Takkutukan Tehopakkaus “Metka” or “Susi”

Some months ago I gave back my Mudi to her breeder because of her bad temper. She (FIN57262/07)  had troubles with both other dogs and people and noises. This caused a lot of stress and trouble in our every day life, so I decided to give Metka (formely known as Susi) back to Sanna in Finland. I wish you all the best of luck.

Susi was hard to train from the start. She was hard to both reinforce and calm down and also showed aggressive behaviour towards dogs and people from the very first day. After hours of training and classes, she got alot better, but still not well enough to live in the city. She could run a long distance to protect her crate from other dogs, my car, my room or other things she considered hers. I worked a lot on those issues, but it seemed like the stress level in her life didn’t work that well with her personality, that was quite dangerous. Metka/Susi was brought to Norway for breeding, but Inga decided not to breed her because of her temper and the sharpness she showed in her personality, which would probably not fit many homes in Scandinavia.

I have heard from Sanna (some months ago now) that Metka’s fine and has calmed down at the farm. She has tried herding and other things Sanna likes. I am happy Susi / Metka the Mudi had another chance at living a happy life.

Windows movie maker is fun :)

Just some of the things we have been working on lately.

Recent activity

I am so much better to update my Norwegian blog, so it’s time to update this one as well. Lately Susi and I have been working a lot with shaping. New tricks we have been doing are: hide face in paws, take one plastic bowl and put it into another one, climbing stairs backwards, shaking (our new challange!), crawl, roll over and some other funny tricks such as crossing front legs and bow.

We have also been working with jumping skills every week since December. Now I can finally see lots of progress, especially on the distance and height evaluation exercises. It is so fun to see the progress! I have also tried som easy sequencing, and have taped most of it. Since I haven’t handled after Greg Derrett’s system before, my handling really sucks, and Susi is somewhat confused, espesially with my threadles. So I have stopped sequencing until April, when we are going to Fanny Gott’s handling course once again! That will be great fun, and I really need someone to tell me how to solve things, and when I screw things up.

What we have been doing the last days is of course shaping tricks, but also obedience. Every Monday from now Susi and I will drive to Son, and do obedience with klickerklok (yes yes, I know, lots of courses with them, but they are the only ones around here that train the way I want to train! And that is a good reason) Ha – ha I remember Fanny saying to Karine that it is kind of freaky with some people that are new to “their way of dog-training” and that some of those people attend to every course they have after the first one, and that was kind of creepy. And now I really feel like I’m one of those creepy persons that attend every course, and read their blog daily Well, we all need someone to look up to, luckily I do follow Susan Garret’s blog and other “great dog trainer’s” blogs so hopefully that makes me less creepy Well, yes, obedience… We have been training some obedience also, hopefully we will be ready for the first class in a few months.

After putting Susi running contacts on a shelf for several weeks, I have now got my running contacts spirit back again (even though Susan Garrett is not so much fond of running contacts, see post here). We have been training those the last two days, and they have never looked better. The angle is larger than before, and I can vary my position more, so my little angel is obviously getting it now.

Here is one of the sessions we had yesterday

Today we have also been training, and she did good, but tried to jump large 3 times, but the rest was perfect, the total score was 001110111 = 66,7%, so I think we have to work more on this height before we move on.

Tricks – challenge

For many months ago, Ingerid and I wanted to do more tricks with our dogs, and thought that a competition would get us eager to train more often. I don’t know if we got any better, but at least we now both managed to get our dog to do the trick we had put our minds on, all four paws in a bowl.

Some challenges due to this trick was that the dog needs not only body awareness, but also enough balance and inner core muscles to do it. I tried really hard a long time ago, and Susi seemed to understand what I wanted, but couldn’t get all four paws in such a small place. Now I tried again (after doing lots of stretching and balancing stuff with her) and she managed quite easily, so did Orkan. So heres a movie of that trick and also some other weird things we’ve done lately.

Video of challenge 1 and other tricks

The next trick in our challenge is to “hide” or with the fun cue “you got something on your nose”. Orkan knew this trick some time ago, and I have been trying all Christmas, and Susi still doesn’t get it, so the challenge is ON again!

Addicted

After my stay in Egypt I am now back home and training more then ever. The things we’ve been working on lately

• climbing up backwards on a wall
• hiding face in paw
• dog yoga (head under my arm, paws on my arm)
• stimulus control on standing on hind legs
• nose touches – in the stairs
• jumping technique once a week
• 2 by 2 weave pole training
• running forward on cue “run” and slow down when I do
• let go of tug when told..
• body awareness – lifting hind legs for example and balancing on ball

I really enjoy shaping new behaviours, and its so easy to forget to have fun with your dog, so I try to train shaping at least 15 minutes a day, in addition to the walks we do.

Videos from the sessions on Wednesday. We also worked on threadling past tunnel entries

2 by 2

Jumping technique

One jump exercises and jumping technique

When Susi and I went to Fanny for agilitycourses, she gave me this paper with lots of one jump exercises on it. Unfortunately I don’t understand half of the exercises, so what I am going to do next is get myself Susan Garrett’s one jump DVD. After my holiday in Egypt that is… Even though I didn’t understand some of the exercises, I did some of those I know of.

Video from our training today:

Beside all that agility stuff Susi needs to learn, I now realize how big the problem og “leave it” is. She hates to let go of her toy, and it is really making training her somewhat difficult. So that is what my main focuse should be when I get home!

Jumping technique

Since Vappu was here Susi have been doing jumping exercises every week, some one jump (with oxers and stuff) but mostly grids. We have been working with the distance grid, slices, basic grid and today with Ingerid we worked on progressive grid (Susi was great!) and basic grid after that. And my little superstar had some trouble collecting the two first tries (jumped the two last in one leap) therefore I chose to sit close to the last obstacle. That solved the problem, and I chose not to do more.

One thing that was great today was that a horse came in (or.. well it was really a pony…) Susi was distracted but was able to eat, tug and jump. That’s my little girl! Ingerid also said that she seems much calmer now, that’s so nice to hear! Often it is difficult to see the gradually changes myself, so now I am even happier

Some agility handling at home

Seems we have a long way to go before trialing, but we got so much time My little angel tries her best, and I really need to learn how to handle

The combination is taken from Karine, helps you to put your front cross just where its supposed to be. And since I have som bad handling history, I need lots of these exercises!

Some more videos of Susi

Susi treaning weaves

Susi jumping for Vappu Alatalo

Pictures of the wonderful girl

Thoughts about dogs and problems

I have been working a lot with “problem dogs” through Siddis Hundeskole, and I have met many dog owners in despair. One thing that always hit me was that almost every single dog had the potential to become well functioning dogs with some training and right methods. Unfortunately a difficult part of training problem dogs is to control the environment, and this is the reason a lot of people give up in the middle of the rehabilitation process. To think positively is the main thing when training a problem dog, and give it choices that are easy and solvable, but also challenge the dog to choose the right thing to do “look at me, don’t bark at the dog and earn a treat”.

It is hard to find solutions to problems that are deep in the dogs mental state. Some use medicins to help the dog on its way to good behaviours and sometimes other things help. Sometimes emasculation is the answer, and other times that’s the worst thing you can do. Testosteron helps the courage in a dog, and by taking that away, we might take away the little courage the dog had left to live for.

When you have a dog with a dangerous og problematic behaviour, there are several questions you may ask yourself.

For the first – How is the dog? Is the dog enjoying its life? If you know that your dog’s life isn’t good on a general basis, letting him go or finding him a new place to stay might be solutions. On the other hand, you might try to solve the issues and start by asking yourself these questions:

1. Can the problem be fixed?
2. What does it cost me to fix this problem

Agility – handling in the rain :P

I defeated my fear of rain and made two different jumping combinations today. My Mudi, Susi is now one year old and I am hoping to debut next year (at least in jumping)

I am also trying to follow Greg Derrett’s handling system, and I hope I solved my problems his way (So if I should have solved the combination otherwise – please let me know )

My lovely Harald taped my whole traning session and the result after some time in front of the computer is to be viewed here:

Talked to Therese and we found out that a better way to solve the second combination would be to take a front cross where I threadled, my threadle looked too much like a serpentine to Susi and caused confusion.