BRINGING UP PRESTO! Box Work: Sit/Down/Stand

Sometimes I think there should be background music while the Utility class is in session . . . a little traveling music.

Entering the cardiac arrest phase of the signal exercise, Hortense stands Fluffy and heads toward the other end of the ring.  Fluffy creeps forward while Hortense's back is turned.

Hortense gives the drop signal.  In the process of going down (assuming, of course, that she doesn't go into a sit and blow the whole thing) Fluffy moves two steps closer to Hortense. 

Now the sit.  Fluffy's conversion from the down to the sit involves moving everything forward.  By the time Hortense gets ready to signal Fluffy to come, Fluffy is probably two or three points closer to the other end of the ring than she was when Hortense left her on a stand.

A few minutes later it's time for the directed jumping exercise.  Fluffy goes flying out there, executes a turn that doubles as a tour of the far end of the ring, walks about three steps forward and sits.  Then repeats the whole performance on the second go-out.

All of which explains why I teach the sit, the down, the stand and the go-outs in a PVC box.  And why Presto! began his "box work" when he was nine weeks old.

See my post of August 22, 2011, "The Many Uses of the PVC Box," for more on how the box is constructed and used.  Note that the box should be only slightly wider than the dog.  But that only matters when teaching a tight turn and sit. In the photo that accompanies this post -- taken several weeks ago when Presto! was slightly more than nine weeks old -- he's working in a much larger box, one I had from earlier dogs.  By the time we incorporate the turn and sit, many months hence, he will have grown to fit the box.

The first step was to teach Presto! to love his box.  That took one brief session.  I put the box on the ground, said, "Get in your box,"  lured him into it with a treat, said, "Good box!"  and gave him the treat.  Pretty soon, whenever the box hit the ground he ran into it, looked at me, expected and received his treat.  Now, several weeks later, I say, "Should we do box work?"  and he runs to where the box is leaning against the wall on the back porch.  Everything about him says, "Hurry up!"

Unquestionably my strongest motivation for starting box work almost as soon as I got the puppy was to teach the "concertina" (foldback) down at the dawn of his experience.  Let a dog get into the habit of going through a sit enroute to his down and you're flirting with multiple NQ's when Rover gets to the sit, stops there and thinks he's completed the exercise.

All the sit/stand/down execises are taught at the closed end of the box, up close to the raised bar.  (The one in the picture is raised 3.4 inches.) That bar effectively inhibits Presto! from traveling forward as we practice these exercises.  So he has never even thought of creeping forward on any of these position changes.

At a very early age he's forming habits I'm confident will reduce unnecessary loss of points during his competition obedience career.  And he loves it.

Let's leave discussion of box work's role in teaching go-outs until my next post, "Box Work:  Go-Outs."

Willard

BRINGING UP PRESTO! Want-To

Presto! hadn't been in his new home nine hours before he had his first little lesson.  Right now, at 14 weeks, he enjoys three five-minute lessons a day.  We're rotating through 25 little "exercises." 

Fundamental to everything I'm doing with him are these two absolutes:

Everything we do must be fun. My first instructor, Debby Boehm -- the person who took me from bumbling neophyte to (bumbling) OTCH handler -- told her students, "If first you get want-to, all else will follow."

Think about it.  In your lifetime, what's been easier to learn, something you loved doing or something you hated but had to master?

When I say, "Should we go practice?"  Presto! can't contain himself.  Each training session consists of five or six exercises.  He can't wait to get into position to begin each exercise.  Between exercises, he sticks to me like glue, head up, eyes riveted on me: "What're we gonna do next?"  And the learning curve has gone right through the roof.

I train exclusively on a buckle collar.  Presto! will never see a prong collar.  And God knows he'll never see an electric collar.  Both are the tools of weakness.  Would I change my mind if I had a Rottweiler?  Absolutely not!  It's about want-to,  not about , "By God, you have to!"

Everything we do is laying the foundation for the exercises that will be so important later.  The
first thing Presto! ever did here, training-wise, was little follow exercises. Those were preliminary, preparatory, precursors to preludes and preambles to heeling.  In other words, he didn't know he was starting to learn to heel; he only knew he was having a blast (for a grand total of 30 seconds).  He's still having a blast, but now, at 14 weeks, he quickly pops into position when it's time to heel.  He does a nice tight about turn. (I didn't teach that, it just happened one day.)  And when I halt he sits at my side.

Oh, and all this is off leash.  We won't have any heartburn later about taking the leash off -- he's been off leash since he was eight weeks old.  However, recently I've disciplined myself to put the leash on about a third of the time. We're going to need that in Novice.

There's all this talk (quite valid) about the difficulty in teaching go-outs.  "We've put so much effort into teaching the dog to be at our side, to be focused on us," we say, "then suddenly we want him to run away from us, and in a straight line to boot. That's so hard for the dog!"

Presto started doing little go-outs when he was nine weeks old.  He gets to run out to a target, get a treat, then run back and jump for another treat.  He loves it.  He'll grow up never knowing about the difficult transition.

More about go-outs and sits and stands and downs, all of which I teach in a PVC box, in my next post, entitled "Box Work."

Willard

BRINGING UP PRESTO! Catch-22

"You're damned if you do and damned if you don't," said Mindy Masch.  It was during our Dog Daze training group several weeks ago. We get together at the crack of dawn on summer Sunday mornings.  We know a shady park, and that's where we train.

Mindy was commenting on the absence of my nine-week-old border collie puppy, Presto! There was no way I was going to bring the little guy out to a city park and put him down on the ground. 

That's the dilemma -- the Catch-22 -- we face with our young obedience-ring-bound puppies.  We weigh the benefits to be derived from being in a competition obedience environment -- the ring, the handlers, a surrogate judge, the other dogs -- versus the threat of possible infection lurking there.

You hear a lot about parvo around here, particularly in the spring and fall.  "It's so easy to transmit infection," says Chuck Toben, our vet for nearly a quarter of a century.  "A parvo-infected dog can shed and another dog can pick up the disease from the hair that falls to the ground."

Fortunately, Presto!'s litter was super-socialized.  Mike and Maureen Inman -- the people who are Wildfire -- saw to that.  Maureen teaches competition obedience, and her students would pop in and play with the puppies.  Mike told me he was staying home on his vacation to take care of (read play with) the puppies.  Jessica, their nine-year-old daughter, had a steady stream of friends coming in and out.  A couple of weeks before I picked up Presto! in Chicago Jessica hosted a sleepover.  It's safe to say the puppies were the featured attraction.

Nevertheless, I didn't want Presto!'s socialization to end when he became part of our household.

Twice, Barbara has brought him to Dog Daze for cameo appearances lasting about 30 minutes. He has never touched the ground.  When he wasn't in someone's arms, licking faces and being oohed and aahed over, he was in a crate which in turn was sitting on a thick rug.

And I've been inviting people -- friends and neighbors that I know come from infection-free environments -- to come to our house, meet Presto! and play with him.  One brought her six-month-old (dog friendly) border  collie puppy.  We turned them loose in the backyard and for a few minutes it was gangbusters.  Given that it was a 107-degree Sunday afternoon, we had to shut that little circus down after about five minutes.  Which was okay:  a tired border collie is a good border collie.

Presto! will get his third immunization shot on August 20.  The following Sunday there's a match in Flagstaff.  That'll be his coming out party.  Not that he'll be going into the ring  But he'll be fully present in a simulated trial environment for the first time.  He'll walk around, visit, get petted.  And he'll practice, outside the ring, a series of little puppy exercises that up until that time had been confined to the backyard.

At which point our Catch-22 will be history and it'll be time to run with the Big Dogs.

Willard

BRINGING UP PRESTO! So Much to Learn

The woman's dog is running loose among the setups at the obedience trial.  Oops! he just peed on a tent pole.  Turning inside out with embarrassment and apologies, the woman explains, "But he won't potty unless he's off leash."  Lady, please!  Train your dog.

So Presto! is making a substantial number of his forays into the backyard on a flexi.  The better to get that habit pattern established right now, just short of 12 weeks.  Also, the better to keep my little dirt-eating machine on the grass and away from the flower beds.  Particularly here in the valley fever capital of the world.

So much to teach.  And all at once, or so it seems.

Presto! was introduced to a children's toothbrush the first morning he was in the house -- at 8 weeks and one day.  The first couple of days he just played with it.  Now we brush.  Not that there's much there to brush, and brushing all those little needles called baby teeth isn't very significant.  But  Presto! doesn't fight the toothbrush.  A habit has been established that will serve us well for his lifetime.

Fortunately Presto!'s litter (four girls and four boys) was exposed to many people on a daily basis -- Maureen Inman's (Wildfire) students, her daughter's friends, etc.  So my little guy is used to being handled all over.  He loves to have his paws  held and stroked, doesn't mind a "pedicure." And I do plenty of handling where my hand is in his collar.

In fact, one of his exercises is a little "Get it!"  I kneel down and slip a couple of fingers under his collar (in front, under his chin, palm up).  The other hand holds a little treat above his head.  Saying, "Get it!" I pop him up to the treat.  "Pop him up" has quickly become a joke.  He likes this little exercise so much that I have to restrain him to keep him from leaping for the treat as it emerges from my top left pocket.  I alternate right and left sides.  Not only is this just one more fun activity with my hand in Presto!'s collar; more importantly it gets him jumping for treats.  Throughout his training there will be situations where I'll want to have him jump for treats -- it builds drive.

So much to learn.  And so much fun!

Willard

BRINGING UP PRESTO! A Yarn About Tugging

Long before the first time I held him in my arms and he gave me nonstop kisses, Presto! had really close friends.

His breeders, Mike and Maureen Inman, have a nine-year-old daughter named Jessica.  And Jess has a friend named Jenna.  As Presto! was handed over to me in O'Hare Airport, I was told that Jess and Jenna had given him his pre-adoption bath that afternoon. And that they had been his caregivers . . . and had fallen madly in love with him.

Jenna and Jess had made "cards" for me on sheets of colored paper.  One said:  Dear Willard, please take very good care of Presto! for us.  We know you will.  He is an amazing dog and we love him.  Thank you for taking care of him.

Along with the cards came a special toy.  Jess and Jenna had woven strands of colorful yarn into a little tug toy . . . just right for my eight-week-old guy.

That toy, made of yarn and love, became an important part of Presto!'s earliest lessons.  I used it to teach him to tug . . . and release!  Any dog can tug, but the trick is to control the game. -- to teach him to surrender the toy on command.

It took Presto! about one short lesson -- four reps -- to figure out that the word "Give" would instantly be followed by a little treat in exchange for the toy.  By the second lesson he was tugging with one eye on my left shirt pocket, from whence cometh the treats.  When the hand went to the pocket the tug toy was released. Proving for the umpteenth time that my border collies are smarter than I am.  But at eight weeks??!!

Yes, Jess and Jenna, Presto! is an amazing dog.  And yes, I'm taking very good care of him.

Willard

Bringing Up Presto! "Little Follows"

There's a rumor skulking about in the land that teaching heeling is b-o-r-i-n-g for the dog.  Shh!  My dogs don't know that.

Presto! and I arrived in Phoenix from Chicago on a Wednesday evening.  He had his first competition obedience lesson late Thursday morning.  Little fun things, each of which served as foundation building for the competition exercises of the future.

Embedded in that 10 minutes of fun was the important prelude (well, more like pre-prelude) to heeling.  Louise Meredith, the doyenne of all this stuff, calls this first phase "little follows."  Okay, little follow exercises on day one of my little guy's training.

With Presto! in front of me -- well, sort of in front of me, they skitter around at eight weeks of age -- I held a little treat in both hands, the treat plainly visible.  Way down there at nose level.  Then I took a few steps backward.  Presto! followed, straining to get the treat.  We did that a few times, the purpose being to get the little guy head up, focused on the treat.  Indeed he was; he was right on it.

By Friday morning I was convinced he was locked in and I started leading him in little figure eights around my legs.

Soon I added the piece de resistance for the little follows phase.  Now the treat ( PetBotanics, quarter-inch squares) moved to my left hand, between my thumb and forefinger. At this point heel position means nothing.  I go to him, meeting him where he is, positioning myself so that he's on my left side -- in the same zip code as heel position.  The treat is held maybe half an inch above his nose.

At this point I introduce the command, "Strut!"  That will be my command to move out when the judge says, "Forward."  Here at the dawn of Presto!'s heeling experience I only want Presto! to hear the word and begin to associate it with moving forward.  A few steps and Presto! gets the treat and a ton of quiet praise.

Except when I call my dog from a distance, all my verbalizations are quiet.  Those who yell at their dogs during training are simply betraying weakness and ineptitude.  And God help you if one of them is in the next ring when you are showing.

Yo! Great Dane owners.  Blessed is the tall dog.  I'm 6'5".  When Presto! is "heeling," head up, his nose is about 16 inches above the ground.  I have to think that right now my little follows must be comical to the observer.  So the photo above is a little treat for you . . . to give you your jollies.

Oh, my achin' back!

Willard

BRINGING UP PRESTO! It's All About ME

Presto! came home on Wednesday, the day he turned eight weeks old.  His training began the next day, at eight weeks and one day.  I would have preferred to start working with him at seven weeks, but the intransigent curmudgeons at  the FAA wouldn't allow the little guy on an airplane until he was eight weeks old.

Job One was FOCUS.  On ME.   And the time to start was now.

I sat on the kitchen floor, my back against the cabinets below the counter.  Legs apart in a V.  I held a treat (Pet Botanics from PetSmart, cut in tiny quarter-inch cubes) between my lips.  "Presto!, come!" Both hands in his collar, I guided him up the front of me so he could get the treat from between my lips.

Presto! thought that was swell.  He was doing exactly as I wanted, coming in, head up, looking me in the face.  Until the third time.  That was when he realized there was a treasure trove of those same goodies in my upper left shirt pocket.  So he fought to get there instead of my mouth.

Lesson learned . . . by me.  Henceforth when we practice that or anything like that, the treats will be above us, on the kitchen counter.  And I'll put them into service one at a time.

There was, however, a plus -- a big plus -- to that little incident.  When I begin to teach heeling I want the dog's focus to be on my upper left (on my armband in the later stages), and I want the treats to always come out of that top left pocket.  Not out of a fanny pack positioned God knows where.  I strongly emphasize this -- to the extent that I have female students who are driving up Old Navy stock because Old Navy has womens shirts with two breast pockets.

***

On that first day of training we also began restrained puppy recalls.  My wife Barbara knelt behind Presto!, restraining him with her hands clasped around his chest -- not holding him by his collar.  At the other endof the yard (or on 113-degree days at the other end of a carpeted hallway) I called, "Presto! COME!"  The puppy had to leap over Barbara's clasped hands to get going.  Not every puppy will leap out of there, but if they will it's a nice way to begin to build drive.

Presto! exploded out of the restraint and came charging to me and the treat I held in both hands.  And right there I caught a glimpse of the wonderful raw material I have to work with.

Willard