OTCH Twittys Herdsmens Dream UDX, OA, OAJ, RA, HT, FDCH-G "Tyler"

July 23rd will be a day I never forget. I said goodbye to my Tyler. He has left a huge hole in my heart as he was my very best friend for almost 15 years. See Tyler was my introduction into the World of Dog Training. He introduced me to Obedience, Flyball, Agility, Tracking, and Herding. He taught me how to win and how to loose. He was there during High School,Prom, Graduation, my first apartment, my first house, marriage, my first child. He was there for me through all the changes life brought me. Always by my side, ever loyal, and always giving 150%. So many things I could tell you about him, but what I remember most about Tyler was how he loved me unconditionally. He didnt care if I lived in a crappy apartment or a house in the city. He could careless if he was riding in a brand new car or a shot up old van. He liked me in the morning before I brushed my teeth or before a dinner party in a 3 piece suit. Tyler loved me more than Girls, Obedience, Agility, Flyball...maybe not more than herding, but I came a close 2nd. He loved me when I was frustrated during training sessions and after corrections. He loved me when I groomed him (which he hated) and when I picked him up. He was my dog. My mom remembers him running into the living room to watch me out the window as I walked to the bus stop in the mornings before school and I remember how excited I was to see him when I got home. Our bond was special and it was true. He loved me and I loved him...he helped me through some of the most difficult times any young adult can face and no matter how different my life was or what stage I was at, his love was the same. His body began to go and rather than allow him to loose the dignity he always had, I made the difficult choice to let him go. In my heart I knew it was time as bad as I wanted him to stay. I groomed him like I would for a show, carefully removing the mats on his underbelly, trimming his nails and wiskers, line brushing him and making him look like the superstar he always was. When I said goodbye, he could barely hold his head up and I was there with him when he took his last breath. I miss him more than anyone can know, but I never forget how he showed me unconditional love and all the things he introduced me to.

Planning for Puppies...

I am excited to announce that we will be expecting our very first litter of Border collie puppies in the Spring. "Girlie" Bordaux's S.H. Ewe Go Girl will be bred to ADCh TBC's Epic Adventure AX, AXJ (and a bunch of other alphabet soup. Girlie comes from my favorite Border collie of all time, "OTCh This Bud's 4 Ewe UDX, OM, HXA'sd, FGDCH - 30K". Buddy is owned by my very good friend Becky Babicz and I had the priviledge of helping Becky train Buddy for his OTCh title. I would always say to Becky," That dog has something you cannot train" and to this day I believe there isn't anything you couldn't teach him. I was lucky enough to stumble into my Buddy daughter through the generosity of Kathy Iozzio who owns Girlie's dam, SinCity Static FGDCH - 30K. Girlie's CERF and Elbows are NORMAL and her hips were rated EXCELLENT. Her Great Grandsires are Both Supreme International Herding Champions (Dam's side) Wisp and Sweep. Even with health clearances and a top notch pedigree, finding a stud dog was not easy! First off, Girlie is WHITE FACTORED, so her suitor had to be Non-White Factored. After several misses we found Epic, he was actually recommended by Susan Rider and after looking at him I contacted his owner Elizabeth Dott. Epic at three years old is already a USDAA ADCh and working on his AKC MACh. His pedigree goes back to the Bo-Tyne Foundation dogs as well as working imports. Flashy and Stylish on stock with good structure and excellent temperments - lets not forget the best part - HE IS BLACK! I have been reading and buying just about anything I can get my hands on about early neurological stimulation, imprinting, and puppy rearing. Like anyone who has a litter of preformance puppies, I want to give them the biggest boost I can to do great things for their owners. I think we have an excellent cross and I am excited to meet the little ones and watch them do great things for their owners.

Additional Seminars...

We ( and I mean me and the dogs!) had a wonderful time with the folks in Indian River and are looking forward to presenting our second seminar series with them later in the year. Our "round two" seminar, "Don't say the "d" word" is all about showing handlers how to successfully drill pieces of exercises, reward effort and zone in on precision pieces without killing speed or attitude. I will be doing this seminar in late February with the folks in the Brevard County Dog Training Club, Indian River, Marion Alachua and possibly the Dog Training Club of Tampa. Sarasota Obedience Club will be hosting our foundational seminars "Healing your Heeling" and the "Problem Solving in Open and Utility" later this year. Seminars are so much fun and I have enjoyed the clinics and watching handlers improve since their attendance. Here is what a recent seminar attendee had to say:

"I thought you might enjoy a testimonial from my last night's practice with Kwest.

We did individual run throughs for Barbara (Bill Dilliard's daughter) to determine where we need work for Novice competition. Barb is also an AKC obedience judge. Going through the exercises, I remembered to use the head cues for turning and other little things you had in your seminar. At the end, Barbara said she would have given Kwest a 197. With any other dog, I would have been over the moon with such a score. However, I know he can do so much better. That "picture of perfect" is so much clearer for me now. I noticed the slight lag in the about turns, the occasional lowering of the head, the very slightly off recall sit. Those baubles that I would have accepted in my other dogs are not what I want for this dog. His natural abilities let me believe in the "picture of perfect". Perhaps one of my all time favorite "ah hah" moments in dog training. Thanks!!!!"

It's reading comments like this that I love. Good Boy Kwest!

OTCH on!

Over the last few years I have kept my showing to a minimum, not sure why, but just didn't have the zest for the ring that I had when I was showing Tyler and since his passing (We said goodbye to him in July) my want to be in the ring has returned. Since finishing Brandy's UD the time has come to pursue her OTCh/UDX titles. Truth be known, I would really like an invite to the National Obedience Invitationals while they are still in Orlando, but much of that depends on Brandy winning and much of that depends on how much we show. As luck would have it, she obtained her UD and her very first 17 OTCh points and a Utility B 1st all on the same day. Her latest romp in the Obedience Ring garnered her 32 additional OTCh points. Saturday she picked up 26 OTCh points by winning both Open and Utility B earning her 1st UDX leg (also a HIT/HC). The next day she won Open B giving her 6 additional points. That brings her total since November to 49 with all the required 1sts needed for her OTCh title. This is all very exciting, but I have to be mindful of the little things that come up. I have noticed her Go Out's take SUPER REINFORCEMENT and have not held up over 2 days of competition. By the end of day two I begin to notice overdone finishes and more distractability. These are things that have to be ironed out without killing attitude. Such a balancing act this Obedience Game.

Do it Naturally...

Seems like everything these days boast “Natural” on their labels. Slogans like “Made with 100% Natural Man Made Materials” seem to pop up all over the place with companies trying to cash in on the consumers quest for products that are “Natural”. Sadly, while the world is turning to more “Natural” products, dog trainers and their dogs seem to look more and more “Unnatural”. There are many areas of training dogs where unnatural is present both in the ring and simply what we ask of our dogs. When I was thinking about this article and what I thought would be helpful to competitors the most obvious “unnatural” thing I see in Obedience was the dogs head in heel position. We have all seen the teams where the dogs head is so cranked up it almost looks painful to walk with that much angle of neck and RARELY is this team able to sustain this unnatural position for longer than a leg of a heeling pattern before the dog must take a break and drop the head into a more natural position. It is going to be assumed in training this dog will be corrected for the head drop…the question is, is this fair? Years ago I watched someone train a miniature horse to pull a wagon. After the little stallion learned to accept the cart and his reign qs, the harness was tightened to bring the little horses head up. Each week the horse basically had to learn to pull all over again as the head was brought up higher and higher. It reminded me of the chapter in Black Beauty where the horse was taught to pull a wagon fashionably…the worst part was the bit and reigns were tightened which didn’t allow him any relief from this very unnatural position and it wasn’t fair.
Natural heel position for your dog is the one you should use. You can see by the photos below the difference in a “Natural Heel Position” (one where the dog was placed in heel position and looked up in a position that was comfortable for her as it was the position she chose)


and an “Unnatural Heel Position” (one where I used food to create a position that would be a lot of work for the dog to maintain)
Looking at these two photos spoke volumes to me in terms of fairness to our dogs and in my head I am hearing, “Pick your battles!” The natural position has several good points:
Natural Position Pros
1. It will be easy to build value to.
2. The dog will default to it.
3. Being comfortable will mean longer periods of sustained attention during heeling.
4. It will not create long term training battles.
Natural Position Cons
1. May not be as flashy.
Ok, so I couldn’t think of any “Cons” other than the flash, but let’s be real…flashy gets attention and we all at some point wish we could get that flash in our own dog. The downside, we chase rainbows. We work and work on the flash rather than appreciating and working with what our dog could easily give us naturally, comfortably and happily. We also tend to focus so hard on the flash we forget about the driving force behind it…attitude. When you forget to reward attitude, it’s the first thing to go and the first thing you will miss. Now don’t get me wrong, I want my dogs head up and watching me when we heel, but I want the dog to tell me what is comfortable and easily attainable for them, that is what I am going to choose to reward, rather than attempt to create an artificial look that will require MUCH higher standards for the dog.
Try this:
Ask your dog to sit, hold his favorite toy or food treat in your hand close to your chin. Move yourself into heel position. How long can your dog hold this position? Does he move? Move the desired object down your body and watch your dogs head, neck and eyes…he is looking, but doing it where he is comfortable. His attention is just as focused, but he is telling you what works for him.
Now try this:
Stand up. Lean your head back and look at the ceiling and count to 100. Now, look at the same spot on the ceiling by just looking up. Which was easier on you?
If we allow our dogs to tell us what is natural for them, we can easily tell them what we want and you will speed up your heeling training and be much less frustrated in the long run. Remember, life’s stressful, training your dog shouldn’t be.

Skills and Drills Seminar with Fast Friends in Deland, FL

Here are some shots from the Fast Friends Seminar in Deland, FL.



This seminar was centered around simple drill exercises where we broke them down and showed how to drill the pieces and what to look for to get more from the dog with each piece. It was a fun weekend and the dogs got more floor time than any seminar I have been too. I look forward to doing this again sometime in the future.

Know when to hold ‘em and know when to shut ‘ em.

                                          

It’s funny – most dogs love eye contact! They really do…even as small puppies, MOST dogs tend to want to engage you with their eyes. Understanding how to utilize eye contact in your training can give you a competitive edge over someone who casually passes over understanding this portion of attention.

To give you an idea of my own personal experience with “eye contact abuse” I will let you know about an experience I recently had in Utility. I am debuting a new Utility dog, she is green and it’s been a while since I have shown in Utility – 2006 was the last time, if that helps paint that picture a little better. Things were going well the first go out was fine, no biggie. The second go out, call it nerves or what have you, when I gave my dog the signal to take the bar jump, she took off running…TOWARDS ME! It was in this very instance I realized a very valuable and possibly costly mistake. Rather than do my normal Q to the jump (head tilt and then arm signal) I simply stared straight at my dog. I changed her understanding of the exercise and from her experience I only look at her on RECALLS, so a recall she started to do. Thankfully this story has a happy ending. Luckily, I realized this error while there was still time to salvage the run and I quickly closed my eyes. With my eyes shut, Brandy realized immediately this was not the Q for the recall and my very bright little sheltie promptly turned and went over the bar jump. I have attached the video of her run so you can see her “almost” mishap.

There are certainly going to be times when you need to “Kill” eye contact, like in the scenario above, and times when you need to pour it on (Fronts and Finishes). The difference in straight fronts and finishes can be simply where you put your face. I tell my students, “LOOK WHERE YOU WANT THE DOG” and that’s where he will be. Many handlers sway back and forth trying to get the dog in front, many of them spit various amounts of disgusting things not made for human consumption, many follow the dog in and inadvertently allow the dog to guide the head position causing the handler to maintain eye contact during crooked fronts. Remember, earlier I said, “dogs love eye contact” so this is the same as a reward and if you give it while in certain positions the dog can begin to build value to it, so be careful to only build value to the exact position you want. For a finish – you need to “break” front eye contact and give it back when the dog has reached the next position you want to build value to (heel position).

Try this the next time you work your dog. Leave them on a “Novice Recall”, call them to front, but turn your head so your face is facing far right and then the far left. See where your dog lands. Rather than tell them to finish, simply turn your head the direction you normally finish your dog. See what happens there.  I know the answer – but I will let you read that book, so I don’t spoil the ending!