training 9/19/08

Quick trainig session tonight. Started with the DOH very nice, heeled around, got handed a cat carrier, more wandering around, hit. On the out I just came over and told him to out and said no, "out" when he locked up instead of outing like he was supposed to. He didn't get corrected, I just let him be slow. When he outed we waited until he got into the right position, again he tried some extra places to guard from first. He went to the right spot and escape bite. Same thing, out, no correction this time faster out and much calmer. Then I just took the leash off as it was getting wrapped around the decoy's legs anyway. He outed fine after that. He had 1 instance of switching his bite from an escape. I'm not sure if I should care. He is getting more confident that he won't get overcorrected so I'm inclined to think he'll not do it as he gets his confidence back up. Then we did the first session of the search and going into the guard. Prior to this he's done alot of hold and barks with a sleeve. He also does alot of escorts, but the 2 have never been conbined with him. First send was a little punchy, but not a real bite so we let him slide. Then decoy encouraged him into his escort position as he took some first steps. He went to it eventually, but needed some verbal help, and started his escort. He's kinda spastic during the escort and barks most of the time and pushes his head up and moves it back and forth while barking and could be a bit less "dirty". It's really annoying, I'm hoping he shuts up, but I guess he wont lose points for lack of attentiveness.... 2nd one was ok, same thing. 3rd one he came in and foot punched first, did 1 bark in the decoy's face, then sat and barked, it was nice and clean, escort was good too. His recalls suck right now since he's been doing so much guarding, Sunday he's going to have to do a bit more variety. I'm afraid to do the blind bark and hold out at club yet as I do best as a handler with new things and problem solving if I work them out first outside of club day, then bring it in once it's mostly done.

Princess bitch: She is the one who has had targeting progress problems. We worked her high targeting on a shoulder cuff and she was doing awsome. She did like 2 on leash bites, then 4 off leash. She was slamming into it full speed, it was great to see her have so much fun. She should continue like this until she's 150% sure of her targets.

Satan: Little Satan, who we figured out is almost 9months old now moved onto the harder leg sleeve tonight. It's suit thickness and hardness and she had no problem with it at all. She just worked drag ins -face and flee with some barrage and environmental stuff thrown in since she was doing so well with the new surface. Next time she can probably resume her normal free sends and more DOH since she didn't mind the new harder surface at all. Oh and she got about 3-4 easy bites for barking. She can get the hold and bark down before she's ever on the suit.

all for now.... Oh and it was a good skydiving week, got jumps in on Sat, Sun, and Monday. Wed got weathered out and I'm suspecting tomorrow is going to rain as well :( Sunday is on though! Oh except training is Sunday, huh, I'll have to figure something out...

training sunday 9/14 & 9/17

Sunday training sucked.  Roscoe did fine on the DOH with decoy circling us with me sitting in the chair, he's not going to miss the hit thats for sure.  But then it went to hell....  On the out the decoy correction made him angry and he wouldn't out, then he got corrected more and he finally did out, then he got corrected into his guard position (behind and between the decoy's legs).  Then his bite went to crap and he was barely biting on the escapes and got worse the more we did it.  We ended on a happy flee attack which he likes and does well with.  

So I thought and fretted over what to do for a couple days and came up with a plan for today's training.  We did the DOH as usual with the chair and circling which he's doing great with.  He barks and is kinds pissed the whole time, but he's very attentive so whatever.  Then the hit and time for the out.  I had the decoy do one correction, then wait and see what Roscoe does and how he reacts to find out what exactly he's reacting too.  Roscoe froze up on the correction and clamped down and was barking on the bite and pissed and worried all at once.  So I came up and took the leash and told him to out again and gave him a small correction and encouraged him to out and go to his guard, he instantly calmed down a notch when I had the leash and he did out and go to his guard.  Reward escape bite, this time I took the leash and told him to out and tapped lightly on the leash, he was not hectic or nearly as worried this time since the decoy didn't have the leash.  He outed better this time, then we just waited without telling him or helping him into the guard.  He tried various guarding positions and even a schutzhund hold and bark before he finally opted for the correct position.  Escape bite, repeat.  He calmed down noticably and was doing better and better each time and his grip and confidence was improving on the escapes fast.  I was ecstatic, Roscoe was much happier, the decoy said he learned alot too.  Everyone wins!  No more decoy corrections for Roscoe as he apparently will get too pissed and hectic and wierd from trying to deal with it.  

Puppy tiger looking girl, formerly pure hate: She gets happier and happier and more drivey each time I see her.  Her mood and drive and excitement are improving to where she's pulling and dragging in to bite.  Her targeting is good.  Her initial strike is full and hard now if she gets to drag in and let go at the end.  She will swing in the air and hang on fine.  Her grip gets a little soft after the initial strike, but doesn't get munchy.  I can deal with that, that should be easy to improve with frustration and drive building and some back pressure.  She still needs to have the leg sleeves off the legs, she gets better bites and I can make it more active this way.  She doesn't need the leg sleeves on the legs at 6 months anyway.  

Tank bitch #2:  We worked on the DOH with her with the schutzhund sleeve.  This helps her grip while teaching her to circle around her handler many many times in a row without getting tired.  She did great, she's attentive and is handling the added obedience well.  Friday we will go back to doing some high bites over obstacles and some tire tube back pressure work, with maybe 2 DOH mixed in with the sleeve.  

It was a good session for everyone...   

all work and no play.....

I need a break, Roscoe needs a break.  His little brain is fried I think from training so much, besides protection he's been doing obedience non-stop.  If his isn't, mine is.  I'm going to stick to send outs and starting that damn "little wood" scent discrimination torture exercise.  I hate that one...  Maybe skip all the rest for a few days.   

training 9/10/08

New field, very nice, fenced, and secluded from nosy neighbors.

First up - new female puppy alias pure hate, but she's too cute for that.  She is sooo much improved over when i have worked her in the past.  Before she wore a tiny flat collar to work and I think she preferred breathing to biting - who can blame her.  Today I saw a 180 switch in her behavior.  Before she was entirely reactive, waiting for me to move enough to excite her enough to react with a snap at the tug.  Today opposite, she was barking and lunging in order to make me move, she got that concept down in about 3 seconds of holding still to see if she'd try to initiate it and yeah she did.  Beautiful bark and lunge, that alone made me happy to see from her.  I tried to only reward her with bites when she was barking and lunging for it.  It's easier to get more excitement out of her if I have the leg sleeves not on my leg and I'd prefer to keep working her that way until she's crazier to bite overall, with them on intermittently during a session.  She badly wants to have a full grip, but I hesitate to make her regrips too easy for her to get, working a bit for them will do some good later.  Overall she did great, I hope to get her crazier and crazier until she's a nut straining constantly to get anything.  Then introduce drag in bites to really make a nice strong confident entry.

Roscoe - he did some bites through the bottle wall with the decoy way back from it.  basically I just made him be in it while he was bouncing up and down waiting to be sent.  It made lots of noise, he seems not to care.  Targeting and bites looked good to me.  He's flying in to bite.  His recalls are better in that he comes off and heads in my vacinity, but takes a wide loop past me before settling to his place between me.  It would help if he would take some sort of reward in exchange for coming back, but he wont.  The DOH is very nice specially for being on a new decoy.  He waits for the hit and watches from all sides of me.  Out was sticky.  Recall here kinda is iffy at best.  His bite looked not so full and pulling on the doh, he semed a bit stressed on the bite, or overstimulated or something, but he's not going to let go, so oh well.  

Tank bitch #2:  Miss tank is still in the throes of learning to target high so she can be a well rounded mondioring dog.  Or FR dog for that matter since she desperately prefers legs, so no amount of our high bite target work is going to make her go high unless the legs are blocked.  That is exactly the goal anyway, so perfect.  If she does do an FR trial she will be all over the legs.  she may take an arm on the doh, but unless your barrage was hugely covering your legs she won't go high.  Her high bites are specifically to avoid her getting lost in a giant mondioring accessory and being held off the bite with it.  So using a tarp strung in front of the decoy and feeding the bite over the top was working pretty well to get her to bite where she needs to.  Plus that works her grip since if she munches or doesn't bite hard she'll fall off.  Flee attacks were better in that she didn't pop off today.  Targeting is good too, but the bite was munchy here according to the decoy.  We talked a bit and think she needs to go back to the tire tube or the bungee for lower body bites to help the grip.   I'm not sure how much to worry about the grip, or how long to try to keep working on it.  I'm going to seek higher advice on that - no not god.....  seems at some point you just have to be cool with how it is as long as she can keep her grip on the suit, but again I want to try the tire tube maybe long term first.

training Mon 9/8/08

So this session didn't start off well with a neighbor pestering us to leave - thats the short version.  so when we finally started working.....

Roscoe did a couple sends through the bottle wall for the bite.  The bottle wall was way back like 10 feet from the decoy, but going through it still messed with his targeting and he ended up with a crotch bite.  I'm not sure if its from the bottle wall, or residual uncertainty from Sunday.  Either way we backed up and did some on leash targetting and then a free send or 2.  Much better.  Also worked the DOH which as I said before I am so happy with.  I never explained how we taught it:

Roscoe was put in a sit next to me while a decoy just wearing a schutzhund sleeve circled around me while I helped him stay in the right position following the decoy.  When he did a good job the decoy came up and stood close then hit me with the sleeve.  Roscoe bit and the sleeve was slipped.  This was soooooo much easier because it doesn't involve a fight and bite and out in order to repeat.  So consequently Roscoe and decoy had plenty of energy to do literally 20 of these in 1 session without breaking a sweat.  It made it very clear very fast for roscoe as opposed to trying to teach all that with the suit.  We did 2 sessions of this and now roscoe has the circling and staying with me down pat.   

Tank bitch #2:  This was a clusterfuck of trying to figure out how to get her to go high between using a hard barrier the decoy holds while she's sent free and not allowed the legs to using my bottle wall and trying to feed the bite over the wall.  Nothing worked quite right, I think this session of all of ours was a little nervewracking as nothing went quite right.  The bottle wall seemed to present problems with timing in getting her over it onto the bite and the fact that is crashes down.  The physical block of the legs with her sent free was better, but in retrospect she was learning too much circling around instead of going up.  Couple of flee attacks which she liked better.  She always has fun even if we are having some challenges getting her to branch out in the targeting.  

Satan:  Satan went through the bottle wall and to the bite about 7 feet on the other side.  This definately threw off her concentration.  Her target work is usually 100% consistent, but this put her biting a little higher than she normally does.  Now if you never saw her work you wouldn't know it was off, but I have a variety of bruises to map out exactly where she normally bites.  She did 3 passes through and each was better than the last.  Her bite once she was on it was perfectly confident and hard and full, so she didn't carry any stress from that through to the bite which is exactly what i want.  She will get to where that doesn't phase her and it can be moved closer and closer to the decoy -me and her reaction time will be unfazed enough that she won't miss a beat or a target.  She also worked on patience...  She had to sit quietly next to dad while I shook his hand a few times and waited.  She lacks much patience and would bite randomly when she decided it was taking too long.  But when she was good I hit the handler and she got to bite.  We did a couple of these.  I hope to have the timing with her down to where she is through all the environmental part of her training and progressing to the end of the DOH by Decemberish so she can transfer to the suit (which i know her owner secretely puts her on ;)) officially.  So right around there before that transfer we will need to introduce the whistle recall and most importantly get the escort under way.  The escort we can start with the leg sleeves but not yet that is more control than she's ready for.  

Sunday 9/7/08

Roscoe and the decoy had a miscommunication.  He thought Roscoe was going to bite low because he will bite legs if you attempt some lateral esquive stuff.  BUT if you don't do that he bites high and prefers it.  So basically it turned into a test of how he handles getting no target help on face attacks.  He was all over the place, it wasn't pretty.  He kept his grip wherever it happened to be but....He needs more target work still.  I know he's a full grown boy, so it's hard to remember he's only had 3 months of any sort of bitework in his entire life other than a seminar when he was 6 months old.  Not to mention about a month of that was spent only working leg exercizes like the escort while I waited for his appointment to get his teeth fixed from him chewing chainlink at boarding.  So bottom line is he still is just a baby when it comes to targeting at all.  Next was DOH which is looking reallly good, lots of circling before the hit, he does  the whole exercize basically and with only a few corrections.  He just needs to build on this introducing 2 decoys and utilizing random props like he'll see in a trial.  So now the fun will begin :)

training 9/3/08

Today we ventured out to a new field to meet up and train.  3 humans and 4 dogs.  I don't know if their owners want me using their dog's names on here so I'll refer to them by their alias'.  3 of the 4 did some obedience.  Using a new field really tells you what you need to work on.  I need to focus on healing Roscoe with lots of distractions and rewarding for it cuz he's easily distracted from healing.  The rest I thought was really good.  He retrieved a strange shoe.  The front sucked, way crooked, but nevertheless he retrieved what I threw and sat in front of me with it without chewing, so I was fine with it.  Positions were about where I thought they'd be with a new field and distractions - pretty ok.  long down with distractions great, food refusal good.  

Protection - first up was Satan (alias) a dobe female.  She just turned 8mo and is like a clean slate, like a christian after baptism...  I don't think she's had a single bad leg biting experience.  I caught her crappily on an arm sleeve once, but other than that she's progressed perfectly.  Today she worked on going through some bottles and pom poms to get to the bite, no problems.  She does like half length drag ins to free sends.  Little bits of intro environmental stuff while she's biting, that part is new, it's all been prior to the bite in the past.  She did great, but I'm going to rig something so that there are bottles with rocks in them suspended from something like 3 feet high so I can keep the stuff impersonal, so it's not like I'm smacking her with them, it's more like passive desensitization.  She doesn't need decoy opposition much yet.  She has great entries and is biting hard and full and learning to thrash a bit , but not enough to be worrisome.  Today was the first time she did holding the down at the line of departure work.  She downed and when she looked up at her handler he sent her for the bite, she was picking up on that easily.  She does a little puppy defense of handler, we are just working on her holding a sit, I walk up and talk a bit and shake his hand, she has to hold the sit and watch me for the hit, then bite.  Today she was a little dirty in this, but thats ok, she'll have it soon.  

Tank bitch #2 (alias): This female mali is 10 months old.  She has alot of drive and willingness to work.  She has had some issues with lazy biting a bit, but I think with reps and experience she will learn how it goes and it will come together fine.  Today we tried to see if we could get her un-fixated on the legs and to take whatever was there.  The first send she was trying desperately to get through the arms to get the legs.  hmmm bad planning, so we put her on the line, targeted her to the legs, then as she's dragging in blocked the legs with the arms, success!  She took it easily.  We did this over and over, but still she will fixate on the legs if she were to send free.  This is going to be the focus for a bit, exercises will have to go on hold until she gets this with arms blocking as well as with solid accessories blocking the legs.  The bites looked good, although I wasn't in the suit so I can't say how it felt from the decoy perspective.  Bites need to be shorter.  Must remember that.  She did get to do some longer flee attacks free as well.  Her drive and speed are great and she got him each time.  She doesn't know to hang on for dear life here, she bites well then loses it then gets it again and then realizes she has to hang on tight.  Rotating between flees and blocked legs are going to keep her occupied for a bit.  She likes flees, who doesn't, so that will keep her excited.  I think it is just a matter of maturation and repetition and not worrying too much on the human side that will help out and get her clamping hard every time.  She needs to be starting recalls off the bite.  

Roscoe - not an alias:  Roscoe finally learned some flee bite placement.  For some reason this has been totally ignored with him, so we did like 4 bites with me posting and the decoy coming in targeting the back of the bicep/armpit, then 1 free.  Dusk was setting in and it was a new field and I think it had an effect on him.  He was not outing as fast as usual and not wanting to come back to me, more than usual.  Anyway, he did well on the targeting, thank you Tanner!  His free bite was so beautiful, nice and high and great punch and speed.  Loved it so much I ended on it.  Roscoe has worked his last 2 sessions just on getting the bark in the blind clean and on rotating around me while the decoy circles on the defense of handler, so this was a good fun session for him to break up the teaching of the exercizes.   I hope to have him ready to trial in December if not, then February.  It's coming together nice so I'm happy.

hmmm dog #4 doesn't have an alias:  anyway...  She is an about 20 mo old dobe.  She has had some bite placement work high and legs.  Her foundation was in schutzhund at her previous owner's, so she naturally gravitated into high biting the moment she got her first free send earlier this summer, so it was decided that if thats where she wants to be then why fight it, so she's been doing high target work since.  Her targeting is still not super consistent, part of that is my fault I suppose.  I'm not a good, willing upper body decoy, I work leg dogs and a little young dog intro upper work.  I CAN target high, but I worry about the girl parts, since well I am a girl, so I pass off the high biters to the boys.  Unfortunately that means her owner has to don the suit while I handle her, or she gets worked on a new decoy, which is hard to do since both of them are trying to learn at once (dog and decoy).  What she really needs is some super bad ass upper body decoy who's not dad to take her for a few weeks and get the targeting down.  Until then, we muddle through.  We started the defense of handler tonight with just her sitting calm while the decoy walks up, shakes hands, then hits.  She did well in wanting to do it, but doesn't know the targeting again well which is a big handicap, but she did her best and was starting to get it by the end, she wants to do it right.  I think next time maybe an arm cuff would be better for that to keep it simple and obvious for her so she can just focus on the sequence of the exersize.  

It's hard as a handler to just do targeting and not want to see some progress in the exersizes, I understand that and have been there with one of my previous dogs- Meina.  She took forever to be consistent in the targeting on the jacket and even then she'd target randomly if in a new situation sometimes.  She also was started in schutzhund, switched to ring on the legs, but then had to be switched again to being a high biter when it became obvious she wasn't going to stick to the legs once she was free.  But she did learn, she did progress, and she did trial.  Her failing scores were completely my lack of motivation to work on the obedience at that point in my life, not through some shortcoming of hers.  

accessories

Accessories are fun to add in, but not right away except in small bursts.  All environmental distractions I try to keep to when they are dragging in, ie through all sorts of stuff, or them standing on random stuff while they are barking at the end of the line.  The bite is the reward for going through all the env, stuff.  The bite stays the safe fun place where all that other stuff drops away.  If it was stressful going through then the reward is the bite, not more stress once they are biting as well.  Once they are confident going through anything and everything to get the bite they will probably have gained enough confidence to be cool with a bit of accessories added into the bite as well.  So if thats the case throw a bit in, but not all the time.  Some bites should just be more calm and not so much noise of this or that clattering around them.  At some point it all becomes background noise to the dog anyway.  At that point you hope your dog can target around the pesky crap in his way to the bite.  Hopefully he knows to bite whatever is open to him at that point.  Mondioring started as a "level playing field" for dogs from many sports to join, but french ring dogs crossing over dominated for years.  It seems after years of mondioring becoming its own sport more techniques specific to success primarily for MR have been surfacing.  

3) upper body bites

For the puppy the majority of the work is biting the legs, but I like to mix in a few armpit bites with a removable puppy sleeve periodically.  I do this with something completely blocking like a tarp or towel set up across a jump or something.  The puppy is on leash teased for the leg bite but then when you step laterally behind the tarp or towel you attract the dog up and target it for a proper armpit bite.  The dog learns really fast to redirect to the open target instead of being fixated on where the leg went.  Balance these into sessions periodically doing more as the pup is older so they can transfer their target on a dime and as they are coming fast downfield.  This technique seems to be more and more popular as the accessories used in mondioring get more and more dense in what the dog would have to plow through to find a leg.  Leg fixation at that point will lose many points for "slow to bite".

2 )entries

By puppy I mean from when teething is done to about 10 months which yeah does get into the area of "young dog" as well.  So now the targeting is perfect...  Now I look to the dog to tell me what kind of entry building it needs.  Usually on leash drag into the bite builds drive to pull and give it their all and have a nice snappy grip once  they get there.  I quickly move them on from there to drag-to-free bites.  That last few feet has the handler let go of the leash to give the pup an exhilerating moment of finally! freedom.  The distance of the free part is gradually worked to be longer depending on the dog's reaction.  If you see hesitation instead of elation, then take it back to rotating between full drag ins - no free, and drag in with short end bursts of free in order to build up their confidence in their ability to do it on their own.  It's just a puppy, so unless it's more like 8 months than 5 months time is way on your side, no need to rush, let the pup progress at the pace they need.  Some young dogs do better with no restraint from the handler just free sends because they are very confident and want to run as fast as they can for the joy of getting there faster.  

So now the desire is strong, the grip is where you intended it to be, the grip is how it should be for their age, and the pup is building up its confidence for running in to get the bite on their own.  Next is some elementary upper body introduction for the primary leg dog so that later when it gets blocked by some giant accessory it won't bat an eye, but will plow over it to get a high bite.  

1) mondioring puppy progression

So I work the training club's puppies as often as I can because I like doing it.  I have a specific progression I want to accomplish with each of them and seeing them progress makes it worth it to me.  Primarily I want the little guys to learn first to pull on the harness and be excited for the moving rag, puppy sleeve whatever.  Second I want them to bite how I like them to - calm, full and hard.  I know that seems counterintuitive to some ring trainers, but I like the puppy bite to be that way because it's not going to stay that way, they will learn to fight and counter when they are older, but right now they need their head clear and calm to learn a few things that will follow them their entire working career.  While they are young and in a good state of mind, no distractions like environmental stuff, not much clatter stick besides mild background noise, no issues created from overstepping their threshold etc -this is the prime time to focus only on the targeting including turning the head both directions and biting mid-shin to knee.  Until they have that mastered I don't like to bring in anything else that can cloud their thinking or desire to bite right where I want them to.  Too much stick or environmental -which is usually any since they are so young and clueless still causes them to have difficulty learning the basics.  I failed my first training skydive because there was just too much going through my head to think straight, dogs are the same, they learn better if their head is in the right place.  Once the targeting is so reliable that I know a leashless bite will still end up in the right spot, the I move on to building the entry....

Roscoe goes from traveling skydive bum to mondioring dog

Roscoe is my boy, a 2 year old belgian malinois.  He trains for mondioring, but he got a pretty late start.  Shortly after I got him I learned to skydive, which I found out is highly addictive, moreso to some degree than dog training and competing.  So my wonderfully bred malinois became my traveling buddy going from dropzone to dropzone for weeks on end while I jumped from hundreds of planes.  I don't think he minded, he's gotten to run amok all over the west coast, southwest and mountain states in his short 2 years.  Then the husband and I and the 3 dogs packed it up and moved to Salt Lake City, UT.  Now we have skydiving only 1/2 hour away and the Perrine bridge in Idahoto b.a.s.e. jump from only 3.5 hrs away.... so we don't need to travel so much to have fun, and thus began Roscoe's re-introduction into the life of training that should have happened from the time he was a little guy.