Expanding - Plus 4

2016 is my year to expand. Expand my knowledge, growing and always learning. Expanding personally and building new skill sets and life directions. And Expanding our family by one more set of 4 paws!

10 Weeks

Introducing Tana! Tana is 10 weeks old now and she's a Flat Coated Retriever from Saskatchewan, Canada. She's from the same breeder as Rosey, Prairielight Kennels.

"Remus" Rainesgift Over the Moon

"Splash" Ch Prairielight Truth or Dare CDX, WCI, JH 

8.5 Weeks

We chose the name Tana after the shocking and powerful spring/summer in Northern Alberta with the Fort McMurray fire. The name Tana, "Fire Goddess," has it's origins in Greek (thanks google!), but has been adopted by Faery Traditions and its definition is so fitting for who she's turning out to be.

"She appears as liquid fire, sometimes molten magma, but at others simply plasma in a liquid-like form. Sometimes she appears as lightning, arcing from the sky and into the earth. She is often dancing wild, ecstatic, sparks and flames jumping from her burning aura as she moves. She is the explosive power of all fire, whether that be in the smallest candle flame, or in a raging inferno, or the nuclear processes in the heart of every star. She is the geo-thermal power in the center of the earth, as well as the heat and adrenaline in our bodies. She brings both change, and destruction, as heat can cause chemical changes in objects (as in food being cooked, or stones changing characteristics when exposed to higher temperatures while forming) or even completely obliterate them (a forest or building burning to the ground in a raging fire)." 

9 Weeks - On our way home

Our little fire goddess has kept us on our toes and is always happy to try something new! She is amazingly respectful of Rosey and Sam, not once jumping on them or grabbing at them (yet!). She has amazing self-control already (sits before exiting her crate, quickly learning to wait for her bowl to get to the floor before eating, It's Your Choice game was very quick!), and loves to run. 

So much to learn! So much to teach! I'm so grateful for all the amazing resources online, I feel like I can pick and choose to make the exact right training plan for this puppy. And so many great trainers out there to go to for help when I get stuck! 

Some of my resources so far:

Sophia Yin and her checklist

Chris Puls and her amazing training plans 

Julie Daniels and AG160 at FDSA

Sylvia Trkman and Puppy Class (and amazing student videos)

Plus all the great classes I've taken at Fenzi (Nosework, Focus, Play, Behavior management/rehab) and everything I've learned trying to build a relationship with Rosey and Sam!

Expanding - 2016

2015 was my year of healing. I loved Tori Self's way of looking at new years and adopted my own mantra for this past year. Both dogs were hurting and I needed to discover what I needed to do to help them heal. In the process, I learned so much, more than I ever knew I could know. Thank you 2015! We healed in all sorts of directions.

Now that Sam has learned how to let go of some of her worry, not that she always chooses to, she's started to play. She plays with me, she plays with Rosey, or she plays alone with her favorite toys. She's quirky and will never be my second competing agility dog, but she will always be my weird sensitive dog. She sings her own tune (daily) and will always be wary of things she doesn't know or understand. My favorite new tricks she's learned this year are: picking up and throwing toys at me, shoulder rolls, "back it up", and finally being able to (occasionally) dismiss when the neighbor's dog is hanging over the wall of our yard. As always, we will have to hold each other's hand this year. We will figure out what "hanging out" really means in 2016.

Rosey has healed from her psoas injury, but the scars of my ignorance will be there for the rest of her life. Hard to swallow, but now that I've learned what we can do to keep her sound, she won't have to suffer as a result. Every day we have to remember to keep trying to be stronger - daily training, daily massage, and never forgetting. Wanting to come home and hang out with her on the couch isn't helping our situation and I need to change some habits to be able to work on both of us a little better. We both have the foundation we need, now it's time for 2016 and to Expand.

My goals for 2016 are to expand. Expand what is normal for me, step outside the easy. I want to expand my definition of Rosey, I want to expand what it means to be me. What do I want? What do I want to struggle through to get what I want? There is so much out there, I think I need to start choosing and diving in, grabbing hold of what I want and tugging away.

Wordless Wednesday

From our trip north in July:

Sleeping Arrangements

Beavers

Mountain Views

Worried about bears

Wise Words

Nose work has been awesome, and going great! More on that in another post, I'll need to download and put together some videos :)

I'm letting this post be about Sam and I and our progress towards our goal of being better bonded. We've been working hard with the nose work and I can see she's more confident while working, but I don't know how much of that is translating outside of nose work. Here's our plan I made 2 weeks ago:

Sam's 2nd JWW Novice P Q
- Ears forward, tail waggin -
Photo at the end of a trial, no dogs around.

1 -Work on weaves - Entries, completion, and speed
We've been working on this and I've seen great improvement, but I'm still struggling with her doing the weaves when she's over stimulated or already starting to avoid doing anything difficult.  
New plan - don't push the session when she's starting to loose focus. Also - pull out the weave-o-matics, I need to get her with some sort of rhythm! If she's got a rhythm, it'll be easier for her to stay in the poles.

2 - Obstacle focus - speed circles, and up the difficulty with angled jumps and maybe even a set of 6 weave poles.

Started with tunnel and jump, but haven't had time to set up a speed circle. On the list to do. Also, need to do lots of rewards after short sequences and tough sections - tug! I need her to realize that she's rewarded for doing extra hard things. I get so excited I want to keep going, but I should be playing with her and releasing the pressure at this point.

3 - Work on our relationship.

Samantha's 1st Title - Novice P JWW
-Ears are back: sign of stress -
She's worried about the dogs around her.

I was reading Denise Fenzi's post from today and this really hit home. I need to start looking at me and how I'm contributing to our issues. I know that with my expectation of how well I know she can do, I forget about how nervous she gets and how I've been playing into her nervousness, babying her. I've been told to give her more space to work and to stop worrying about "what if". I need to work on a few things (taken from Denise's post):

• Don't worry so much about what the course is in class, work the sections of the course to best reward and engage Samantha.
• Really look at the pieces of our relationship to encourage engagement:
• Best motivators (mainly select toys, fur, treats?)
• Surfaces we are best on (inside on matting) and worst (grass in a park)
• Times of day best to train (As soon as I get home from work, after a meal, other?)
• Environmental triggers that negatively impact (prey animals, unknown high energy dogs, start lines that are "open" to threat
• What exercises are more difficult in public/agility ring (weaves, serps, long stretches of jumps)
• How long before she gets tired (1-2 runs with moderate difficulty)
• What stress looks like (running to a door, sniffing, going around obstacles, ears back)
• Start throwing a toy and playing after harder sequences, letting her know she does a good job with a well placed "good"
• Don't just call her name where I think she's going to disconnect, be ahead of her mentally.
• Working independence in the field (see #2) and give her room to do her thing (mentally and physically)

Summary of #3, don't push her if she's in a state she can't learn. Be proactive and assertive. Keep it short and fun. Reward and praise in a timely manner. Take a step back to easier training in harder environments.

NoseWork - first day

Last night Samantha and I did our first lesson with nose work 101. I set up in our dining room to reduce the amount of distractions, but maybe the location isn't ideal because Rosey was separated only by a baby gate and made Samantha nervous. In the video you can see Sam looking back towards Rosey to make sure she was ok.

Even with the distraction, I'm super excited with how well Sam did! I think all the clicker training I did with her helped immensely and she quickly would try new things if she got "stuck" (first few seconds of video). She ended with some real commitment to sticking with the scent rather than look at me for a treat (very end of the video). Here's the video, compiled from 3 different sessions:

Just for fun I introduced Rosey to the Birch and she did really awesome! We played the first game and she didn't even bother with any treat hands and went strait for the scent. After a few clicks, I put her up and placed the box in a corner of the room (jumped ahead). When I let her out and told her to find it, she went to work and found it right away. :) Makes me glad I chose Sam to do the class, I would never learn how to really teach/do some of the lessons with Ro!! Maybe I'll try her tonight outside, that will be the real test!