrence of fear.

Anyway, I was sat at work the other day reading some of wonderful author Jean Donaldson's 'Oh Behave! Dogs from Pavlov to Premack to Pinker' book at lunchtime which is a brilliant collection of short essay type answers to common problems and wonderings, and the section that caught my attention was the essay entitled 'Better Safe Than Sorry - Fear' which looked very briefly at the suspected causes of 'shy' or 'fearful' dogs, and I thought 'how appropriate' given the Homework discussion and mine and mum's own dogs! Willow is a dog that is very fearful of strange people or dogs, and will often have a screaming fit at them (and there is no other word for it than ‘screaming’), and Finn’s anxieties are becoming ever more generalised to life as a whole.

So, whilst considering what emotions dogs experience, perhaps we could also be thinking about the causes of these. Is there a genetic component to what they feel and how much they feel it? Is it the new owners that 'create' these fearful dogs through inappropriate socialisation, or was it already there when that pup was picked up?

To summarise the article:
*Fear itself is an evolutionary advantage to a creature - the more 'jumpy' animal in the wild might waste a bit of energy jumping or running away from perfectly safe stimuli but it'll also likely out-survive and out-reproduce the more relaxed animal that doesn't startle and one day gets eaten by something big! So fear in itself is a naturally occurring trait. However constant fear over innocuous stimuli becomes a disadvantage as large amounts of energy are wasted and the constant activation of the ‘fight or flight’ response and the chemicals it releases into the animal’s system takes a long term toll on the body and health of the animal.

How does fear occur in an animal? There are five possible ways:

1) Genetics - Lots of evidence in rodents, dogs and people that a predisposition to be fearful can be inherited. Murphree in the 1970s bred several generations of the most fearful Pointers from a litter to the most fearful, and within a couple of generations noticed a marked increase in fearful behaviour despite normal rearing.

2) Via its Prenatal Environment - i.e, stress placed on the mother during pregnancy. It's been shown in rodents that stressing the mother during pregnancy results in offspring with reduced tolerance to stress.

3) Maternal Behaviour - An experiment was done with a genetically fearful bitch and a genetically normal bitch where their litters were swapped at birth. As expected the litter from the genetically fearful bitch displayed fearful behaviours even though they were raised by the 'normal' mum, but interestingly the pups from the 'normal' mum raised with the fearful mum also began to display fearful behaviour.

4) Classical Conditioning - where dogs learn that things in their environment predict scary things - i.e the sight of the nail clippers coming out the cupboard.

5) Impoverished Early Environment - this is the socialisation/habituation aspect. It has been shown that dogs raised to 12 weeks without human contact will be fearful of people. Opinion differs on whether, once made 'shy', a pup can be improved in later life.

And the conclusion of the article? Don’t breed from a fearful bitch! There are three ways she can make her pups fearful - genetic inheritance, stress during pregnancy, and fearful behaviour while rearing! Of the five ways fear can occur, only one of these is down to the new owners. Interesting food for thought.

Puppy Foundation Agility - 6 months

2011-01-06T20:14:00.000Z

Wow, two blog posts in one day! That's slightly excessive!

Anyway, here is the aforementioned video clip of Whirli and Dazzle's Foundation Agiliyt training at 6 months. This was recorded during the first session in our field in ages due to the weather. This is the second time we have attempted Puppy Jump Grids with them, and the first time outdoors. We're also still working on all the basic behaviours from my first video, and an update on this will follow in a week or two once we've had another indoor session in our local village hall!

And for those who can't remember the first vid, here it is - this is the earliest stages of our Foundation Agility training...

Happy New Year :)

2011-01-06T16:32:00.000Z

Well, it’s been a while since I last blogged, but to be honest it’s been a quiet few months! I started my new day job at the local college at the end of November, and have been settling in there. Mum and I have done very little training with the dogs as it snowed which made training difficult, and then it snowed some more which made it even more difficult! The Christmas agility show we were entered in was cancelled due to the weather. So all in all a boring few months! However the snow has cleared (for now!), the weather has warmed up a bit, and 2011 is now here, so hopefully things will get going again now!

Due to the improvement in the weather, we managed out first agility training session for months in our field at the weekend. God it was good to be out and doing something constructive with the dogs! We did an hour with the collies on Saturday, focusing on weaves and jump grids to get us back in to it (and to build the dogs back up to it!), then did an hour of Foundation Agility stuff with the pups. Oh my goodness they’re cracking!! So keen, so bright, and so FAST!! I managed to film a bit of that, but haven’t edited it together yet, but the video will follow shortly… On Sunday I held a bit of an impromptu class for some of my keen lot, then we did a bit more with the collies since all the equipment was out of the shed! Finn’s contacts are looking absolutely fab now, and it might just have been my imagination but I thought he was jumping better, with less knocked jumps, but we’ll have to see if that continues into the competition season! And Willow was looking pretty keen, and is definitely weaving with more confidence and speed, so hopefully it’ll be a good season for us!

Anyway, that’s it for now! I’ll leave you with a little vid I made of my limited training efforts in the sodden aftermath of all the snow! This was done at the park behind my house with very limited equipment on a miserable afternoon!

The funniest blog around (and obviously it's not mine!)...

2010-11-24T16:43:00.000Z

Completely and utterly unrelated to my dogs at all, but I just came across two of the funniest blog posts I've read in a while - the second one actually reduced me to tears! So just thought I'd share them, so if you've got 5 minutes, take a look, it's worth it:

Hyperbole and a Half - 'Dog'
Hyperbole and a Half - 'Dogs Don't Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving'

The Collie Brain...

2010-11-22T16:56:00.000Z

So, I think we've already established on here that I like to learn, and what I'm particularly interested in at the moment is understanding the canine brain a little more - how our dogs learn, what they come hardwired with, breed specific differences in behaviour, when they're in the right state of mind to learn and when they're not etc. So following on from my own 'Understanding the Brain' basic blog post from a while ago, my mum came across this on agility.net - a must read for all collie owners in particular, but probably food for thought for any dog owner. This article is a look at what the collie has been bred for as a breed, and therefore what it's simultaneously not been bred to cope with... 'What is your Border Collie NOT good at?'

This post absolutely describes Finn perfectly, in all his flawed collie glory...he seems to be an extreme example of the 'NOT good at' part! His biggest issue is in not being able to cope with change, and I've always known this - any kind of sudden environmental change at all sends him into this stressed out mess of nerves, and as our modern life is full of sudden changes in the environment, noises, people, telephones ringing etc, life in general is extremely stressful to him. And mum's Willow is an example of a dog for whom just going for a walk is an extremely stressful event, and when you weigh it up the stresses outweigh the benefits as she really gets no enjoyment out of it at all. At least from that point of view Finn can cope a little bit better as long as he has a ball or toy to focus on, which sends him into 'Hindbrain' mode and gets those instinctive collie controlling behaviours going, so much so that he finally stops noticing the environment and stops panicking about what's going on around him, but is a state in which he cannot think properly and certainly can't learn anything, so it's not a useful management tool for training purposes. And the presence of strangers is something he's never been able to cope with, dispite extensive early socialisation - again, he becomes extremely stressed out and wound up, and although he seems friendly in the eys of other people, his stressed out state quickly leads to the Hindbrain taking charge again, he loses control of himself, and then starts nipping people, instinctive behaviours taking over again. And the presence of strange dogs is a massive problem. The only dog I would trust him off lead with is Willow (and now that they've all settled and bonded, the Spaniel pups as well), and her and Whirli are the only dogs he openly seeks to play with. He can just about tolerate being near some of the dogs from my classes that he's known a while, and can just about cope with being near Lola, Lexi and Percy, but I wouldn't trust him with any of them, as any slight increase in his stress levels and he loses control of himself. He's got quite a funny relationship with Sarah's slightly mad collie Izzy, and the two of them can walk shoulder to shoulder with each other but will be completely and utterly ignoring each other, which is quite funny to watch! But any other strange dog sends him into a panic.

So are all collies as bad as Finn? Well, no, don't leave here with the impression that they're all this bad!! Every collie does come with a set of hardwired behaviours, and to a certain extent all collies will struggle with these areas of life to some degree - that's part of the characteristics that makes them collies after all - but they aren't all as stressed out and highly strung as Finn or Willow (although I have seen seemingly increasing numbers that are). At the end of the day, most of it boils down to genetics, and to a lesser extent early experiences; but 'nature' will almost always outweigh 'nurture', particularly here where we're talking about the degree of expression of genetically hardwired behaviours - these aren't 'learned' behaviours that we're talking about, these are inbuilt traits, and so breeding must come into it. And what do you do if you end up with a collie who struggles as much as Finn? Well the first thing is to learn to fully recognise his stress signals and to identify the things that trigger his stress response. The next is to weigh up whether those triggers can simply be avoided, or whether a lengthy program of densensitisation and counterconditioning is needed. Every time I even think about taking him anywhere, these days I have to weigh up in my mind whether it's worth the inevitable stress that the experience will cause to both him and me, and whether the benefits will outweigh the stresses.

And this discussion then leads into a rather lengthier one about the exact definition of stress, and what counts as 'too much' stress, how to recognise stress signals etc...that's a longer post that perhaps I'll save for another day. I will add, though, that while I've used the word 'stress' quite a lot in this post in relation to Finn, it's important to remember that stress is a part of life, and not all stress is bad - stress is a normal physiological response, it's essential for survival, and a little bit of stress pushes us to do our best or try our hardest (known as 'eustress' or 'positive stress'). What I'm referring to here with Finn is 'distress', a level of stress beyond his coping abilities, which decreases performance, is an unpleasant experience, and causes anxiety. More on stress another day....

A little lost at sea...

2010-11-15T16:21:00.002Z

The unit is all empty (and my spare room and living room are fit to bursting with bits of equipment), and the keys are being handed back tomorrow morning, so Four Paws has reached its hopefully-not-permanent end. And I'm now feeling a little bit like I'm floundering in life and don't know which way the shore is! Having spent the last 12 months trying to build up a full time business and having a plan to focus on, and having had to call time on that plan for now, I feel a little bit lost without a plan and don't quite know what to do now.

I've accepted a 'normal' admin-type job at a local college and am supposed to start that at the end of the month, and I'll do it to pay the bills as I have little choice, but it's not really what I want to do with my life, so it brings me back to asking myself that question again of 'what do I want to do with my life?' and 'what is important in life to me?'. I thought those questioning days were behind me!!

I guess I'd settle for a normal day job if I could spend my evenings training my dogs with some wonderful trainers, but there really aren't any locally that I'd want to go to, and training the dogs between just me and mum is hard - we really need an expert pair of eyes to be watching us and someone to make sure we're making progress. Going it alone is never easy, and makes simple things like finding the motivation to get all the equipment out hard when it's just the two of you and it's heavy! So I don't really know what to do at the moment. The chance of finding a suitable venue available for use full time is slim, so the idea of building the business back up isn't looking likely unless we can buy somewhere between me, mum and dad, but that's asking a lot of them and the right property is hard to find. So the other alternative is to consider moving somewhere more in reach of some decent trainers like Lauren, and settling for the normal day job because at least I'd be able to train my dogs properly with someone I respect and who will push us on. But I can't move away without a job lined up, and moving to a new area is a slightly scary thought! It is, however, one that I'm looking into with some degree of seriousness. Watch this space...

And in the meanwhile, mum and I did manage to do one last training session before cleaning up the unit in order to finish filming a few clips of the things we've been working on with the pups in the way of Foundation Agility stuff. The video's slightly long! Apologies!! :)

Mutual blog loving!!

2010-11-04T13:18:00.000Z

Aaah, seems the lovely Lauren came across my Puppy blog from a few days ago which gave a little shout out to her! So now there's some mutual loving going on!! ....take a look at her latest blog post here....

With no trace of ass-kissing whatsoever, Lauren is by far the best dog (and people!) trainer I have ever come across. FACT! She's paving the way in terms of modern agility training, and I sincerely hope that where she leads others will follow. She's my inspiration, and if I ever find the right venue it's her I'd like to emulate (and if she didn't know that before, she does now!!). So get yourselves down to Devon Dogs pronto!

xxxx

All hail education!

2010-11-01T14:07:00.000Z

So, here it is, the shocking truth about me - I'm addicted to learning! I love to learn something new. I love the whole 'acquisition of new information' process. I love listening to or reading about an idea that, the moment you hear it, rings true to your entire core and resonates with your whole being and you just think 'blimey, that's just genius! How did I survive before, not knowing that?!' I truly believe that, whatever field you're in and how high up it you might have gotten, there is always something new to learn. No-one ever knows everything. As a trainer (both of other people and of my own dogs), I feel that this is an essential quality - if I'm to be instructing others, it's my duty to make sure my knowledge base is up to date and ever-evolving. If I'm to be training my own dogs I owe it to them to make sure my knowledge base is up to date and ever-evolving so that I might be the teacher they deserve. However much I know, I will always be asking the question 'could it be done better?' The day I stop asking myself that, and the day I decide I know enough so why bother learning anything more, is the day I should curl up my toes and fade into oblivion.

Unfortunately it seems that an enormous proportion of the dog training world (both trainers and competitors) don't feel quite the same need to keep educating themselves, and I keep running up against the 'well it's always worked for me, so why change it?' brigade. That philosophy is the exact reason why choke chains and shock collars are still in use - because in someone's eyes it has worked in the past so why change now? If the 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' mindset was widespread throughout the entire population we'd be pretty doomed as a species, and would be forever standing still. I find it baffling that people who devote a large proportion of time and money to competing in a sport like agility wouldn't have enough interest to ask themselves if they could be doing it better, if there's some new piece of information out there or a new idea that might make their training a bit more successful or make it a more pleasant learning experience for the dog, if at least a basic understanding of Learning Theory might help to them understand what is going on in their dog's head. Baffling!

Knowledge = Understanding.
All hail the power of education to enhance minds and improve lives!

And IMHO anyone who owns any kind of dog (be it pet or destined for competition of some kind) should have to have at least a very basic understanding of how dogs learn and classical & operant conditioning so that they might at least have a little bit of understanding of what's going on when they're trying to teach their dogs.

Poor Mr Finn!

2010-10-28T11:20:00.001+01:00

It's starting to feel like the pups get all the attention at the moment, and I'm sure Mr Finn would agree! So I thought I'd just remind us both that I do love him hugely and he'll always be my special boy, and I found this little vid I made a while ago...

Oh, and in the last 5 minutes Whirli has managed to teach herself how to launch herself into my lap and on to the desk while I'm sat here at the computer. Great! It's brilliant that she's so athletic and coordinated and all at such a young age, but blimey it can be a pain sometimes!! xxx

Puppy Update!

2010-10-26T12:04:00.000+01:00

Well, as the business winds down for the time being, it's time to really concentrate on the training plan for Whirli. She's 4 months now, and so very, very bright! Every bit as bright as Mr Finn, and so much more confident and happy about life!

There's so much in the way of Foundation or Pre-Agility work that you can teach the pups these days if you have competitive agility ambitions in mind (and non of it involves anything horrendous like putting them over dog walks or A-frames or asking them to jump yet!), and I really love this stage of training. Most of the work we've been doing with Whirli and Dazzle falls into one of two categories (although there is much overlap between the two!); 1) Familiarisation, confidence building, body awareness and balance-type exercises involving novel items, odd surfaces, things to climb in, on or under etc, and 2) teaching them 'Thinking Skills' using shaping exercises and choice games, letting them work out for themselves what they need to do to earn rewards, allowing them to problem solve. We've been doing all of this with the clicker, and with the application of copious amounts of food or toy rewards when they get it right so that we build in real enthusiasm and create strong behaviours. And blimey are they quick to learn!! I love training this way - letting the pup do all the work, thinking each new problem through, gaining in confidence as they work it out. I so love that 'light bulb' moment when they work out what it is that they need to do to earn a reward and start offering you behaviours; it's just the best thing to see - dogs that can think for themselves! And to see it in ones so young is just the most heart-warming thing ever, it really gives me a buzz!

Our training plan for Whirli and Dazz is going to be very heavily based on this brilliant new book called 'Agility Right From the Start', as well as incorporating Greg Derrett's Foundation stuff, Susan Garrett's Crate Games and early training, and everything we've picked up from the wonderful Lauren Langman of Devon Dogs. Hopefully this should give us the best possible start! And if we put in the effort to building a solid foundation, then introducing the pieces of equipment at 12 months is so very, very easy that they'll be out there competing successfully in no time! You only have to look at the results of those coming through Lauren's training system to know that it works - all those coming through Devon Dogs go to their first few shows and seem to start winning classes straight away, and move up through the levels so fast, achieving such consistently good results. And I know she's one of the biggest proponents of Foundation training in this country. If we only lived closer we'd be down there training with her every week! (and we have more-than-jokingly looked at the possibility of moving in her direction so we could!!)

Anyway, here's a little vid of some photos and clips of the pups from the last few weeks. The training clips make it look like all we do with them is the Familiarisation stuff, but we do also do a huge amount of basic things such as teaching hand touches, buidling reinforcement zones, teaching them to move with us, wait and release, foot target to a mat etc, but somehow I either haven't managed to film any of that, or it looked a bit dull on film!!

My God they're cute!!! :) xxx

What lovely comments...

2010-10-21T16:18:00.003+01:00

Well, it's now been just over a week since I had to make the decision to close the Radstock unit, and what an overwhelming number of lovely comments and emails I've had through from clients past and present. It's really great to know that all those lovely little pups are growing into gorgeous, well behaved adult dogs, and that people really did enjoy my classes and my training methods.

I'm still gutted to be giving it all up as I'm hugely, hugely passionate about promoting positive and modern training methods and still have so many, many ideas on what I'd like to run and how I'd structure it, but for the minute there isn't enough interest in daytime classes to sustain it as a full time business, and I really can't go back to running it in the evenings on top of a full time job as it's just too exhausting! So I'm going to take a step back to breathe, pay some bills, and concentrate on giving Mr Finn and Whirli the attention they need. But I'm hoping this won't be the end, and that at some point in the near future I'll be able to find a more suitable venue and start again. I really believe that the dog training industry needs a shake up, an injection of new enthusiasm and new ideas, and I really hope that after a bit of a break to catch up on my life, I might yet be back promoting positive training and the value of relationship building. I just need to find a more suitable long term venue of the right size to enable me to offer what I'd like to offer, and the economy to pick up a bit (oh how we all need that!!)! So watch this space...it ain't over til it's over!

In the meanwhile, how fab is this video?! Clicker training from the dog's perspective...and how great is Harry's accent?! Brilliant stuff!! Enjoy! xx

I concede defeat...(plus a rant about punishment!)

2010-10-13T21:52:00.005+01:00

Well, it's been a hell of a journey (and mostly a very enjoyable one!), but on Monday evening after weeks of consideration, I took the decision to close Four Paws One Direction from the middle of November, once the current Puppy courses have finished. It was in no way an easy decision to make, but financially had to be done. Whilst the evening classes have filled up really well in general, there has been a complete lack of interest in day time classes, and without that it's simply not sustainable as a full time business and will never give me enough money to make a living off of. It's very upsetting as I've thoroughly enjoyed all my classes, have made some wonderful friends, and really felt like I was trying to lead the way towards better dog training in the area. It's still my biggest frustration and disappointment that even those local trainers describing themselves as 'positive' still feel it's perfectly acceptable to yank a dog off its feet by its lead or would recommend using rattle tins and squirt bottles, and would advocate the 'make him get over it' school of dog training - these ARE NOT acceptable methods of training in this day and age and are all forms of punishment and work on creating fear and anxiety. I really don't know how the dog training industry will ever move forward when advice like this is still being given out by people who really should know better and have theoretically been 'approved' by various 'bodies'. It's simply not good enough. New dog owners come to us to look for help and guidance, they pay for a service, and as such it really should be the duty of the trainers to ensure their knowledge is up to date and current and that they aren't just 'doing what they've always done'. Where does professional development come into it? Even those doing it on a voluntary basis are still projecting themselves as 'experts' in their field, so really should be a bit more up to date than lead jerks and rattle tins. These methods may have been popularised by certain TV characters and shows, but that doesn't make them ethically, morally or scientifically justifiable.

There is NEVER a justification for using punishment, however 'mild' you may think that punishment is. Punishment always has a fall out, even if you aren't always aware of it yourself. Say your dog pees on the carpet in front of you - you've caught him in the act, so technically that's the only time a punishment might be considered 'justified' (but again, personally I never feel it's justified!) - so you tell him off, maybe give him a little shake or a little tap on the bottom. You think you've taught your dog that 'peeing on the carpet is bad'. What your dog might have learnt is that 'peeing on the carpet in front of you' is scary, and so now will go on the carpet behind the sofa when you're not looking. Another example, your dog chews the post as it comes through the door so you throw something at him or squirt him with something to teach him that 'eating the post is wrong'. Perhaps what your dog takes out of it is 'the post coming through the door is a horrible scary thing so now I'm going to react like mad every time the postman comes near the house' or 'my humans are really scary as sometimes they throw nasty things at me'. Why would you want to risk poisoning your relationship like that?! I wrote a previous post on the use of squirt collars in agility training for a nipping or barking problem before - same thing applies, you don't know what your dog is taking out of it. You might be trying to punish nipping, but your dog might be associating the unpleasant thing with the presence of the agility equipment so now doesn't want to do agility. We can never know what the dog is thinking and what associations are being formed in his mind, so why risk ruining it all?! You should be punishing yourself for allowing the 'unwanted' behaviour to occur in the first place!!

Our dogs would be much better off if we all focussed more on what we DO want them to do in a situation instead of what we DON'T want them to do, and made more effort not to allow the dogs to rehearse the 'bad' behaviours in the first place. So if your pup pees on the carpet in front of you, smack yourself across the nose with a newspaper for not taking him out for a wee sooner!!

Anyway, back to me and the business now the rant is over! So yes, things will be wrapping up soon. This won't be the end of my involvement in dog training; it's just that for now I'm going to concentrate on training my own dogs. Mr Finn has some work to do on his reactivity issues, and there's loads of Foundation Agility stuff I want to start working on with Whirli (and don't even get me started on trainers offering 'Puppy Agility' when they really have no idea what that term even means or what should be involved! FYI, it in NO WAY involves putting them over bits of equipment and sequencing whole exercises before 12 months. Do your research.).

I want to say a huge 'thanks' to all the lovely people who have come to my classes over the last 2 years. To Lynne for getting me started on this path - I don't regret a thing, I've learnt so much, and I've come so far. To my mum for her constant support and being my sounding board for everything, even when I know she didn't always want to be! To my lovely friend Sarah who has been so supportive and enthusiastic about it all, and with whom I've had some wonderful conversations about curriculum structure, lesson planning, learning aims and objectives! To Jennie, Mary, Gill, Pamela and Katie for being my 'hard core' group who always turned up, week after week! And to Derek, Sue, Kay M, Ian and Phil (and Jennie, Lynne, and Sarah!) for turning up at the field in all sorts of awful weather! You've all been fab!

Much love, and I hope to see all of you around! Updates on progress from all dogs more than welcome! And keep an eye on the blog to see what I'm up to!
Shelley, Finn and Whirli xxx

Additional - introducing lovely little Kaya!

2010-09-16T16:24:00.003+01:00

Damn it, meant to include a picture of lovely little Kaya in that last blog post! She's Bronwyn's beautiful new Border Collie pup, and she came down for a 'Play and Games' session with Whirli and Dazzle yesterday, and I think they all enjoyed themselves!! Isn't she a beauty?!

Pup Blog month 1!

2010-09-16T15:25:00.008+01:00

Ok, so I fell a bit behind with the pup blog, and it's a bit too late to catch up now! We've done so much stuff lately I can't even begin to know where to start in recapping it all, so I think the puppy diaries might now be slightly dead! Suffice it to say that the pups have been experiencing loads of new things, have been along to their second agility show, have begun joining in with some of my puppy classes, have had a nice play date with Bronwyn's lovely little Kaya, have been into Bath to see the sights and sounds several times etc etc! But the biggest achievement of the last week is that Mr Finn and Whirli finally made friends with each other, after two weeks of growling and avoidance from Finn! Here they are having their first tentative play...

They're definietly the boldest, bravest pups we've ever had, with tremendous 'bounce back' ability, and they're both very bright. Whirli is a little noisy, particulalry when playing or when she wants attention, but I guess you can't have it all! She's very cute!! They're both changing colour quite a lot at the moment - Dazzle is turning a darker shade of golden, and I think Whirli might well end up a red colour at this rate. Both very, very pretty! Here are a few 'highlights' of the last few weeks in picture format...

Mum and Dazzle enjoying a drink in Bath

Mr Finn and Whirli

Dazzle on the little plank in puppy class

Huh, I don't seem to have taken as many pictures as I thought!! Must get on that!! Anyway, don't have any more time for anything else - lots and lots of business stuff to sort, so must dash!!

Video of the first week....

2010-09-03T22:57:00.003+01:00

So, still catching up on the diary entries (and day 10 today was quite a busy day for the pups! Entry to follow!), but in the meanwhile I managed to make a short video whilst Whirl was napping this evening!.....

It's a pup's life...days 6 & 7

2010-09-03T10:17:00.006+01:00

Day 6 - Monday 30th August 2010

Both pups slept in til 9.20am without a sound! All 3 of us must have been knackered after the day before! Bank Holiday Monday was quite a quiet day of recovering! I started a bit of training with them separately, and I'm adding into the diaries the exercises we've been working on, but please note that each of these training 'sessions' literally lasts a maximum of 5 repetitions of any particular behaviour as the pup's have such short attention spans at this age! So little and often is the key!!

New people: Layla popped round for a visit and had a cuddle!
New toys: Plastic (formerly squeaky!) crocodile, big squeaky ball
New foods: Pigs ear
New experiences:

Empty milk bottle to investigate
Noise of tap filling paddling pool
Play in paddling pool, fetch toys out
Pups shut in separate crates for 5 minutes
First night alone from each other as Dazzle stayed with mum Monday night

Training exercises: Name Game, Tug & Release, Circle Work, Recalls to Side, Loose Lead Walking

Day 7 - Tuesday 31st August 2010

A day for Whirli that didn't have much Dazzle in it! She was quiet over night despite being on her own. Tuesday involved a trip to Midsomer Norton so I could pop to the bank, a visit to my training unit while I ran a class in the afternoon, and then a visit to my lovely Diamond+ class in the evening to meet some more people and dogs!

New people: 7 women, 2 teens, 1 young girl (Tally now 33 women, 13 men, 5 kids)
New dogs: Gomez (young terrier x), Marilyn (powderpuff), Lexi (black lab), Chika (collie x), Percy (Clumber)
New toys: Squeaky rubber duck, small Kong tennis balls
New experiences:

First bath
Climbed in and out of cat house
Trip to Midsomer Norton, carried around town, sat on a bench and watched people pass
First visit to the unit
Play fetch with new ball in the unit

Training exercises: The Come and Go Game, Name Game, Sit, Tug & Release, Recalls to Side
Body awareness/co-ordination: Climb on balance discs

Whirli & Dazzle climbing on the small balance disc

We're going to incorporate into their training a lot of exercises that involve them thinking about their bodies and how to co-ordinate them (also known as proprioception). This forms a good foundation for future agility training as they will be better able to manage their bodies, and all of agility work involves co-ordinating your limbs to a high degree so this should come in handy!! Exposing them to new objects and making the experiences pleasant also increases their confidence at interacting with things, which will again help with agility training (and life in general!) as confident dogs aren't afraid to try something new! As Kay Laurence said at her 'What's New in Dog Training' Seminar that we attended in June "Extensive familiarisation and development of skills lays down the ability to cope with novel environments in the future".

Right, I can hear that Whirli has just woken up from her nap, so that's it for now! Days 8+ to follow!!

Puppy Stuff days 4 & 5

2010-09-02T12:30:00.007+01:00

Day 4 - Saturday 28th August 2010

Both pups stayed with me again overnight, then came with me and Mr Finn to our field while mum and I took the morning's agility classes. They alternated between being settled in their crates and out in the field in an ex-pen, then they had a little wander around the field on their leads once everyone had gone. Pups were then taken to their separate homes, and Andy came round to visit Whirl, before we went back round to mum and dad's to meet up with Dazzle, and both pups then came back to mine again for the night.

New people: 4 women and 4 men
New dogs: Daisy (small lurcher/terrier type), Tuula (small cockerpoo), Martha (black lab), Monty (collie), Tessa (GSD) - all through the ex-pen wire
New toys: Kong squeaker on a rope in ex-pen, Busy Buddy Twist 'n' Treat with cheesespread
New foods: chicken mince for breakfast
New titbit foods: Hot dog sausages, Sardine cake, cooked heart
New experiences:

Being in the ex-pen in our field with other people and dogs working nearby
Meeting dogs through the ex-pen
Cuddles and treats with new people
Standing on top of a low table whilst I was sat on it!
First experience on lead, and with Finn and Willow loose
First intro to scent work! Cheese and sausage thrown into grass in the ex-pen for pups to dig out!
First intro to mopping the floor with Whirl in the room!
First time to be combed

Training Exercises: Name Game, Tug & Release, Circle Work, Left & Right with lures, Loose Lead Walking in the field

Meeting Monty!

Meeting Willow in the field!

Day 5 - Sunday 29th August 2010

This was quite a big day for the pups - their first agility show! They travelled very well in their crate again, despite the lengthy journey and the added detour when we got lost! It wasn't the best day for us all round - our detour meant we missed two of Willow's 3 classes and 1 of Finn's, but the show was small and we knew we would be finished around lunch time so it wouldn't be too long a day for the pups. We took the ex-pen with us so that they could have a little bit of freedom by mum's minibus, and carried them around the showground a few times to meet some people and watch what was going on. All in all they were very well behaved and took it all in very calmly. We gave them plenty of down time in their crate after each venture out so that their little brains could process it all and recover. Oh, and whilst they may have seen a lot of dogs and people in passing, I'm only counting up the ones that they actually made physical contact with. We arrived home mid-afternoon, took the pups their separate ways for a few hours, before meeting back at mum and dad's for dinner and a play, and then retreated back to mine for the night.

New people: 8 men, 1 young boy, 18 women, 1 young girl. (Tally now at 13 men, 26 women, 2 children, or 41 people in total)
New dogs: 2 GSDs, 2 Cocker Spaniels, 1 Terrier-type
New toys: Rubber tyre
New food: raw tripe for dinner
New experiences:

First agility show!
Toileted & played in new environment
Ate in a new environment and out of new 'bowls' (plastic food pots!)
Sat in a caravan awning with the wind blowing it
Saw lots of people walking and running around, and dogs working off lead and running around in the exercise area
Had cuddles with several new people including Lauren, Matt and Edwina

Unfortunately I didn't remember to take any photos at the agility show! I have noticed a marked improvement in their co-ordination and body awareness skills though as they develop and grow.

Puppy Socialisation etc Days 2 and 3

2010-08-31T14:00:00.007+01:00

Day 2 - Thurs 26th August 2010

Both pups slept at mine overnight, and I didn't hear a peep out of them! I was originally intending to sleep Whirli in a crate in my room overnight as advice these days is to avoid any traumatic separations within the critical period of 7 to 11 weeks, but as both sisters had each other for company I decided to put them in the puppy section of the utility room so that Mr Finn and I could have a slightly less stressful night, and Whirli could get used to staying in her long term confinement area with the company of her sister to make it a bit easier!

New toys: Yellow plastic spikey ball, tugging on camera strap (!), duster, nylabones, tug log
New foods: Very small amount of raw mince meat
New experiences:

Paddling in the rainwater in the paddling pool
Wicker basket placed in middle of the floor for pups to investigate
Explore mum's kitchen for the first time
Given a small cardboard box to investigate
First time left alone during the daytime while I popped out to run puppy classes

Body awareness/co-ordination skills/Over, Under, Through things:

Under mini A-Frame in my garden
Climbing in and out of Finn's large crate
Game of 'tag' under and over the coffee table shelf at high speed!
Climbing in and out of the paddling pool

Strange noises: Remote control falling onto wooden floor

Pups were more adventurous today, exploring more of my garden and moving further away from me and each other. Mum still not well, and I wasn't feeling great either, so today was quite a quiet day.

Whirli investigating a small box

Day 3 - Fri 27th August 2010

Both pups stayed at mine overnight, and again not a peep out of them, and this time no overnight poo either! The morning involved a trip over to mum's, then a visit to mum's friend Sharon, with the afternoon spent separately at our respective houses, then both back to mine overnight again.

New people: Sharon, Gill
New dogs: Breeze, Sharon's elderly Rough Collie
Other animals: Visit up the garden to watch mum's chickens!
New foods: Breakfast 50/50 Wainright's and raw mince
New titbit foods: Primula in Kongs, Cheddar cheese, Cheesestrings
New experiences:

Investigation and destruction of an eggbox!
Pups came face to face with a hissing Loki!
Being carried round to Sharon's house and investigating the living room and garden
First experience of cars passing by
Playing with toys in a new environment
Sleeping in a new environment (at Sharon's)
Being crated in mum's living room with Willow also crated in the same room
Face to face with Ziggy whilst being held
Meeting Gill - a person in sandals and a skirt!
Pups were separated for the first time for a few hours in the afternoon, and for Whirli this meant the first car ride in a crate on her own, and a face to face meeting with Mr Finn
Investigate a kitchen roll tube
First time falling asleep on the sofa with me and Mr Finn

Training exercises: The Name Game

Dazzle destroying an egg box!

Both pups showed good 'bounce back' during their new experiences at Sharon's house, with Dazzle being slightly more confident and quicker to bounce back than Whirli. Both were incredibly respectful of the rather elderly Breeze. And it was good to get them playing in a new environment as we'll be using play as a reward in lots of different environments in their future agility training, so it's good to start generalising this now. And both were extremely good about being separated in the afternoon and barely seemed to notice the absence of the other!

We're currently trying to rotate the toys around and introduce new ones every day so that they have something new to process, and we're also trying to introduce them to random new objects to interact with so that they have new stimulations each day and are constantly learning to evaluate a situation or object and act accordingly. Hopefully this will produce stable adult dogs that can evaluate a situation and are confident about interacting with new situations. This is particularly important since these two are destined for agility as all of agility training is about interacting with equipment and evaluating situations!

Days 4 to 7 to follow! I'm catching up slowly!!

Introducing…The Whirli Girli and Razzle Dazzle! Day 1

2010-08-30T14:35:00.004+01:00

So, rather sooner than intended, both mum and I now have little Working Cocker Spaniel pups! And here they are, the sisters now known as Whirligig (my little monster, and the smaller darker pup) and Dazzle (mum’s little smiler and the paler pup).

Both pups are destined for Agility, as well as being involved in the various other activities we dabble in, and there’s so much you can start to teach young pups right from the start these days so they’ll be using their little brains from the off, and learning how to co-ordinate their bodies and to be aware of their feet through various proprioception exercises! And positive early socialisation and familiarisation are so important in building confident, well adjusted adult dogs, so we’ll be working hard at trying to expose them to positive new experiences each day (although people can sometimes overdo this and end up taking their pups out all day with them to a multitude of places when in fact a new experience could be something as simple as investigating a new toy or random object or just popping to the shops, so we’ll be working carefully to balance any potentially over-stimulating experiences with lots of sleep breaks and ‘down time’ to give their growing bodies and brains a chance to process it all and recover).

Anyway, we’ve got a huge list of things we want to start teaching them, and a long ‘to do’ list of new experiences, so I want to try to keep a log of it all to keep track of what we’re achieving each day, and that’s where this blog comes in! I’m going to try to use it to document what I’ve been doing with Whirli and to monitor her progress. I’m not quite sure of the format this information might take yet; we’ll have to see how it evolves as I work out what I’m trying to put in it!! But let’s start with days 1-5 and see how we go!

These first days for both pups were spent mostly with me as mum hasn’t been very well, so both Whirli and Dazzle have been together with me most of the time. From a certain point of view I think this has actually made the transition for them from leaving their litter mates to moving in with our families a little bit less traumatic as they’ve had each other for company and back up, and now that we’re just starting to slowly separate them they are at least both already familiar with both of our homes and being crated etc.

Day 1 – 25th August 2010

Collection and settling in of pups. A day that originally seemed like it would be a quiet day with the intention of not adding in too many extra experiences, but that in fact held many new events and learning experiences!

Age: 8 weeks, 1 day
Weight: Whirli – 6.4lb Dazzle – 8.6lb

New people: Me, mum, dad
New Dogs: Finn, Willow (Border Collies), Ziggy (GSD)
Other animals: Loki & Hagar (Cats)
New toys: Tuggies, soft cloth ball, squeaky plastic toy, squeaky cuddly dog, Kongs
New foods: Wainright’s cooked natural food,
New titbit foods: chicken slices, ham, polony, hot dog sausages, mini-bones
New experiences: Everything today was a new experience! Highlights include:
• Car travel & crates
• Exploration of mum’s living room and yard
• First intro to toys and playing with us
• First intro to titbits and stuffed Kongs
• Intro to non-related dogs and cats (through crate doors!)
• Exploration of my living room, garden and utility room
• Introduction to being left alone in the utility room
• Strange noises – footballers playing behind the house, telephone ringing, tv sounds
• New collar on
Body awareness/Co-ordination skills/Under, Over, Through things:
• Up and down patio steps at mum’s and at mine
• Under my bent legs whilst sat on the floor
• Over the cardboard box blocking pups from climbing under the tv bench!
• Between the small gap between the wall and the puppy gate propped against it (and backing up out of the gap again)
• Over and under the bottom shelf of my coffee table

Details of days 2-6 to follow, but it's hard finding the time to get anything composed with the pups! I'd forgotten just how much hard work they are in these first few weeks, and I feel shattered! It's taken me 6 days just to get this bit written up!!

Understanding the brain - a basic model...

2010-08-04T18:16:00.003+01:00

So, here's another article-based blog post from me! These aren't my ideas - they concepts belong to Brenda Aloff and Kay Laurence - but I've seen enough dogs to know this model holds true, and the first time it was explained to me it was like a light bulb going on, so I'm hoping your might find the ideas contained within this equally inspiring and useful...

Before anyone (dog or human!) can learn anything, they need to be in a ‘ready to learn’ state. To know whether your dog is in this state and so is receptive to learning, it helps to have a basic understanding of how the brain works. Once you have this basic understanding, you will find yourself looking at your dog and his behaviour in a much more analytical way with better understanding of ‘where he’s coming from’!

So, the brain basically works in two sections, the Hindbrain and the Frontbrain. The Hindbrain is the reactive part of the brain that incorporates instinctive behaviours and survival mechanisms. The Frontbrain is the responsive, thinking part of the brain in charge of cognitive processes. Only one of these can be in charge at any one time. This is as true for us as it is our dogs! So let’s explore how these two sides of the brain work in a little more depth…

The Hindbrain

Hindbrain behaviour is reactive and reflexive and incorporates emotional responses. When you or your dog is in a Hindbrain state you can’t do anything logical. Hindbrain behaviours that you might observe in your dog include difficult-to-interrupt behaviour or fixating on things, blank staring or a failure to respond to known cues, hectic, agitated or over-active behaviour, frustration, an emotionally overwhelmed animal, over arousal, dangerous behaviour, lunging and snarling etc. The Hindbrain is fuelled by Adrenaline which stops the dog from being sensitive to pain and makes it supersensitive to fear, and promotes the ‘fight or flight’ survival mechanism. Dogs who primarily function in their Hindbrain might be described as ‘spooky’ or ‘drivey’. The most important thing to know about the Hindbrain is that when it’s in charge LEARNING CANNOT HAPPEN! You do not think when this part of your brain is in charge – thinking becomes of secondary importance, and reacting is far more useful for survival.

The Frontbrain

Frontbrain behaviour is responsive behaviour, with the cognitive thinking part of the brain in charge. Frontbrain behaviour demonstrates thoughtful and deliberate action, can be redirected and managed, is responsive to known cues, and the animal can concentrate and problem solve. Serotonin and Dopamine are in charge.

So which is in charge?!

As previously stated, only one of the brains can be in charge at once. In an ideal world the Frontbrain would always be in charge, but many dogs are in a Hindbrain state far more than we may even realise. And once the dog has crossed over into that Hindbrain state, responding to cues goes out the window and we need to help our dogs find their way back to a Frontbrain state. And it is imperative that we make sure we stay in a Frontbrain state when working with our dogs – if we also cross over into our Hindbrain state (perhaps through panic or stress) things start to go wrong quite quickly!

Just because the Hindbrain side is linked to the ‘fight or flight’ mechanism, this doesn’t mean that your dog’s life needs to be threatened in order for the Hindbrain to take charge. Some dogs have a natural tendency to be primarily Hindbrain and are easily stimulated and impulsive (we all know some people who are like this too!). Also dogs that do not get enough mental stimulation to work their Frontbrains will default into a Hindbrain state. Hindbrain states can be triggered by certain activities such as chasing or running where the Frontbrain is not utilised and instinctive behaviours kick in. We actually overlook a lot of Hindbrain behaviour on a daily basis – your dog slamming against the window or barking at passers by, going off at passing dogs when in the back of the car, rushing out the back door to chase the cat or the rabbits, lunging and barking on lead at other dogs. Dogs who are frustrated and have no way to reduce this frustration are very Hindbrain – this can often be seen in dogs kept in kennels, on a chain, or left alone for very long periods of time without Frontbrain stimulation. People involved in dog sports often mistake a Hindbrain state for that of a dog being ‘driven’ or ‘intense’ and try to encourage this state of arousal in the hope of channelling it, but there is no ‘channelling’ of this as once the Hindbrain kicks in all cognition and response to cues disappears– the ideal performance dog is still in the Frontbrain state but with the intensity of the Hindbrain, and this is a very delicate balance to maintain.

Switching between the two brains

There is an avenue between the Hindbrain and the Frontbrain, but you need to work to keep it open and learn how to ‘flip that switch’ between the two brain states. When your dog becomes aroused or stimulated and switches to Hindbrain then reactivity rules. Once the arousal subsides the switch flips back to Frontbrain and responsive thoughtful behaviour results. The most important thing to remember when trying to get a Hindbrain dog back into a Frontbrain state is that at that particular moment your dog cannot think, so asking for behaviours from your dog that involve thought and consideration is pointless! So before you can start to ask your dog to do any behaviours for you or begin to teach it anything new, you need to move it away from whatever it was that triggered the Hindbrain switch to flip so that the arousal levels can reduce and the Frontbrain can take charge again. Once you’ve worked out any specific triggers for Hindbrain state, you can then begin to learn to anticipate the moments where your dog might switch from one brain state to another and begin to manipulate the thresholds. And more importantly, if you can learn to recognise which brain state your dog is in, at least you might understand his behaviour a bit more and become slightly less frustrated with him when he switches into Hindbrain mode and seems unable to do anything you ask of him!

The ‘Frontbrain/Hindbrain’ model used here was first described in Brenda Aloff’s 2007 book ‘Get Connected With Your Dog’ and by Kay Laurence during a Border Collie Rehab workshop at Learning About Dogs in 2010.

Aversives in Agility Training?

2010-06-27T21:36:00.005+01:00

For once here’s a blog post from me that isn’t just an update on our activities! I wanted to write something about the use of aversives in dog training, and in agility training in specific. So here's my take on it!

Firstly, what am I talking about when I say ‘aversive’? Well, what I’m talking about in this post is the use of things like spray collars, water squirters and rattle cans used to punish undesirable behaviours. The proper term for these methods is ‘positive punishment’ (with the word ‘positive’ meaning ‘adding something’ rather than our non-scientific interpretation of the word as ‘good’), with the unpleasant consequence being added to reduce the likelihood of the behaviour occurring in future. These are methods or tools used frequently by lots of people for ‘nuisance’ behaviours such as barking, nipping, biting and jumping up without too much thought about the possible consequences or little awareness of the possible fallout. And there always is a fallout with any form of punishment; even if you don’t spot it straight away it will express itself somewhere.

So I’m going to go with an example to try to make some of this a little clearer, and the example I’m going to go with is a dog that barks or nips in frustration during agility training as this is a relatively common ‘problem’, and I know that spray collars, water pistols and rattle cans are still all too often used to ‘fix’ this. However whilst the example might relate to agility, the ideas here relate to dog training in general.

So firstly we need to look at what causes the frustration to occur in the first place. In training it usually arises when the dog can’t figure out how to do something that is being asked of it or can’t work out what is being asked of it due to a lack of information from the owner. This lack of information might be caused by poorly timed rewards, an unclear handling system or conflicting signals, or leaps in criteria beyond the dog’s capabilities. The frustration might show itself through whining, nipping, biting, barking, lead chewing etc. Is it a conscious behavioural choice on the part of the dog? No, it’s caused by an emotional overload and is a purely emotional, reactive response. Which brings me to the first major flaw in using any kind of punishment for these behaviours – and that is that punishment (and reinforcement for that matter) only work as a consequence to a conscious action; they only work to change operant behaviour where the dog can think and learn through the consequences of his actions, and the dog in this example is not choosing to behave in this emotional way. So will punishment work to reduce these behaviours? It’s extremely unlikely as the dog can’t help how he feels, and when the dog is functioning in his Amygdala (or ‘Hind Brain’ to use Kay Laurence’s more accessible phrase! It’s the part of the brain in charge during emotional responses) LEARNING CANNOT HAPPEN. You’re effectively punishing a dog for an emotional response – it’s kind of like punishing a child for crying when they get upset about something.

And then we come to the potential fallout, and the major risk that occurs to me in this example is that of classically conditioning in an unpleasant association with the agility equipment. Classical conditioning is often called ‘associative learning’ and involves the dog learning the relationship between two things. In this case you might think the aversive you’re using is specifically punishing the barking/biting/undesired behaviour, but in fact what your dog might be subconsciously learning is that the agility equipment is now associated with this unpleasant thing and is no fun to be around. The dog might then become anxious or stressed around the equipment, and as you continue training you then build in this emotional association into the performance of the equipment, so suddenly agility (or perhaps a specific piece of agility equipment if the punishment occurs near one specific piece) now triggers a negative emotional response in your dog that it is going to take many hundreds of positive experiences to remove. At a seminar today, world renowned clicker training expert Kay Laurence said it takes 300 positive repetitions of a behaviour to counter the damage caused by 1 negative one, so for that 1 time that you squirt/spray your dog whilst near or on a piece of equipment, you’re now going to have to reward it 300 times to repair the damage caused to that behaviour, and that’s a lot of extra work!

Agility equipment is not automatically rewarding for any dog; as agility trainers we spend many, many hours rewarding our dogs for performing these unnatural pieces of equipment and behaviours in order to build value into them so that the dogs do find it rewarding to play the game with us. By associating anything unpleasant with agility you risk compromising this value, and all your hours and hours of hard work are undone in an instant. And what about the potential damage caused to your relationship with your dog?

The other key principle of punishment is that it should actually alter behaviour and prevent it from occurring – if your punishment method doesn’t work within 1 or 2 attempts then it isn’t working! If you continually need to use the spray collar/water pistols/rattle can etc then it isn’t working, it's not changing behaviour!! So don't persist!

So am I saying that positive punishment doesn’t work? No, of course not, scientifically it has been proven to work. BUT it only works if applied with impeccable timing and accuracy and the correct associations are being made by the dog, and the huge majority of us do not have perfect timing and do not apply the principles correctly. So is it worth the risk of potential fallout? Well, that’s for each of you to decide, but personally I stand firmly in the ‘no’ camp and would much rather focus on rewarding the behaviours I do want than punishing the ones I don’t want. And if the undesired behaviours are being born out of frustration then it is down to us to improve our training and handling skills to remove the cause of that frustration. Just MHO!

"Dogs are miracles with paws"

2010-06-21T21:16:00.003+01:00

It again seems a while since the last blog post, things are just hectic beyond belief here! I think I've just got time for a quick summary of recent events, if I can even remember what's been going on! The last few weeks have been a bit of a blur really, what with the day job (only 4 and half weeks til redundancy day though!!), evening classes 4 nights a week, agility classes on Saturdays, and competitions and workshops with our dogs on Sundays!

Classes are going well at the new unit, with all the new puppy courses filling up in advance, and a new course starting every two weeks now. I'm starting to feel settled in the space, and it's great having all of our stuff set up permanently and all the equipment to hand. Just need to find an agility venue now and we'd be set up for good!!

We've done a couple of agility competitions with Finn and Willow over the last two weekends, and they're not doing badly. No more rosettes for Finn yet, but his jumping problem has been made worse by a sudden and unexplained weight gain which we're investigating with the vet, so fingers crossed we can get to the bottom of that. Willow's turning into the Steeplechase Queen, which is pretty good! So far every Novice Steeplechase class she's done she's got a Clear Round in, apart from the one where mum sent her the wrong way, but that was mum's fault and not Willow's! And at the Aldon show yesterday she not only got yet another Clear Round in the Novice Steeplechase, but she also came 3rd in Beginners Agility! She's still got a long way to go as she still massively lacks confidence and finds things very stressful and scary, but she's not doing badly at all, and we're very proud of her efforts. There's a video clip of some of her runs from the UKA Sands show on the 13th of June here:

This weekend we're off up to Kay Laurence's place for the 'What's New in Dog Training' and 'What's New in Clicker Training' seminars, so that should be a fascinating weekend! Then I think I might finally have a weekend off after that (or at least a Sunday off!), so that'll make a nice change!

Oh, and while I'm here and you're here reading blogs, check out this blog - our friends Ryan and Meg (human and dog!) are walking the South West Coast path in September to raise awareness of the need for blood donors for the National Blood Service. They're aiming to walk 630 miles in a month, and you can read all about their adventures here - Walk For Blood Blog - or you can join the Walk For Blood Facebook group if you're a FB addict! You can also find info on the Blood Service and how you can give blood by visiting their website here.

And finally I'll leave you with a video clip of some of our agility classes from the end of May - this was 'course week', and here are our attempts to run a Steeplechase course!

Wags and Kisses,
Shelley & Fantastic Mr Finn x

"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went!"

2010-05-21T17:29:00.005+01:00

Another busy few weeks gone, and more to come! Mum, dad and I spent every spare moment over the previous two weeks at the new venue doing the DIY and decorating needed to set it all up. It was a hard slog, with many a late night, but by 7pm on Tuesday we were finally ready to welcome in some of our closest doggy friends for a small opening training session! The venue’s not huge, and there were really far more dogs than I would want in there normally, but they were all fab and seemed to enjoy themselves, and I was pretty proud to be able to welcome everyone in to my cosy new ‘home’! Then Wednesday evening saw the first class of the newly reformatted Puppy Lifeskills course take place, and I really started to feel at home in the space and to start to believe that this really can work!! Sure, in an ideal world we’d have found somewhere a bit bigger that afforded a wider variation in do-able activities in there, but venues are hard to come across, and the figures have to stack up when you’re a one woman business! And this space, whilst a little on the cosy side, is all ours!! So no lugging a car full of equipment backwards and forwards, no having to rush through classes to finish on time, and no need to stay ‘til really late to do the cleaning as it can just be done before the next class! So I'm pretty pleased with everything we've achieved over the last couple of weeks! Here's a little video clip I cobbled together...

And Kay Laurence has made us stars of her Learning About Dogs YouTube channel! Here's a video clip from the Energy workshop we did a few weeks ago...this was all about proprioception and connecting with your dog through movement. Very enjoyable, and very tiring for the dogs! Click here to see Willow and Finn in action!

"Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole"

2010-05-05T20:00:00.004+01:00

Ok, I'm going to try to make this one short and sweet as I'm a little swamped at the moment, but was very aware that I hadn't written anything in a while, and we've done some exciting things I wanted to share!

So, first up on the excitement scale (and the reason for my lack of time tonight)is the news that tomorrow morning I will be picking up the keys for my new training venue, and work will begin on setting up the Four Paws One Direction Canine Education and Activity Centre!!! There have certainly been some dramas along the way, and the venue and business development plan aren't quite as first envisaged, but I have to say I'm very, very excited! I've agreed to take voluntary redundancy at work, so as of July I will be a full time dog trainer (or, more accurately, people trainer!)! I've got flyers designed and being printed, new clothing being embroidered, will have rubber flooring and chairs on the way shortly, and just need to finalise the new format of all my classes! We'll be focusing primarily on providing more puppy courses to ensure everyone can start that socialisation and habituation process as soon as possible, but will also be doing adult dog 'Lifeskills' classes and some Puppy Pre-Agility workshops, alongside the current agility stuff and a few other bits and pieces. More details to follow later!

And we've been pretty busy with Finn and Willow too! Haven't had any agility shows since the muddy Easter disaster, but we have been up to Kay Laurence's place twice in the last few weeks to train with one of the most knowledgeable people in this country, and you really can't beat a good workshop with Kay (except perhaps an agility one with Lauren Langman!). We were up at the end of last month for an 'Energy' workshop, and mum, Willow, Finn and I had the best day ever! The work we did was fascinating and innovative, and Finn and Willow were perfect little stars all day; I've never ever seen Finn so calm and relaxed whilst out doing anything anywhere, so it was definitely worth the trip up, and we're hoping to get booked in for some more workshops in the future! Kay L filmed a bit of it, so I'm currently keeping an eye on her YouTube channel to see if she makes us stars! And the day was made even better by a quick stop on the way home to meet the most wonderful Working Cocker Spaniel breeder, and the most fab dogs ever! I'm so excited about having one of Jacqui's pups in the future; the adult dogs we met were gorgeous, friendly, unbelievably fit and active, and she really does seem to be doing all she can in terms of health testing whilst also ensuring temperament is still key, and provides so much support to the owners of her pups. Can't wait to become one of the 'family'!

And then we were back up again on Sunday for a Border Collie Rehab workshop, bringing Sarah and Izzy up with us. Again, another fascinating day, and no-one understands collies better than Kay L. All three of ours were excellent again, and now that we have management and training strategies, we've been promoted up from the Rehab workshops, so all in all another excellent day at Wagmore Barn!

I so love doing workshops at Wagmore, and in fact I love doing something new with any trainer or speaker as in general you can always take something new away from it, and we should all be constantly striving to expand our knowledge of training methods and ideas, so the one thing I always find slightly baffling and frustrating is the fact that experts like Kay Laurence aren't in more demand for workshops and seminars in this country. We seem to have a bit of apathy towards these things, or perhaps we just don't like to travel...I'm not really sure what it is that puts the Brits off. But people like Kay L and Greg Derrett are experts in their fields, and seem to be highly respected and in demand in America for various training events, with people travelling miles to a whole array of seminars and expos, and yet over here these inspirational people struggle to generate enough interest to fill events. I remember the workshops that Greg organised over here, with Susan Garrett the guest speaker - she flew all the way over from Canada, and is a hugely influential and groundbreaking agility trainer who fills events all over the world, and yet over here there was barely any interest from the agility community. I'm not quite sure why we're not more enthusiastic about these things; I read with great envy about all the wonderful things going on in America and wish I could be there for events such as the Clicker Expo or the Clean Run Conference, but have to content myself with buying all the DVDs of the lectures (thank heaven for the Clean Run production team and Positive Animal Solutions/Crosskeys for stocking them!) and reading the online reports. Perhaps one day our British training heroes will be fully recognised and appreciated in their own country...if you get the chance I seriously recommend a trip up to Wagmore or signing up for a workshop or seminar anywhere just to try something a bit different!

Anyway, this was supposed to be short, and as always it's turned out to be very long! Really must get on with some planning now! Stay tuned for more details of what I've got cooking...

Shelley & Fantastic Mr Finn x

Oh, I almost forgot the most important bit! Mr Finn celebrated his 3rd birthday last week (though he's mentally still 18 months!). Here he is enjoying a chomp on his pressie...
And I'll just leave you with a touching Blog post from Susan Garrett on the loss of a friend's dog, and a beautiful thought:
"Regardless of how it may appear to any of us watching, every dog’s life is always one of great intention. The odyssey is unique to each dog and their person. Those of us on the outside looking in may never be privy to all that is being fulfilled during the time you have together but the impact is likely more than any world championship ever could provide."

Muddy madness!

2010-04-06T14:55:00.007+01:00

Sometimes I think agility folk are the maddest folk in the world! Our dedication to our sport seems to know no limits, so it would seem after this weekend!

So, you couldn't fail to notice that last week was a little bit wet, in fact I think it rained every day of the week, so I guess you might have expected ground conditions to be a little soggy for the UKA Easter agility show extravaganza, but nothing prepared me for what I saw Sunday! I have to say me and mum had our concerns Saturday night about what conditions might be like for the Sunday of the show, but reports on various forums said there was a bit of mud in the entrance to the field but that 4x4s were on standby to help out those few who got stuck, and that conditions in the ring were a little slippery but not too bad and the rings were being moved to new ground. So we decided that this didn't sound too bad and headed up at 6am. Well, the sight that greeted us on arrival was a little worse than described! The gateway to the field was very deep in mud, and cars were having to be towed in to the showground before the day had even started! Luckily we made it in without too much trouble, but Greg Derrett himself was having to pull others in all morning (and I have to say he seemed to be doing it with a big grin on his face!). So we headed up to the rings to have a look - what a mess! There was barely any visible green grass in most of the rings, there wasn't anywhere to move the rings to, and the mud was pretty thick - definitely more than just 'a bit slippery'! Mum instantly decided to scratch Willow from her Beginners Agility run for fear of her slipping off of one of the contact pieces, so then we had to wait to see which of our other classes would be up first and what the conditions would be like in that ring.

Finn's Beginners Jumping class was next up, and the course was nice but there was a lot of mud in the ring and I wasn't sure how well he'd be able to jump given that we're still working on his technique on nice solid ground, let along inches of mud! He tried his best, but he struggled to clear some of the jumps, and he really didn't see the now very brown weave poles (and he wasn't the only one to struggle with this), so I decided not to run him again as it just didn't seem fair on the now plastered little monkey and his poor little legs! Somewhere around this time mum managed to trip over a tent rope and fall over in the mud, and wasn't best pleased! She changed into her spare set of clothes, decided to run Willow around the one class that was now ready for her, and then we were going to give up and go home before any of us (human or canine) picked up an injury. However Willow went clear, bless her, so we then had to wait around for the prize giving before we could give up and go! It certainly wasn't her fastest or most confident run ever, and she got a bit confused and wasted a bit of time going around a jump as mum was struggling to stay upright whilst giving the correct signals, but she did it, and I even managed to get it on film...

Both dogs look a bit uncertain in places and start putting in extra strides, and when even Mr Finn starts putting in extra strides you know the conditions aren't good! So despite having travelled all the way there at a ridiculous time in the morning, it seemed more sensible to forfeit the runs and give up for the day rather than risk injury to any of us, because at the end of the day agility is supposed to be fun not dangerous!! So having decided to finish for the day at 11.30am, we then waited almost 2 hours for the prize giving for Willow's class, which was slightly frustrating! And then as we were about to go, someone spotted we had a very flat tyre and no spare! So we were towed out of the field onto the lane, and there we sat for 2 hours waiting for the AA to send someone out to change the tyre!! The only positive to this was that at least we had prime view of everyone else attempting to drive down out of the field in the mud, and there ensued many cries of 'go on, go on, he's going to make it, keep going...oh no, he's stuck'! Wish I'd gotten some of that on film, could have made some money on You've Been Framed!

So all in all it was a pretty mad and long day! I can't believe how many people kept turning up in the morning and driving into the mud, we must all of been mad! Or how many people ran their dogs around...I saw quite a few people slipping over, and some pretty filthy looking dogs! But some how everyone seemed to be smiling despite it all. Except for Mr Finn when he had to have a bath, he didn't appreciate that!...

Rosettes all round!

2010-03-29T22:18:00.004+01:00

Well, we may have had to get up at 6am (which really felt like 5am due to the clocks changing!) to get to the agility competition yesterday, but it was definitely worth it! Second show of the year, and another really good day for Finn and Willow.

We went up to the UKA Waverunners show at Newbury, and as is always the case with UKA it was a brilliant little show. We love UKA, and their Standard jump height! The weather forecast wasn’t promising, but it stayed dry all day in the end, and the sun popped out briefly a few times from behind the clouds, so we couldn’t really have asked for more.

This was Willow’s first time competing in Novice Steeplechase, having won up from Beginners at the Valentine’s show. Mum was a little nervous about how Willow would cope, but the first course was really quite nice, and Willow was on fine form! Willow’s first run of the day is usually a little tentative and anxiety-laden and it takes her a run or two to gain her confidence, but she was firing from the start yesterday and did a lovely Clear Round in her first ever Novice run! She then did a nice run in Beginners Jumping, just stumbling over her weaves slightly but otherwise flying, and a lovely run in Beginners Agility, just tackling the dogwalk with a little too much confidence and missing the down contact! We then realised mum had somehow missed walking the other Novice Steeplechase class, and that they were about to close the Standard height class, so mum went rushing over to the ring while I grabbed Willow from the car, and suddenly found herself thrown into the ring, not really knowing where the course went! Luckily it didn’t seem to matter as they found their way around the correct course and Willow gained her second Clear Round of the day! All the Grid Work we’ve been doing finally seems to be paying off and Willow’s confidence is much improved. She’s never going to be as fast as Finn, but she seems to be enjoying it a lot more now and is starting to turn into a nice little Clear Round dog. And mum’s been working hard on fine tuning her weaves and contacts to build more confidence and speed in to them over the last few weeks, so maybe next time out she’ll be bringing home even more rosettes!

Mine and Finn’s day seemed to get off to a slower start – by lunchtime mum and Willow had done all of their classes, and we’d only done the Beginners Jumping class (a couple of poles down, and he just didn’t see his weave entry), and had to wait till the afternoon for our two Beginners Steeplechase classes. And typically the Standard height class in both ended up running at the same time, so having waited all day we then did both our runs within the space of 10 minutes! Finn did a fab round in the first class, just tipping a pole down after a tunnel (he had four poles down in total all day, and all of them were on jumps after tunnels, so he's obviously not getting up quick enough, so we'll have to work on this!), and he would have been 4th if the pole didn't come down. And then we went straight over to do his other round, running first in the class, and he did a fab Clear Round! It felt really smooth and I was so pleased! Several of our friends commented on what a nice round it was! We then had to wait around for 2 hours for the prize-giving to see if he'd been quick enough for a place, and I was delighted to discover we'd got 3rd place! That's one up from our 4th at the Valentine's show, so we're heading in the right direction! My jubilation was slightly marred by the discovery that the show organisers had somehow forgotten to pick up the box of 3rd place rosettes, so having waited 2 hours we didn't actually have a rosette to take home, and instead have to pick it up at the show next weekend! Slightly anticlimactic, but never mind! That's 2 shows and 2 Clear Rounds so far this year, so all the changes we've made to our training and show routines seem to be working. Through calming Finn down and only training with food instead of toys we have definitely lost a bit of speed, but what we have gained is a calmer state of mind where he can actually think clearly and put a bit of thought into what he's doing, so that's definitely an improvement!

All in all a good weekend, and huge strides forward for both of our two! It's a constant up-hill struggle with both of them, and we have good days and bad days, but yesterday was most definitely a good day! There's a vid of some of the runs below...it should be available on YouTube shortly!

I've got a load of other things I've been meaning to blog about for a while...the brilliant Border Collie Rehab workshop we did with Kay Laurence a few weeks ago, the very exciting Four Paws plans that are starting to come together...but there just isn't enough time in the day at the moment!! So for now, that'll have to do!

Wags and woofs,
Shelley & Fantastic Mr Finn xx

And so to Plan Z...

2010-03-18T23:49:00.004Z

So, the ideas thrown around in the previous post hit a few snags (as always!) and seemed to die for a week or two, but all of a sudden they have proven alive and well again this week (albeit not quite in the format imagined in the last blog!). Details are still a little provisional at the moment, and mum and I have much 'plotting' to do (my dad's term for our little meetings! Mostly it involves throwing ideas around and doing lots and lots of research!), so I won't go into the intricacies of what we have planned just yet, but watch this space!

In the meanwhile, I seem to have been very busy with my camera and the basic video editing program I have, and have made a few new videos, so I thought I'd share them with you all in the absence of any actual concrete news or information!! Enjoy!...

Future developments...

2010-02-25T16:43:00.004Z

So, over 12 months have passed since I started looking for a venue to expand the agility side of the business into, and a year later I've had one venue fall through, viewed at least a dozen unsuitable or unaffordable ones, and have made enquiries to every single place I can think of in the area! Now I'm not giving up on it completely as agility is still my first love, but I've started to get to the point lately where I'm physically exhausted from working on top of running the obedience classes and training Finn, and something has to give! The hope had been to find an agility venue and develop that so that I could give up work, but as that hasn't happened yet I think it's time to start to look into other possibilities. So that's what I started doing yesterday!!

And so the Four Paws One Direction Dog Training Centre idea was born (or some other similar name - suggestions welcome!!)! We're now searching for an industrial unit or something similar to rent and set up as a permanent full time centre. Anything large enough to do full scale agility inside is above our rental capacity at the moment, so instead what we're looking for is a smaller unit to run primarily puppy classes, puppy activity classes, informal obedience, calming classes along the lines of the 'Control Unleashed' exercises, a bit of rally-o, games & activity classes, puppy play date sessions etc! And if we can find something big enough to put up a few jump grids or do a bit of one-jump work, we'll put down a suitable flooring (either rubber matting or astro turf - need to work out which provides the most grip for the dogs!), and will be able to do a limited amount of agility stuff indoors - perhaps enough to see us through the winter! We might then be able to use our own field on Saturdays for 6 months during the summer to offer a bit more agility than we're currently doing, with the other 6 cold-and-wet months being spent indoors focussing on handling or jumping skills. I have to say I'm pretty excited about it all at the moment! I've started to make some enquiries about industrial units, and we're looking at somewhere around the Radstock to Bath area. If this is all do-able and we can find a suitable site then this could actually be set up quite quickly! So fingers crossed!! Although waiting for Estate Agents to get back to me is already driving me mad!!! Do they want to shift these units or not?! And the hope is that once we have lots of new lovely dog people coming through our classes, eventually someone might know someone who knows of a suitable agility venue, and we can look at expanding that again!

So we have a possible way forward again, and I have lots of things to research and plan, which is what I love, so I'm all happy again!! Just need to start looking at organising the Fun Dog Show again for this year as last year was such a great day!! Onwards... :-)

Oh, and here are a few of my favourite Finn and Willow pics from our last few walks. Enjoy!...

The Bog Monster (TM)!

Where's the blooming Bog Monster gone now?!

Valentine's Day Triumphs!

2010-02-15T12:09:00.004Z

Well, what a fabulous day we had yesterday! We had our first Agility show of the year, the UKA Valentine's show in Cheltenham, and what a great day it turned out to be in the end! I have to confess to setting off in the morning with some trepidation - Finn's problems have been getting worse and worse lately, and he is now chronically stressed and anxious, and over-reacts to every little change in his environment, people, dogs, noises etc. etc., to the point where even something as simple as going for a walk or out into the garden causes a huge amount of anxiety, so I really wasn't sure how he would cope or if I'd be able to trust him enough to let him off lead to do his classes. And Willow has lost a huge amount of confidence in agility over the past 6 months, and we hadn't jumped her over the Standard height jumps for quite a while as we'd been training her over Medium height to try and get her confidence back up, so we weren't really sure how she would cope with the higher jumps. So we really weren't expecting much from either of our two as we set off in the morning!

We had 3 Beginners Steeplechase classes to run during the morning (what a fab little show! I love the Steeplechase classes!), and the first one was up for walking when we got there. It wasn't the most straight-forward course ever put up, and the last line of jumps provided some interesting handling points, and while watching the Maxi dogs run it became clear that it was actually the slower, steadier dog that this course favoured as the fastest dogs just couldn't get the last line right. The Standard height class started, and Willow stepped up for her go. Her first run of the day is never her best, so mum decided to take in a ball and play train the round, but Willow had other ideas and set off pretty confidently, just stopping for a quick 'displacement behaviour' sniff once on her way around, but otherwise flying over the jumps with great ease! Definitely better than expected, and a good start to the day! I waited til the very end of the class to run Finn, queueing with him out of the way and waiting for a lot of the dogs to clear away before stepping up with him. I don't think I've ever felt so concerned about a run before in my life as I really wasn't sure if he'd be able to keep it together long enough to get around the course and safely back on a lead without reacting to any of the other dogs, and was concerned that one incident would end his competitive agility career, but I should have had more faith in him! He was calm and composed, and remained so all the way around the course! He left all the jumps up for the first time ever, and we got our first ever Clear Round! It certainly wasn't his fastest run ever, and it wasn't his smoothest - we lost a bit of time doing a couple of twiddles before jumps - but the queueing routine I adopted, the training we've been doing lately with food instead of toys to keep the arousal levels down, and all the Susan Salo Jump Grid work we've been doing to improve his jump technique all came together and resulted in our calmest and cleanest run to date! And I was even more delighted when it transpired he got 4th place in the class and we had a beautiful rosette to take home!

Class 2 was a more flowing course, and again Willow went first and ran beautifully, just popping over the wrong jump going across a box, but again her confidence was high so we were pleased. And I waited right til the end again to run Finn, and again he was amazingly calm and controlled, and just clipped one jump on an otherwise flawless round!

And so to Class 3, another lovely flowing course, and this time Willow set off beautifully, and got around it Clear!! Mum was delighted at the prospect of going home with another Clear Round rosette, and we were pretty elated with the day! Finn did another calm and composed round, again just clipping a few jumps, but handling like a dream. We then had to wait around for the prize giving for the class to get Willow's rosette, and were even more elated to discover that she got 2nd place! And when we got back to the car and looked in her record book, it transpired that the 2nd had now given her enough points to move up to Novice in the Steeplechase program! Cue much delight and bemusement!

So all in all it was a pretty good day! Finn proved that he can still cope with the agility at the shows if we make sure we have a calm queueing routine and manage the situation properly, and that the new training reward system of food instead of toys definitely results in calmer performances even if we have lost a little bit of his speed (but we can always put that back in once he's learnt to control himself and his body properly), and that lots of Jump Grid work is improving his technique. And Willow proved that she can compete confidently and does enjoy agility (despite appearances in the photo below!), and only got better throughout the day! So here's to a good year of competing in 2010!!

And 2010 finally begins...

2010-01-15T23:52:00.004Z

So, the last few months have been a bit of a nightmare weather-wise! November and December were wash outs, and the end of 2009 and the start of 2010 have been buried under 6 inches of snow!! Spells of random weather are not uncommon or unexpected in this country, but why did they all have to come back to back?! Mum and I had planned over the Christmas break to get a lot of agility training done with Finn and Willow, aiming to use the extra free time the holidays gave us to concentrate specifically on them a bit more, but we haven't done any agility for weeks now! Our field went from being sodden and slippery underfoot to buried under a white winter wonderland, and has been unusable or inaccessible for a while now. And the drifts of snow caused delays to our Lifeskills classes, with course dates pushed back and much frustration and disappointment all round. But thankfully Friday evening saw 2010 finally start for Four Paws One Direction as the snow finally melted away enough to allow us access to the hall, and perhaps now we can get back to normal?!!

The search is under way for an alternative indoor agility venue so that we won't be so affected by the weather in the future, so hopefully we'll be bringing you some exciting news soon, and the Four Paws expansion plans will be back on track!

So that was 2009...

2010-01-07T12:35:00.011Z

So, here we are in 2010! Not quite sure where 2009 actually went, it seemed to fly by so quickly, so maybe it's time for a bit of quiet reflection!

2009, that was the year that:
*Four Paws One Direction was officially born! - After 12 months of running a small Puppy class and then later a Junior class as a small club, Four Paws One Direction was officially born on January the 1st 2009, so we've just celebrated our first birthday!

*Finn and Willow began to compete in agility at UKA shows, with Willow gaining a Clear Round at her very first show in April:

*We held our first 'Four Paws Picnic & Fun Day' for all the lovely people from our classes, and after some very wet weather the sun came out and we had a glorious afternoon!

*We ran our first 'Have a go Agility' ring at the Camerton Village Day, and while the afternoon was a little damp, the dogs that were there seemed to enjoy it!

*We held our own Fun Dog Show at Camerton in July, under a blazing sun, with Novelty classes and some other fun activities, and the attendance was better than I could have hoped for! We raised £180 each for Irish Retriever Rescue and Valgrays Border Collie Rescue, and I felt very proud to have managed to pull it off!

*We held our own Agility Fun Day for the lovely people from our small agility classes.

*We enjoyed the glorious day out that was the Irish Retriever Rescue Fun Dog Show in September, with much money being raised to support their worthy work.

*We enjoyed some fascinating and educational days out with our own dogs, including an Energy workshop and a day of Learning About Border Collies with Kay Laurence, a Canine Health & Fitness day organised by Paws On the Levels, some Agility workshops and training sessions with the wonderful Lauren and Matt of Devon Dogs, and I embarked on an interesting Animal First Aid course.

*We held our first Winter Warmer Social Evening, which was a fabulous night in very pleasant company!

*The year finished with the Christmas Party, with much merriment and presents for all!

*And the perfect way to finish the year came on the 20th of December, where we belatedly left the house to attempt to get to an agility show in the frost and snow, but it was worth the effort when Phil and Meg got a Clear Round in the Nursery Agility class at their first ever agility show! They're the first of our classes to compete so far, and mum and I were so proud!! Congratulations to you both!

And so to 2010...
So what does this year hold for us? Well, we've encountered a few unexpected problems with the venue we had lined up for the development and expansion of our agility classes, but we're currently looking into alternative options, so hopefully will be developing this further in the future! We've got a whole host of indoor courses lined up at Tunley for the next few months which should be enjoyable and fun for dog and owner. Finn and Willow will be competing in more Agility shows and taking part in various workshops and courses to improve both their skills and our knowledge. So it's shaping up to be a good year!! We'll hope to see you and your dogs around!

And finally...
I can't end a summary of the year without also paying tribute to the lovely Cassie and Kiri who both passed away at the latter end of this year. Cassie was my loyal companion and best friend, and I wouldn't be doing any of this if it weren't for her, and Kiri was mum's much loved puppy for all the 14 years of her life. They'll both be missed and have left huge holes in our hearts. But we're thankful for the joy they brought us, the lessons they taught us, and the memories we'll always have. A dog is far more than just a dog, so cherish your companions while you can. With that in mind, here's a little tribute to Finn and his lovely doggy friends...

December Update

2009-12-10T11:29:00.008Z

Ok, so we're now well into December, and once again it's been months since my last post. Oops! Things have been manically busy lately though, and sometimes it's hard to find time to eat and sleep, let alone sit here typing! However the trouble with these big generalised updates is that I can never remember quite what's been going on, and a lot of the small details escape me! But as far as big generalised updates go, this new video clip might give you some idea of what we've been up to! The agility training has been coming along well, with the Beginners group making some excellent progress, and a new Foundation group joining the fray, and blimey these dogs are bright! Mum ran an 'Introduction to Rally Obedience' course for me that seemed to be enjoyed by all, I ran a Tricks mini-course, and am currently doing a second run of that one, and I've just finished a 3 week Games & Activities course that was brilliant fun!! So take a peek at some photos and clips:

Plans are under way for the Christmas Party next week, and Finn and I are looking forward to a nice, quiet (and hopefully dry!) Christmas. Plans for next year's indoor courses at Tunley are coming along, and if it ever dries out we will hopefully be launching our new Agility and Active Dog classes at our new outdoor venue in Bitton, although it's looking fairly soggy there at the moment! All this rain has been fairly unpleasant - the dogs are always wet and muddy, and so is the house, and it doesn't make training outside very easy! But surely it has to dry up at some point?! Fingers crossed! For more details of the classes visit our website here.

As for Finn and Willow, well their agility training has also been somewhat hampered by the weather, and Willow was still finding life extremely stressful - to the point where even going out for a walk wasn't enjoyable, and she'd lost a lot of confidence at agility. So after a few private sessions with the lovely Lauren of Devon Dogs to come up with a training plan, and after hours of research into what else we might be able to do to help, Willow has now been on Zylkene for a few months and has shown remarkable improvements and seems to be a much happier dog. Zylkene is basically derived from a milk protein, a natural and safe product, and it helps restore the chemical imbalance that causes all the anxiety and fear (mum did so much research before giving it to her that she could talk to you for hours about exactly how it works and on what receptors!). Anyway, it's definitely helping, proving for once and for all that Willow's problems are chemical and nothing that we managed to cause or 'do to her', and it's great to see her finally looking a bit more relaxed. Hopefully now she's a bit happier we can start to build her confidence and enthusiasm back up for her agility, and she'll be flying again! As for Mr Finn, he's still flying; unfortunately so are some of the jump poles! In one of our sessions with Lauren, she called his technique 'trashy', and there isn't a more apt word to describe his approach to agility! We've been working on some of Susan Salo's jump grid exercises in the hope that by the spring he might have improved slightly!! Bless his heart, he does try!

Anyway, that's enough rambling for now! All that's left is to wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and here's to more dog training fun in 2010!!

Love & Wags
Shelley & Finn xx

October Update!

2009-10-21T23:23:00.005+01:00

Wow, it's been over a month since my last blog again!! Things really have been manic lately though, with far too many things to write about, so I'll try to keep it brief.

Things are moving along nicely with the arrangements for the new agility courses - we've got start dates planned, flyers in all the vets surgeries for miles around, equipment ordered in a new red and white colour scheme (to be complimented by red, white and black themed clothing and a new look to the website!), and are starting to get bookings through already which is all pretty exciting. Our current agility classes are all progressing well, and we've got a new lot starting another Foundation Agility course next Saturday, so the numbers are growing. And some of our lovely people have entered their first agility show!! We're massively excited about having a few that might be wanting to give competition a go, and are looking forward to the day when we can enter our first team competition! In the meanwhile I'm putting all of my effort in to trying to make the new agility courses work in the hope that I might be able to give up my other job soon as doing both is exhausting!!

The new-look Tunley-based classes seem to have started well, with some wonderful people completing a run of the Emerald and Ruby Lifeskills courses, and two successful run-throughs of the Obedience for Agility course, and a very enjoyable Tricks mini-course. Next up is a Rally Obedience block that mum has kindly researched and written, to be followed by a Games and Activities course and another run-through of the Tricks course. Then it's time for the Christmas Party!! I can't believe the year has disappeared so fast!

Anyway, I said I'd keep it brief, so I'll update you on Finn and Willow's activities another day! Enjoy a few pics from tonight's Tricks class!

Busy as can bee!!

2009-09-19T23:18:00.002+01:00

Blimey, what a busy few weeks! Everything seems a bit mad at the moment, and I seem to have very little time to myself (or for blogging!). So, what have we been up to?!

Well, on the 6th Sept mum and I took Finn and Willow to a UKA agility show, and it seems so long ago now that I can barely remember what happened! I do know that Willow came away with another Clear Round rosette, and Finn and I did the fab-est round but just clipped a jump (but I was so pleased as it was so beautifully flowing, and I got all my front crosses in exactly the right place!). Can't remember much else though! We then followed that up with a trip down to Devon on the 8th to Lauren's for a private session to see how we were getting on with the homework she'd set last time (and I think she was pleased with progress!).

Saturday 12th saw the Irish Retriever Rescue Fun Dog Show arrive, which kept us busy all day! The sun came out and summer made another brief appearance. I'm not sure yet how much money was raised, but it seemed to all go well!

And then to this week. Well, I really have been quite a busy bee - I've found an agility venue from which to officially run my classes! We've been running a couple in our field on a Saturday morning, but can't expand what we're doing there for bureaucratic reasons, so have been looking for a suitable venue elsewhere for the past 6 months now without much luck (have been to see a few, but for various reasons they haven't been suitable), and finally the search seems to be over! While mum and dad were away on holiday, I expanded the search area a bit and sent a few last-ditch emails off to a couple of equestrian centres further from home, and one invited me over to have a look, and it all seemed fab! Went over on Tuesday for another meeting, and we've got the green light to go ahead!! So I'm ecstatically happy, but also slightly scared as I actually have to make it work now! So the rest of this week has been spent planning what needs to be done, how to get started, what equipment to order, how to redesign the website, posters etc, along with running the usual classes, working, and trying to train Finn! Need to find time to keep researching to stay abreast with the latest training techniques too. So much to do!! Can't complain though - it might be hard work for the next few months as we try to get it all up and running, but if it means I can make a living out of doing what I love then that would be amazing!

So I'm feeling pretty elated at the moment! Oh, almost forgot, I've also found the most fantastic breeder of Working Cocker Spaniels; she seems to really care about what she's breeding, is open minded and actively researching info on every doggy topic going, has brilliantly low inbreeding co-efficients, does all the health testing available, and is breeding dogs with excellent working ability and sound temperaments. And we're going to meet her and her dogs in November, with the hope that I might have a pup at the end of next year! So that's pretty exciting too!

So I'll leave you for now as I've got too many other things to do! But I'll leave you with this slide show of some pics from our agility classes! What fab dogs they all are!! :-)

I'm INTO Dogs!

2009-08-29T17:58:00.005+01:00

I'm quite excited, I've just been accepted into the Association of INTO Dogs (The Association of Intuitive Natural Training for Owners and Dogs)! You can find more details on their website here (although for some reason the site doesn't work well in Firefox, so you need to open it up in Explorer!). Am pretty pleased!

Dog training is a bit of a tricky field when it comes to regulation - basically there is none! And I guess it would be hard to regulate it when there are so many different schools of thought on how you should do things (although finally methods based on the science of learning seem to be coming more to the fore, or at least would be if it weren't for a tv dog trainer with his own brand of pseudo-science). Anyway, there are a couple of membership bodies who have a good code of conduct and say all the right things, and you can join them on passing an assessment etc, and their mark should stand for quality dog training, but I've seen first-hand too many trainers bearing their logos who still use old-fashioned methods in their classes (one tried to tell us that we had to 'make Willow get over her fears' and another tried to tell me that my Finn wasn't stressed out in the overcrowded class with the whites of his eyes flashing away as he chewed manically on his lead, virtually frothing at the mouth!), so I've been a bit reluctant to join these organisations (although I know really that the bulk of their members do adhere to their codes of practice and in general the system works), and then I came across INTO Dogs. Here were a collection of like-minded people trying to hold their heads high and take a stand against the all-too-common punitive dog trainers and whisperers, and they sounded exactly like what I was looking for! And bless them, before I'd even logged into the forum for the first time today, there was already a welcome message! How nice is that?! Fab! Lets all hold our heads high and say we're INTO Dogs!! :-)

The Journey - or how we got here!

2009-08-23T09:21:00.003+01:00

I was chatting with Sarah at training on Friday night, and this wonderful and moving video clip made by US and Canadian agility expert Susan Garrett came up in conversation (along with the confession that neither of us can watch this without crying, and I challenge any other dog person to try watching it without crying!), and it got me thinking about my own personal journey and the dogs that have shaped me and taught me lessons and have brought me to where I am today.

I'm not going to start at the beginning and list every dog and every lesson learnt as we'd be here all day, but I will dwell on some of the ups and downs.

Ah, Dizzy Daydream, my beautiful little cocker spaniel, she certainly taught me some lessons in how to handle humiliation and embarrassment at a very young age as she ran around the agility rings sniffing away, and I'm sure she helped shape me into the teenager I became. She also taught us that you can't force a dog to enjoy something, and that agility was my ambition and not hers, and that sometimes the kindest thing to do is admit that you're not the right person to provide the dog with what they need to be happiest, which is a hard thing to realise.

And then came my wonderful Cassie. We've enjoyed a fabulous 16 years together, and it breaks my heart to think that our journey together is nearing its end, and I'm in tears as I write this. I can't even begin to cover the things she has taught me, not just about dog training but about life in general, and I only wish that when I was training her in her early days I knew some of the things I know now as we might have enjoyed greater success together, although no amount of rosettes would ever mean more than the time we spent together working as a team and enjoying our runs. And Cassie was certainly a dog that always enjoyed working! She also taught us lessons about diet, and what a difference a natural diet could make to behaviour and energy levels, and as our future generations are raised on healthy and natural food we will always be grateful to Cassie for showing us the way.

Tango, in her all-to-brief stay with us, taught us lessons on health and vaccination and the devastating side effects that can occur, but unfortunately the lessons were learnt too late to help her, and her memory will always be tinged with great sadness and regret. She was my beautiful girl, my gorgeous brindle collie, and I will always think of her with great sorrow in my heart. And looking back, these were also perhaps lessons that Ilsa was trying to teach us, proof that the lessons do repeat if you miss them the first time, and we will always be grateful that we got there in the end, though regretful that it took us a second attempt to realise.

And then to Finn and Willow. The two dogs that have probably taught us more in their two years than we had learnt over the past ten. To them we owe a huge amount. It was through a desire to learn more about the latest training techniques, through a desire to search out the best education for us and them, through a desire to help them as best as we could to overcome some of their problems, that we have met some incredible people along the way and come across some amazing and groundbreaking ideas. And these incredible people have then further inspired us to want to know even more, and to spend hours researching ideas and trying out new things with our dogs, moving away from the old methods and embracing the new. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Kay Laurence and Lynda Edmundson of Learning About Dogs for sharing some of their expertise with us, more knowledgeable people than them on training and behaviour it would be hard to find. And to Susan Garrett who was so inspirational at her seminars last year, and seems so keen to share all her ideas with the world. And to Lauren Langman of Devon Dogs who is an absolute inspiration when it comes to agility training, so knowledgeable, so positive, at the forefront of the field, and my personal inspiration and role model. When I got Finn, I had no intentions of running my own classes or setting up my own business, but through a lack of places to train our own dogs in the manner we wanted, and through a realisation that there are much better ways to train things but not enough people out there doing it, and with encouragement from Lauren who, at 26, has her own thriving business, things have progressed to here. So to Finn, Willow, and all these people we owe a huge amount for teaching us that sometimes the lesson is 'the realisation of the need for more knowledge', and this quest for more knowledge should be a journey that lasts a lifetime and never ends.

And a thanks to new friends; our ventures forth so far have brought us to new friends who are now sharing in our journey. In particular Lynne has been a huge influence, joining us in our journeys with Lynda through our CAP 1 & 2 qualifications, and handing me over her Wednesday evening class and giving me the confidence to believe I could run it. And Sarah & Izzy who will hopefully be part of our journey forward for a while to come. And Katie and Kay M and Bronwyn and all our new friends who have continued to travel with us through our classes and have supported us in our adventures. Nicer, more caring people you couldn't hope to meet!

There are other dogs who deserve a mention, and they have all taught us something along the way, and I wish I had the room to write it all down but don't, so additional 'thanks' to Tara (the GSD who actually taught me how to walk!), Heidi, Ilsa, Polly, Kiri, Ziggy, Stella, Carly and all the other wonderful dogs belonging to the other wonderful people we have met along the way. I owe a huge debt to all of the dogs that have enriched my life, and looking back now I only wish I'd been able to recognise some of the lessons they were trying to teach me a little earlier.

Dog Show Proceeds Counted and Donated...

2009-08-20T23:28:00.004+01:00

Well, the money from the Dog Show has finally been counted and banked (it took a while!), and cheques for £180.25p were sent to both Irish Retriever Rescue and Valgrays Border Collie Rescue, so many thanks to all who contributed to this! That's not a bad effort, and I'm pretty proud of how things went! :-) We've even got a little mention on the IRR website here... and Pauline tells me the money we donated is enough to transport two dogs in need of rescuing over from Ireland, so ever penny helps.

I'd like to do something again next year, but have concerns over the weather - the week before and after the Dog Show this year was very wet, and we were extremely lucky not to be rained off! - so a bit of thought needs to go into how to find somewhere with an indoor venue to protect us from the possibility of rain and to ensure that people want to turn up to help us raise some money! So watch this space...!

Fun Dog Show and New Courses

2009-08-10T15:59:00.005+01:00

Well, what a busy few weeks we've had! Last week was spent almost entirely focussed on preparations for the dog show on Saturday, and while trying to organise this, I also decided to restructure and re-write all of my classes and relaunch them for September! Nothing like putting yourself under a bit of pressure!

So, Saturday saw the first ever Four Paws One Direction Fun Dog Show, and what a brilliant day it was! The sun shone, and after weeks of rain it was almost too hot for the dogs, but we didn't complain as the people arrived en masse to help us raise some money and enjoy a bit of warmth! And as it's now raining again today, I'd say we were very lucky with the weather!

The turn out was better than I could have hoped for, and the dogs were all beautifully behaved. The entries for the classes were sizeable, and gave my two judges a few difficult decisions to make! Most people seemed to go away with a prize bag or a raffle prize, so I think everyone was happy!

We've done a provisional count, and on the last tally we'd raised £173 each for Valgrays Border Collie Rescue and Irish Retriever Rescue, so that's pretty impressive! Thanks to all who helped contribute to this, and to all my helpers who made the day possible. More pictures can be found here...

NEW COURSES

From Septmember 2009 we'll be launching a range of new and exciting courses! Details can be found on our website here... Four Paws New Courses... and I'm looking forward to getting these started. Hopefully the fixed courses will make making progress easier, so that everyone is getting the most out of their time with us.

Looking forward to working with you all in the new year (well, I work in a school, so September is the new year for me!)!

Shelley & Finn x

Fantastic Finn and Wonderful Willow!

2009-08-02T18:21:00.002+01:00

Well, we had to abandon plans for attending the UKA agility show we'd entered for today due to reports of the site being like a mud bath, which was slightly disappointing! But we didn't let it get us too down, and instead opted to use the time to go down to our field and do a bit of training! Here's the video clip I made!:

They're so fab!!

Yet another busy weekend!

2009-07-19T19:55:00.006+01:00

Well, it's all go at the moment! That's another busy weekend gone, and what a great weekend it turned out to be!

Saturday saw us running a 'Have-a-go Foundation Agility' ring at the Camerton Village Day, which was good fun. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and I managed to get a few pics of a few of our friends having a go!

Today saw mum and I get up at 5.15am to drive to Hereford (or thereabouts!) for a small UKA Agility show. The weather wasn't looking promising, and it was with some trepidation that we set out! It rained on and off all day, we finished up with wet feet, and yet somehow both of our faces are now looking a little red, even with the factor 30 suncream!! Oh well!

The first round of the day was Beginners Jumping, and I ran Finn's round as a training round, with him just clipping a few poles. Willow got really stressed out by a dog barking near her in the queue again, and had a slight meltdown in the ring; she's still finding the presence of the other dogs hard to cope with, and it served as a reminder that she still has some problems to work through. The photographer chap managed to get a couple of shots of Finn, so finally I have a few 'proper' photos of him!

Willow's second round of the day was the Beginners Agility class, and as Finn wasn't in this class, I queued for mum so she could keep Willow out of the way until her turn, and it seemed to work! She got a Clear Round and came 3rd in the Standard height class!! She was a little hesitant on her way around, and she wasn't going flat out, but she did it all foot-perfectly. Here's the video clip:

The final round of the day was the Beginners Steeplechase class. Finn was up first and did a blinding round, just tipping a couple of poles. Once we've worked on his jumping technique, he's going to be unstoppable! Willow ran a few dogs later, and did another lovely Clear Round, this one even better and happier than the first! We then had to wait around for ages to see if she'd been quick enough to just sneak into the places, and it was worth the wait as she won the class!! Not bad going for a baby! 6 shows, 5 Clear Rounds and 2 places, one of them a win!! Amazing considering we thought we might never get her in the ring!! Here's a stunning pic of her doing her thing!

Punishment, Dominance and Milan...

2009-07-17T15:25:00.003+01:00

To all of you enlightened dog trainers and owners out there who wouldn't dream of using punishment as your chief training tool, and who wouldn't even consider throwing your dog against a wall or pinning it to the floor, I implore you to sign this petition from COAPE, the Centre of Applied Pet Ethology, against these methods as there is no place for them in modern dog training:
'Say NO! To punitive training, dog whispering and outdated behaviour therapy' petition.

To those of you who still consider that there is a place in training for these methods, and that dogs are trying to 'dominate' us all the time and that we have to be 'pack leaders' by enforcing our 'dominance' over our dogs, I ask you to please open your eyes to the possibility that not everything you see on TV is right, and that there is a whole wealth of research that proves that these methods are ineffective, outdated, and really should have passed out of use by now (and probably would have if it hadn't been down to a TV company looking to make a quick buck off of some charismatic unknown man with no scientific background in training or behaviour).

Lets start with the 'Pack Theory' idea that seems to be the underlying basis for the methods used by most of these 'dog whisperers'. Their stance is that dogs form packs with 'alpha leaders' and that our dogs are in a constant battle of wills with us to become the 'alpha' and that we therefore need to assert our 'dominance' over our dogs. This idea is all based on the commonly known 'fact' that wolves form packs with an alpha pair and that there are constant battles for dominance from within the pack. Well, I'm afraid to say that this has been proven wrong time and again by observations of wild wolf groups. The world-renowned wolf expert David L Mech has spent decades observing wild wolves and maintains that they do not form large 'packs', but instead run in family groups consisting of the parents and offspring. The parents could be considered 'pack leaders' in the same way that any parent figure could be considered the 'leader' of a family, but they do not need to assert their 'dominance' over their offspring. Appeasement signals are used to avoid conflict and violent incidences are rare. Battles for supremacy do not occur as the juvenile offspring will move off to form their own family groups when they reach the appropriate age.

The other problem with applying this 'pack theory' to our dogs is that, even if you assumed for the minute that it applied to wolves (which it doesn't), our dogs are not wolves. So applying the same idea does not seem logical. Even more illogical is the idea that, even if our dogs are forming 'packs' with rigid hierarchies within our households (which they're not), we would be part of that 'pack' - why?! They're dogs, we're humans, we're two completely separate species, and our dogs know that. They don't think we're wolves in disguise. So trying to apply the same hierarchy 'logic' and insert ourselves into it is ridiculous. And what would being 'dominant' over us achieve for our dogs?! We're the ones with the opposable thumbs, we control the can opener and stock the freezer. We control their access to all resources. We are 'leaders' of a sort by dint that we do control all the resources - we don't need to 'dominate' our dogs to be in charge. I don't dominate my dogs, and they don't try to dominate me. We work together in a partnership - my dogs do as I've asked because I have made it worth their while, they comply without fear or 'defiance'. I would never want my dogs to have to fear me - what sort of a relationship is that?! The ideas of 'dominance' and 'submission' are very human ideas.

The most worrying thing about the whole 'dominance' concept is that its founder, Konrad Lorenz, developed it from Nazi ideology. He didn't ever study any wild wolves or real dogs, he just decided that that's how things were, and later 'experts' adopted it and interpreted what they saw to make it fit into this model. Their observations were angled to try to make them fit into this preconceived idea that they had. Hardly very scientific. There is no scientific research to back up this theory, but plenty of research to discredit it.

Secondly, the use of 'punishment' to alter behaviour. A huge amount of money and research has gone into the areas of learning, reinforcement and punishment, and a huge amount is known now about how best animals learn and how to most effectively alter behaviour. And punishment never comes out as the method of choice. Yet all of the methods used by a certain 'dog whisperer' involve punishment - rarely does he use praise or positive reinforcement. He doesn't look at trying to alter an undesirable behaviour by teaching an alternative acceptable behaviour - instead he waits for the dog to 'commit the crime' and then punishes it. Punishment rarely teaches our dogs what we want them to learn. For punishment to be effective it has to happen during or immediately after the act (and I mean 'immediately', like within seconds, not several minutes later), and we are rarely quick enough. Mis-timed punishment does not punish the intended behaviour, but will instead be punishing something else, often something we didn't intend to punish (e.g. dog wees on carpet, we call dog to us and then punish, we have just successfully punished the recall and not the weeing on the carpet). This is just one of the many unwanted side-effects that punishment can have. It can destroy relationships between people and dogs. But most importantly, punishment may teach the dog that we don't want him to do something - BUT IT TEACHES HIM ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT WHAT WE WOULD LIKE HIM TO DO INSTEAD! We have given him no information about what the correct alternative response was, and so have not taught him what to do in that situation in the future. Punishment at best suppresses a behaviour for a short time, but does nothing to teach a longer term 'correct' behaviour, and the 'problem' behaviour will likely reoccur in the future.

And how anyone who has watched this clip can in any way think this is acceptable, or who can find a way to justify it, really isn't human. And certainly has no understanding of dog training or learning theory. But then neither does the man holding the end of the leash.

For those who would like to read a little more on these subjects, try these links:

The COAPE offical Statement about their petition
Dr Yin's article on 'The Dominance Controversy and Cesar Milan
The American Veterinary Society for Animal Behaviour make a stand
The myth of pack theory by American training expert Kathy Sdao
K9 Obedience's stance on Cesar Milan
An article on why punishment doesn't work
'The Eight Ways of Changing Behaviour' by Karen Pryor

Another busy weekend!

2009-07-06T13:30:00.003+01:00

Blimey we've been busy lately! Each weekend seems to be packed with doggy activities, and I never seem to have the time to write about them in between work and Four Paws stuff! I've managed to steal a few moments at lunchtime, so here's a report from this weekend!

Saturday started bright and early with our two agility groups, our Beginner and our Foundation courses. What a fab bunch! The people are lovely, the dogs are coming along in leaps and bounds, and the sun always seems to come out for us! What a great way to start the weekend! Did a little bit of training with Finn and Willow afterwards, but didn't want to overdo it as they had a show on Sunday.

So Sunday brought with it a trip to Yeovil for the independent Sherborne Vale show. What a lovely little show that was, ideally designed for emerging youngsters just starting to compete. And how nice the organisers were - they were perfectly happy to let us drop Finn and Willow down to the Medium height category as both have been struggling with the introduction of full height jumps over the last few weeks (until this point they've been jumping at Standard as we've been doing UKA shows and didn't want to push them as they're both so small and still so young, and Willow loses confidence when she hits poles down, and Finn still seems quite physically immature). Our first class was the Jumping round, and Finn set off at his usual mad pace, but unfortunately a late turn command from me resulted in an elimination which was a shame, although he still thoroughly enjoyed himself!! Willow was up next, and bless her, she fell to pieces in the ring. The mad barking spaniel in the queue in front of her seemed to be too much for her to cope with (she's still finding the proximity of others at the shows hard to cope with), on top of the knock to her confidence she seemed to take in training this week when she knocked a few poles, and she went into meltdown mode. She's such a sensitive little soul! A nice walk with Finn seemed to cheer her back up, and for the Agility class we made sure she was kept well out of the way while I queued for mum. willow was much happier on the Agility round and zoomed off, getting all 3 contacts (and doing a seesaw for the first time in competition!) and securing a lovely Clear Round! A long wait for the prizegiving eventually revealed that Willow had got 9th place - unfortunately the rosettes only went to 8th!! A fab Clear Round though, and particularly pleasing after her Jumping round!

So, the last class of the day was a Steeplechase round (although the course was really a helter skelter and circled around on itself). Theoretically a nice course, although there were a few tricky turns. Once again Finn set off rather enthusiastically, and somehow managed to completely crash a jump. It didn't seem to put him off (nothing does!), but it was enough of a distraction to cause me to loose track of which particular loop of the course we were on, and we got a bit lost! Ooops! Willow then followed and was doing a beautiful Clear Round until the last few jumps were she suddenly got startled by someone sat a little too close at the side of the ring and missed a jump. Nevermind, it's all a bit of fun!

A pleasant day of competition, and yet another Clear Round for Willow! Really not bad going bearing in mind that was still only her fifth show! And the photographer chap even managed to get a couple of lovely shots of Wills that mum bought to put up on the wall. Somehow Finn never seems to get photographed!

And now for something completely different....

2009-07-03T22:39:00.002+01:00

In contrast to the horrendous Cesar Milan video clip I posted yesterday, here's something completely opposite to that - some fabulous dogs trained using positive methods to do some incredible things. There's no way you could get dogs to do those sorts of unnatural tricks with such glee using anything but positive reinforcement. And the most amazing thing - the video is actually from the 1950s! We tend to think of this kind of training as a very modern thing, but this man was clearly there way before us! And if these are the results, why would you train using any other method?! So sit back and enjoy Jay Sisler and his amazing dogs!

Cesar Milan - The Dog Strangler

2009-07-02T21:29:00.005+01:00

Ok, rant time again! I've just seen the worst piece of animal cruelty disguised as 'dog training' that I will ever likely see in my life. Courtesy of the man that divides opinion in the dog world more completely than anyone else - Cesar Milan. Those who love him seem to worship the man, but he is reviled by every behaviourist in America and most around the world. What seems to take people in is that he dresses his methods up in 'pseudo-science', and to the uninformed they could sound plausible. But the huge and gaping flaw in his 'system' is that he bases it all on the discredited pack theory and the idea that our dogs are trying to 'dominate' us, and that they see us as wolves and 'pack leaders' and the way to 'beat them' is to use these bizarre methods that are suppossed to imitate wolf like behaviour. Firstly, our dogs don't see us as wolves, so trying to imitate a wolf nip by poking them forcefully in the neck achieves nothing but increase the likelihood of you getting bitten by a very confused and scared dog. Secondly, wolves don't force submission on other wolves - any signs of submission are freely offered and accepted, but Cesar Milan's whole system seems to operate on forced submission (alpha rolls, pinning dogs, and in this particular case stringing the dog up by the neck). Thirdly, the whole pack theory has been accepted by the scientific world as a misinterpretation brought about by studying the behaviour displayed by captive groups of wolves made up of individuals who would not come together in the wild. Wolves in the wild live in family groups and battles for 'dominance' do not occur.

So, that's the general rant about Cesar over, now we come to the video clip. This has caused outrage amongst the dog communities, and I'm loathe to share it with more people, but I'm hoping this might open a few eyes as this is the most horrendous piece of cruelty, and really the RSPCA (or whatever they have in America) should be investigating this, and the tv companies should really stop broadcasting the man's shows. Anyway, here's the clip, comments to follow!!....

Video Clip of the Dog Strangler - click here!

Ok, where to start with this clip?!!
1) The dog was fine until Cesar Milan kicked it (really not sure what part of 'wolf behaviour' this is supposed to be replicating! Pretty sure they don't go around kicking each other). The dog felt a kick from behind him that was unexpected, his fight or flight instincts kicked in, he couldn't flee because of the lead, so had to 'fight'. Not dominance, but instinct (and probably a large amount of terror). And the only reason he keeps going back up the lead is because he's fighting for his life as the collar tightens around his windpipe and Cesar strings him up.
2) The only reason the dog 'submitted' and lay on the ground was because he was practically unconscious from being strangled for several minutes - if you look, his tongue is actually blue and he's gasping for breath. He's not submitting, he's practically dead.
3) Cesar classes this as a "dominant reaction" - it's not, it's a defensive reaction to being kicked and then strangled.
4) He doesn't want to 'relax' by the end of it, he's just trying desperately to catch his breath and wants the world to leave him alone - by the end of it he's a very shut down dog.
5) How on earth can those owners describe it as a 'big relief' to see their dog strung up?!!!

The word 'dominant' is used so freely these days, and is almost always used wrongly. I wish I never had to hear it uttered again. And certainly not as a justification for this kind of 'training' technique.

If you're going to watch any of the tv dog trainers, the only one worth any time is Victoria Stillwell, and the latest series of 'It's Me Or The Dog USA' was very good. Infact I saw an episode earlier which also dealt with a dog with a dislike of other dogs, and rather than strangle the dog, she used positive techniques to get the dog to refocus on it's owner and find the presence of the other dogs rewarding, and by the end of the show had made far more progress in a much more friendly and positive way. Video clip of Victoria talking about shock collars (something Cesar has been known to use).

Birthday Bonus!

2009-06-09T15:21:00.001+01:00

My birthday yesterday was enhanced somewhat by a phone call from 'Dogs Today' mag to say I'd won the June 'I Want One' competition and have won over £150 worth of stuff! How cool is that?! I only entered on a whim! :-) What a Birthday bonus!

Picnic Pleasure & Prizes!

2009-06-09T14:53:00.005+01:00

Well, what a brilliant day Sunday was! For those who weren't able to attend, Sunday the 7th of June saw the first ever Four Paws One Direction Picnic + Fun & Games afternoon being held at Camerton for all our doggy and human friends. And what a lovely afternoon it turned out to be! The weather was rotten in the run up to it, and the forecast wasn't great, but in the end the rain stayed off and the sun even made an appearance. Huge thanks to those of you who braved the chance of showers and came across to join in, I was delighted with the turn out and am grateful to you all for supporting us.

The Fun & Games seemed to run well, and I was proud of you all for giving everything a go, and was proud of your dogs for behaving so well. What a great bunch you are! The games were all hotly contested, with Billy & Lucy just pipping Sarah and Izzy in the Scurry run on their last attempt, and several ties in the Water Bobbing contest. The Tunnel Knockout Challenge was also well fought, and I thought that everyone who took part in this managed to pull their best performance of the day out of their dogs, so well done to everyone.

We've decided to donate all of the money taken from the small entrance fee to Irish Retriever Rescue, as well as the money taken from the donations for the cake slices, and will cover the costs of the day ourselves, so thanks for contributing. Our main fundraising event will be the Fun Dog Show in August, where we're hoping to raise a good amount for our chosen charities Irish Retriever Rescue and Valgrays Border Collie Rescue.

For more pictures of the picnic visit our website at http://www.fourpawsonedirection.co.uk/picnic.html

Happy 16th Birthday to Cassie!

2009-06-06T09:43:00.002+01:00

Well, she made it! My beautiful old girl has reached the grand old age of 16 today, making her our oldest lived dog so far! Words can't express how grateful I am that she's made it this far, as there was a point earlier in the year when it looked like it might not happen, but here she is, still barking away! Old age is definitely catching up with her now though, and it breaks my heart. They really are with us for far too short a time. But the impact they have on us is huge! Cassie and I have grown up together, I was 11 when I got her, she's seen me through my teens, several house moves, and much more. We spent weekday evenings together at training classes, and weekends racing around at agility shows. She's not got the legs for the racing around any more, but she still enjoys pottering around down the field, and food has become her obsession! Bless my little sweetheart! Happy Birthday Cassie.

Come on in, the water's lovely!

2009-06-03T17:58:00.002+01:00

After a week of hunting about, and trips to numerous Argos stores, Mr Finn yesterday finally got what every dog deserves in this hot weather... a paddling pool! A bit of initial reluctance to climb in (very suprising given how quickly he likes to jump into bogs! He's become known as 'the bog monster'!) was quickly remedied with the application of numerous squeaky toys bobbing around in the pool! Once he'd been in for the first time, he was more than happy to keep leaping in and out after that! We'll have to get Willow round for a play date to see if she's got any interest in bathing!

Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun...

2009-05-26T10:42:00.002+01:00

Saturday 23rd May

So, Saturday brought our third agility show with Finn and Willow, a local UKA show at Langford. How nice not to have to get up at 6am to travel 2 hours to a show! And what a pleasant day it was! The sun came out, we had some pleasant company from some new friends, the venue was lovely, the show was small and relaxed, and our dogs were so well behaved!

The first challenge of the day was to get them officially measured so that they could legitimately compete in the height category we’d entered them in. We were expecting the measuring process to be quite difficult with both of them as neither particularly like to be touched by strange people – Finn finds it stressful and gets himself in a bit of a state, and Willow finds it quite scary – but actually both put up with it fairly well (with the use of copious amounts of food to take the edge off of it!), and it was over in a flash! Both have measured into Standard as they’re such midgets which means that they can jump a height lower than full height at UKA regulated shows, so that’s great! They were both a bit borderline though – Willow is only a few mm above the lower limit and just missed out on jumping in the next height category down, and Finn is only a few mm under the upper limit for Standard!

So, with that challenge over, there was now quite a wait on for our classes. The dogs settled calmly in their crates in the van while we watched Apryl and Trixie running a clear round and getting 2nd place in Beginners Jumping. We then all went for a huge lunch in the cafeteria while we waited for the Beginners Steeplechase class to start. The course for this class turned out to be lovely and was fairly simple (although not necessarily easy!). Finn did a lovely flowing round, but unfortunately while doing a front cross, I was so busy abiding by the important rule of ‘never take your eyes off your dog’ that I forgot to look where I was and found myself positioned a little too close to one jump, and my leap to the left to avoid it pulled Finn off of his line and he missed a jump. All my fault though, and Finn was running fab! Willow was up next, and she was doing a beautiful round, but mum managed to pull her around a jump coming down the home straight (which turned out not to be quite as straight as we thought, hence Willow missing the jump!). Again, a lovely round from the dog, just a few handler errors to spoil it! We’re all still learning at the moment though, so we’ll just chalk it all up to experience!

The last round of the day was Willow’s Nursery Agility round, and after a long hot day we weren’t really sure how she’d run, but she seemed pretty keen on her way to the ring, so mum set off with her. And she ran her little heart out, doing a beautiful clear round with perfect contact point performance! What a little star she is! Two clear rounds in three shows is pretty good going, and is a huge achievement for both mum and Willow! And Finn’s first clear round isn’t too far away, he just needs his mummy to get it right!

Agility training and new addicts!

2009-05-11T21:15:00.002+01:00

So, great news, we’ve now got Sarah and Izzy so hooked on agility that they’re thinking about competing in the future! It does get addictive!!! And the even greater news…that means me and mum might have found a third member for team events at UKA competitions!! We’re thinking of calling ourselves ‘The Titfield Thunderbolts’ as our training field used to have a train line running through it and the Titfield Thunderbolt actually passed through it in the film (although we may start as ‘The Titfield Toddlers’ and work our way up to being ‘Thunderbolts’!). Either that, or we should be called ‘The Show Dog Rejects’ as all three dogs come from lines that are well respected in the Border Collie showing world, but all would be useless in the show ring! Finn is undersized, long in the body, has a very gay tail, and is extremely easily stressed and would find it all far too much to cope with. Willow is very anxious, fearful and reactive and forcing her to have a judge go over her would ultimately be cruel. And Izzy is far too excitable and reactive and would pogo at the judge, snap just in front of his face (in a friendly way, I hasten to add! She greets you by snapping the air just in front of your face!) and be banned for life! All three are going to be cracking agility dogs with a bit of time and effort, but blimey they don’t half have some issues! We all love our little colliewobbles to bits, but these are certainly dogs you wouldn’t want to end up in inexperienced hands…if Willow had gone to someone who doesn’t understand her, she may well have been re-homed multiple times by now, or worse been put to sleep. And before she came to us for some training, Izzy had been written off as ‘dominant’ and ‘untrainable’, and in another lifetime those labels might have stuck and who knows what might have happened to her after that (luckily we think she’s fab, and thanks to Sarah’s hard work she’s showing huge improvements, so well done to Sarah!). And Finn finds all of life so stressful and hard to cope with, and in less understanding hands may well have been forced to ‘get over it’, which I’m pretty sure would have destroyed him. Makes you start to question the breeding a bit, and wonder why there are so many collies with temperament problems out there, as ours certainly aren’t the only ones with issues! Sure, collies can be funny as a breed – they’re independent dogs who have been breed for a certain amount of ‘reactivity’ so that they can spot that tiny movement of a single sheep about to bolt in a whole flock – but they should be able to cope with modern life without finding it so stressful or scary or overstimulating that they’re permanently in a state. Anyway, at the end of the day, all three of us absolutely adore our three little munchkins, problems and all, and it’s all worth while when you see the progress they’ve made lately. So proud of them all!!!!

So what have we been up to since the last blog then? Well, we went to our second agility competition. No clear rounds this time, but Finn did a lovely round, just knocking a jump, and Wills did a nice round apart from the bit where mum decided at the last minute to change how she was going to handle the start and ended up confusing Wills! Lesson learnt = always go with the original plan!!! Our next show is on 23rd May, and it’s quite a local one, so that’ll be nice! A 7am departure as opposed to 6am! Unfortunately one of Finn’s classes is on first thing in the morning, and his other class is the last on, so we’ll be there all day! Oh well, it’s all good fun!!

Been fairly busy lately planning several Four Paws One Direction events! We’re having a Picnic + Fun & Games afternoon in June especially for all our doggy and human friends, and we’re holding our first ever Fun Dog Show in August which will be open to the public! Quite exciting and scary at the same time! Still looking for people to sponsor the cost of rosettes and to donate a few prizes so that we might make a bit more money for our chosen charities, as all profits from the Dog Show will go to Irish Retriever Rescue and Valgrays Border Collie Rescue, so if anyone out there wants to donate some prizes or pass us a few pounds (£4.50 pays to sponsor the rosettes for one class, and your name will go up on the website and the show schedule!), let us know! (http://www.irishretrieverrescue.com and http://www.valgraysbcrescue.webs.com/ for more details of the charities).

Anyway, apologies for the length of the blog! Will do shorter, more regular updates in future!! Thanks for reading this if you’ve made it this far!!!!

Love & Wags,
Shelley & Finn xxx

Our first agility show!!

2009-04-16T09:58:00.004+01:00

First blog, and what better to blog about than Finn and Willow's first agility show?!

So, lets set the scene! We set off at 6am for Evesham on Easter Sunday with a little anxiety in our hearts; this was to be our first agility show for over 5 years, and Finn and Willow's first ever show! We weren't really sure how our two youngsters were going to cope with the show environment and all the other excited dogs as they both have 'issues' of their own - Willow has anxiety issues over the proximity of other dogs and people, and Finn gets easily overaroused and stressed out by lots of movement around him - but we went along happy enough with the idea of running all our rounds as training rounds or just walking them around the periphery of the show ground and scrapping the rounds if necessary; we had no intentions of forcing them to do anything beyond their comfort zone. We arrived nice and early on a dry but hazy morning and had a quick look around to see where the rings were and when our particular classes might be on. We'd chosen this show as our first as there were 3 Beginners Steeplechase classes we could enter, and this seemed a brilliant way to start them off - Steeplechase classes consist purely of jumps and tunnels and at the Beginner level tend to be beautiful flowing courses, just right for giving youngsters confidence.

It appeared that one of our classes would be on first, so we set about walking the course and planning our strategy. It was a lovely flowing course right up until the last 2 jumps where there was a bit of a nasty twist, and we decided that as this was to be their first ever run in this sort of environment, if they looked happy enough around the edge of the ring then we'd put them in the class but run it as a training round, not for competition, with a toy in hand and stop and reward them both after they'd completed a few obstacles so that we didn't ask too much of them and we had a toy there to reward them in the face of huge distractions. The Maxi dogs were to run first, and Finn and Willow both fit into the next height category down, so we watched a few rounds to see how the course went, and then went to 'check in' with the ring manager on the ring mum had volunteered to help on and let them know we'd be free to help in the afternoon once all our runs were done. Slight mistake - they were desperately short of people to run the ring, so we ended up being launched straight into helping! It was quite fun being involved though! We were trying to keep an eye on the progress of the class we were due to run in while helping, and in the end were freed from our duties just in time to go and get our two colliewobbles and go straight to the ring for their height category. We had to join the queue straight away and didn't have much time to see how they were coping around the ring, but they seemed calm enough, so we took them into the ring with their toys to run our rounds as training rounds. Finn was first up, and after coming around the first jump with me because I didn't set him up properly, he then took off like a rocket around the ring, flowing beautifully and working really well, not even noticing the presence of the toy! He was going so well that there didn't seem to be any point in trying to stop him to get him to play, so I let him carry on going. He even got the slightly tricky turn at the end of the course! Apart from the slight run-by on the first jump, and the fact that the run was not-for-competition, it was a lovely Clear Round! And so up came Willow, again mum with toy in hand, and off she went, again flowing well and looking fairly confident. Mum tried to stop her to reward her with her tuggy several times, but she was very much of the opinion 'why do I need a tuggy when there's a jump there I could be doing?'!! All in all a pretty confident display from both of them, and we left the ringside grinning like fools! Really not bad for a first effort!!

And so to the second class. An absolutely beautiful Steeplechase class that we were certain they could both manage now we were feeling more confident! Finn ran first, just knocking a jump pole and missing a jump, but again a beautiful flowing round, with him working miles ahead of me, confidently and independently. And then came Willow. Managed to get this round on film, and as I'm filming it I'm thinking 'blimey, she's going well, she might go clear', and clear she does!! A Clear Round at her first show!! By any standard this is a pretty impressive feat, but made all the more impressive by the fact that only several hours earlier we weren't even sure if we'd be able to risk letting her off the lead to run!! Mum and I were just over the moon; we've been through so much with that little dog, and she did us so proud! I know of people who've waited 6 years to get a clear round at a show, and Willow did it at her first event (although if it takes 6 years to get a clear round then maybe an evaluation of training methods might be needed!)! So very, very proud! And she got the most beautiful Clear Round rosette to take home and pin on the board!

A lunch break then ensued, and we chilled with our two by the car, enjoying the bit of sunshine that had finally managed to break through the haze. Our third class of the day started immediately after lunch, and so we took them straight to the ring while it was nice and quiet before all the other rings commenced. A slightly trickier course, but again Finn was flying! He just knocked a jump down (and I slightly forgot where the course went!), but all in all another confident performance. And blimey is he fast! He's gonna be a little star! And Willow had another good round, just missing a jump somewhere, but again looked happy and confident. We then volunteered to help on one of the rings for the rest of the afternoon, and had a lovely time helping out.

The journey home didn't seem quite so long as we floated happily along! So very very proud of our two, we couldn't really have asked for more from them for their first show! Bring on the next! We don't have too long to wait, we've decided to do a late entry to a show on 3rd May, so only a couple of weeks to wait!! And in the meanwhile we'll keep working on perfecting our weave and contact performance; we're trying to build a completely independent and reliable performance of these pieces of equipment so that we don't have to always be there with them doing the 'cookie dance' or ever have to worry about missed contacts points! I think all the Foundation work we've been doing has certainly paid off, and I hope this idea catches on more and more with agility trainers - it's certainly the way forward, and I hope in the future will be how everyone trains!

Shelley x

Hello and Welcome!

2009-04-15T15:37:00.002+01:00

Hello and welcome to our new blog for all our random meandering thoughts on all matters dog-related! Keep an eye out for updates on our agility training progress and lots more!

Wags & kisses,
Shelley & Finn x