Summit's winning runs at CKC and shaping session with Sage

No MACH this weekend for Sage. She was 50 percent with a dropped bar in jumpers on one day and two missed DW contacts. Summit also was 50 percent. He had two winning jumpers runs and took second in standard. There were appx. 84 dogs entered in the Ex. B 20" class and there was some very competitive dog/handler teams entered so I was pretty thrilled about the placements. Summit would have had a first place in Standard but for a dropped bar (the finish jump was in the middle of the ring and I pulled up quickly instead of maintaining my forward motion past the jump).

Here is Summit's second place Standard run. At 35.13 seconds, he was just 3/10ths of a second off 1st place. I'm very happy with this run. I do make him hold his contacts at local trials now so was really thrilled with his course time.



Here is Saturday's Jumpers run - first place. It was a really nice course. Sage qualified as well.



Another first place jumpers run. This was a very tough course. I had fun on it and liked the challenge of timing my lateral motion to cue both turns out of the tunnel (although I think I overdid the lateral distance a little at the first tunnel exit to the 180). Many dogs took the finish jump after exiting the tunnel the second time. Also quite a few dogs took the incorrect jump on the inverted 270. It really was quite a challenging course and I'm very pleased that Summit did so well. His time was 22 seconds.




I had a fun training session this morning indoors (back field is muddy and icy). I practiced extension RTH on the flat with Summit (by the 15th rep, he was starting to get it that he couldn't bump into me).

Then I started a shaping session with Sage on the contact board. She made me laugh several times. She immediately picked up that I wanted her to interact with this object. At first I marked and rewarded any contact with the board. Then I decided I wanted her standing not laying down on it. She laid down on the end (not marked), she scooted over and laid down in the middle (not marked), she then scooted all the way to the other end and laid down (not marked). She rolled over on her side (not marked), she put her head sideways flat on the board and held it there (not marked), by this time I was laughing so hard at all the behaviors she was offering all in less than a minute. Finally she jumped up and had her two front feet on the board. I marked that and threw the treat. This started her on a roll of figuring out which feet I wanted on the board (I eventually will want back feet only). Anyway, we ended the session with her now figuring out that getting on the board with all four feet and not laying down got rewarded.

Not sure if the retraining will hold up in the ring but I'm having fun playing the shaping game with her.
In the past, I've used timing and placement of reward to shape her behavior. Last weekend, I came up with the idea of using one of those old fashioned clickers (the really obnoxious loud ones).