Day 70 - Ann Braue Puppy Seminar, Day 1

Jedi was a crazy loon last night. Around 9:30 or so I regretted my decision not to run him to "save" him for his seminar today. That picture below is the crazy-eyed look he was giving me as he waited for me to throw his toy across the room. If I ignored him he would bark at me, or "sing" as he's doing as I type this very post (so yes, he's wound up again, go figure). We went to bed at 10:00 and Jedi was on the bed for a matter of seconds before he jumped down. Last night, though, he didn't go to his crate or onto one of the dog beds on the floor -- Nope, he left the bedroom and shortly thereafter I heard the dog door close. I fetched him from outside once (in his defense, Kaiser was out there, too) and tried again, but the second time it happened he got put in the crate. My oh my, he was not a happy camper. I've never had any issues with him being noisy when we go to bed, only in the morning -- but last night he barked for a solid two to three minutes straight before he finally gave up and went to sleep. That was fun.

Of course then there was barking again this morning, but not terribly bad. It was still early (pre-6:00), so he didn't have much to complain about yet. I finally got up a bit before my 6:00 alarm, figuring that we could probably use a couple extra minutes to get ready in order to be on the road by 7:00. Under the assumption that Jedi would be getting lots and lots of food at the seminar today, I fed him a very light breakfast. He got to eat out of the bowl since I figured he'd be doing enough other work today, and I needed the time to keep getting ready, myself. Jedi has learned that Luke won't stop him from stealing out of his food dish, so I've had to be extra diligent about watching for that (both before and after Jedi gets fed, since Luke gets his dish put down first and Jedi finishes before him).

Jedi was wound up and wanting to tug everything while I did my stretching and whatnot this morning. For as active as he was in that first hour of the day, he actually slept really well on the drive to Eau Claire. Because of our experience with the road construction yesterday, I opted to take a route that was at least 20 miles longer, but would only take an additional 5-10 minutes. The extended route was still only an hour and a half, so after stopping at Kwik Trip for breakfast we arrived at ABCTC at about 8:35. Plenty of time to get everything set up and still get in some play time with his brothers before things started.

It was so nice to get to see the other boys! I haven't seen Blade since we met the puppies at 5 weeks and I'll be honest, that day is such a blur that I barely remember anything. It's been several weeks now since we last saw Pyro, so I figured he would have changed as well. Wow, did he ever! Pyro was the smallest puppy in the litter (by quite a bit, really) and he's bigger than Jedi now! He's a fluffy boy at the moment and built like a tank. Blade was more similar in size to Jedi, but with a lighter build/bone. We think he's going to look a lot like his mother, Prada. Blade is already starting to grow in his adult coat, too, which I thought was interesting. Maybe Jedi's will start to change soon?

Everyone got along superbly as we let them wrestle and roll around in the little wood-chipped area outside the building. Twister, the puppy that Jedi played with at Canine Sports Zone a couple of weeks ago, was there as well and he was welcomed into the group wrestle time. Jedi met a couple of other puppies and before long it was time to head inside. This was Jedi's first introduction to the steep set of stairs he would have to traverse several times today (my Fitbit says I went up them 12 times, I would have guessed more). There was pause the first time we went down them, but after that Jedi was a pro the rest of the day.

This morning there was a lot of lecture, which I think is pretty standard. There was much talk of training philosophy in general, the things we want to build and preserve in our puppies, and the goals of the weekend. I'm a terrible clinic participant because I never take notes. In general none of this was really news to me, as it's all training methodology that I agree with and follow. There was a big focus on not letting the puppy train you, which I admit to doing a lot in the past and I'm trying not to this time (specifically, letting the dog decide what they'll work for, toy vs food). Ann uses a lot of Susan Garrett's stuff for puppy training, so I'm pretty familiar with the concept of "It's Yer Choice," crate games, etc. Jedi was a good boy and was quiet in his crate for all of this.

Eventually we got the puppies out just to have them play. They were separated into smaller groups with the more reserved puppies going first so things would be quieter with less crazy energy. This was the only real opportunity of the day to observe other puppies and their owners, and as always I enjoy watching how other people play with their dogs. It's just very interesting to see the reaction of the puppies, how they play, how well the owner reads them, etc. Jedi was in the last group of puppies to play and of course we had no real issues playing in a new environment -- but someone had a squeaker, so we definitely had a couple of moments of disengagement. Even still, Ann was impressed with his level of focus. This is something that would be repeated later in the day and is something I've heard from others remarking about a puppy his age. It's something I definitely appreciate about Jedi, especially coming off a dog like Kizzy (who would have never been able to handle a day like today, even now).

After some more lecture to talk about what Ann saw during the first playtime, we had a second session. We did larger groups this time, cutting the class in half (seven and seven). This time we also incorporated collar grabs and going back and forth between food and play. Jedi was kind enough to demonstrate the way he will take food and spit it on the floor as soon as you start tugging. Ann says I just need to give a little more time between him taking the food and tugging again to make sure he swallows, but that little stinker is really good at looking like he swallows when apparently he didn't. Collar grabs are something I should spend more time on both with toys and away from them so that he'll take the food.

We also did a session devoted to a nose touch to the hand. I was concerned that Jedi would be too focused on offering paw touches since this is what he associates an open hand to, but he did quite well. He started off being very handsy, but got better when I switched over to my left hand for touches. After that he seemed to figure it out and stopped using his paws. He often came at my hand with an open mouth, though, which is something Ann talked about afterward, so she confirmed that this is something I'll need to work on to encourage him to do an actual nose bump and not a velociraptor move.

The last thing we did before lunch was to play a fun and eye-opening exercise where we paired up with another clinic participant and took turns playing the part of trainer and dog. I was the trainer first and my "dog" left the room while we got cards telling us what we needed to shape our partner to do. Mine ended up being relatively easy and my partner figured out quite quickly that she needed to touch her reflection in the mirror. The next round got a bit more complicated for everyone and playing the part of the dog really made me realize how clear my cues need to be when working with Jedi! For my exercise I quickly figure out that I needed to be sitting on the floor, and then I figured out that it seemed to have something to do with my feet, then only my right foot, but we were done before I figured out that the specific instruction was to touch my right foot with my left hand. Ann was really big on using the power of placement of reward (not to be confused with luring) and we really saw this in action with several of the behaviors.

I left Jedi in his crate to take a nap while I went out to lunch with Pam & Lisa (who own Blade and Pyro). It was great to share stories and hear what their puppies are like. One thing that really drove home is how fortunate I've been to be able to spend so much time with Jedi since he came home. It makes a big difference that we can still do our 3x/day training sessions and that he has the consistency of always being handled/managed by me. I should probably thank my manager one of these days for being so awesome about the time I spend working from home!

We broke late for lunch, so we didn't start back up until 2:00. The rest of the afternoon was pretty much all working with the puppies. We moved all of the crates into the training area and, after hearing all about the methodology, we worked on playing crate games with the puppies. Admittedly this is still something I haven't really done on my own yet, but at least we played it at class that one night and Jedi remembered everything. He got out of the crate without being released a couple of times, but for the most part I was able to throw quite a few distractions at him and he waited for his release word. The one area where we struggle with crate games, and this makes it obvious that we need to do more of this, is that Jedi does not come close to loading himself in the crate yet. He'll go in if lured with treats, but for the most part he still thinks the fun stuff is outside of the crate and he'd rather stay there, thank you very much.

The next thing we worked on was introducing some stretches to our dog. The basic position is to have the dog standing between your legs and then you can reward them for bending to their hip, down to the ground, etc. This is something we'll need to work on, because Jedi pretty much didn't get this at all. First of all it was just very hard to get him to stay between my legs without squirting out and turning around just when I was trying to keep him straight. Forget trying to do any of the curls -- if he did bend back he would lay down. So yeah, we'll have to work on that one.

After the stretching stuff Ann had us introduce spins to the left and right, but we did them as part of play and used toys (or food if your dog was so inclined) to basically lure them around. It's actually the same thing that Silvia Trkman does in her training videos so it was "on my list" but I haven't gotten around to it. I did pick up a gem during this part in that Ann wants you to use one hand for one direction, and the other for the other direction (specifically right hand for counter clockwise and left for clockwise). She demonstrated how this comes in handy when directing on an agility course by being able to wrap your dog nicely around the backside from a bit of a distance. I opted to use Ann's words since I don't have any preference of my own. I'm using "spin" for my right hand (counter clockwise) and "twirl" for my left hand (clockwise). Hopefully since I wrote that here, I'll remember it.

We ended with two more stretching exercises. The first one involved shaping the dog to put both paws up on your arm with the eventual goal of the dog reaching their head under their arm to get a good shoulder stretch. I started out by bracing my arm on the chair, but Jedi just kept trying to jump on the chair. I moved to having it on the crate, but then Jedi just went in the crate. Once I controlled the environment (closed the crate door) he figured it out in about two seconds. He's not at the point of putting his head under yet, but he did well with the first part. Ann asked if I'd worked on this one before and I said nope, he just figures stuff out quickly.  :o) The second exercise again had the dogs between our legs, but this time they sat and we asked for a hand touch to bring them up into a sit pretty position. Obviously Jedi has worked on sit pretty, but this was a new position for him. Ann says the reason for doing it this way is to get them to stop holding on to our hand/arm for balance. We can use our legs to help them balance at first and then wean them away. Jedi did really well with this, but you could tell he was getting tired.

I think this pretty much wraps up our day, but again, I didn't take notes and the whole thing was just a blur. It's an excellent experience for Jedi and he's doing a good job working in what I considering a very challenging environment -- honestly, all of the puppies did exceptionally well in that regard. Jedi disengaged with me a few times either due to squeakers or excited dog/handler noises, but he always chose to return to playing with me so I figure that's a win.

Tomorrow will be heavy hands-on work with the puppies as we work through various stations that involve shaping and body awareness exercises. I imagine this will be right up Jedi's alley, at least assuming he's not way overtired and cranky. He slept the whole way home, but since then he's been running around like a nut (as usual). I filled the pool up for him so he has that to play with, and it was pretty exciting when I dumped the ice cubes out of the cooler. I may be the only seminar participant who got to drive home tonight, but thank goodness for that! Now, hopefully the little bugger sleeps tonight.