Monsters in the house

I now know why I have a herding dog... and one that is exercised like crazy. There are days like today when I feel as though I'm loosing my mind. The reason being, is that as of late I've learned the definition of two words - needy and affectionate. Here are the definitions I found that seemed so very true to the words...

Needy - Wanting or needing affection, attention, or reassurance, especially to an excessive degree.

Affectionate - Having or showing fond feelings or affection; loving and tender.

Until now, Rusty has been what I would consider affectionate. Very loyal, loves to snuggle, needs a pat on the head every now and again. More often than not, time spent together has been as important to him as petting and loving on. So, out to do agility, biking, a walk, or a cuddle on the couch. I love that he lays right beside me or on my feet. But since he broke his foot...

 A Monster has come out!!!

He's no longer affectionate. He's very needy. Instead of a walk (since he can't go out for one) he wants me to pet him - constantly. He cries at my from his pillow begging me to be near. I understand! He's lonely, and he hates being down. But his affection need levels have sky rocketed so badly, that I want nothing more than to keep him on his pillow, on the floor, quiet, and invisible.

Anyone who knows me should know that I constantly talk to and love on my dog. There's no "poor Rusty" in this house! My job now is to figure out a way to give him the affection he needs while maintaining my own sanity. Not an easy job. It's much easier to just holler at him to be quiet and ignore him, but I can't do that. Those big brown eyes know that I'm a sucker! I love that dog to pieces and he knows that. So, on to filling his needs and mine at the same time.

Another adventure!

Another day, another challenge, another adventure....it certainly has been one of those days since Saturday when Rusty broke his foot. I can't wait to see how this month goes, we've got a lot ahead of us.

Saturday, Rusty broke his foot. We had it confirmed by a vet yesterday. Poor guy is now on bed rest, except when he needs to go outside.

Now let me tell you a little bit about this aussie of mine. He's a very active, 44 pound dog who loves to run. We've been going into the field next to our home to practice agility - working on speeding up our weave poles, doing running contacts, jumping at odd angles. And playing Frisbee and ball. And after we're done with that, when we get home we do some trick training. Then we go back and play some more in the field. Add taking a walk or running by my bike, and you get the picture. He's strong, he's healthy, and he's very active.

The newest challenge to our training, is coming up with things he can do without getting up! I refuse to see this as a detriment, no we're going to go full force ahead. It's not going to be easy, and I'm sure there will be days when I need some encouragement. Regardless, I know this is an opportunity, and I'm going to take it.

Now the next part of my plan is to figure out how to make him more mobile. Rusty and I can't stand to be apart. And with him not being able to walk, I've ended up lugging him around the house with me. If he gains any weight from being down all the time (which he will!) it's going to make it that much harder to take him with me. He actually needs to put on a couple of pounds, he's getting too thin with all that running. It's not that he can't stay - he stays on his pillow very well. It's that I can't let him stay! The last thing I want for him is to be tired, alone, and quiet. That's not my crazy La Bamba. And beyond that, I can see the hurt in his eyes when I walk away.

Whatever it takes, we're going to figure out how to get him up. He can walk on his hind legs with his front ones on my arm, but that's pretty hard on his back, so we need another way of getting around. He also knows how to limp, so we'll try that too. I wonder what he'll think of doing that with his let bandaged up! So my ideas are to come up with a cart for him to push around, or one that he can fit into. I'm even going to go looking at thrift stores for a stroller so we can go on our walks.

Some may think it's crazy. Others may say to just tough it. But I want to over come it. It's not about training - though we'll have some fun with that along the way. It's about the special relationship we share. I just care that much, and so does he.

Any ideas for activities and games he can do while laying down would be appreciated. He's a thinker, and I can tell he's bored. He's got toys that dispense treats, I actually just got him a new one. However, he's so smart they don't last more than a few minutes, and on top of that, he's going to get fat!!! I'm going to have to find some really low calorie treats to give him!

Hypocrite or Human

How often do you find that someone can say something that you totally agree with, only to find yourself fighting against that very advice? Are we all hypocrites?


As a dog trainer, taking your own advice can be hard. I tell my students over and over how to train, how to interact with their dogs, how to handle situations. Then I go home. And I change. Is it that I'm only putting on a facade? Is it the same in other areas of my life?


I have to answer no. I truly agree with what I teach. However, putting it into action is one of the hardest things to do. My mind has been taught a different reaction than what I actually want to do. Do you find yourself wanting to be positive with your dog, because you know it really is your fault, yet you still act disappointed in your dog? If your dog doesn't behave well it's a 99% chance that it is your fault. So why get mad? But I still do.


I understand why people, who don't believe the way I do, call Christians hypocrites. I call myself one. I see it all the time in the body of Christ. But please here me out....Don't you do the same thing? If you're an agility enthusiast, after agility runs you know that if there were mess ups it was your fault. Yet you find yourself less than enthusiastic with your dog. You give them a pat and a few treats and call it good. You know that's not right, but that's how you feel. I'm the same way! In more than agility. I know that judging someone is wrong. Yet I feel it well up in me. Just as I must make myself reward my Rusty boy, I have to make myself give others grace...even when I don't feel they deserve it.

Think about anything in life. You know what you should do, and you know what you want to do. Sometimes what you want to do wins, even though you feel bad about it later.

I am no different than you. I'm not an amazing saint. I simply allow grace to cover me, and beg God to help me win in the moment by moment battles.  God is what is different, not me. As I surrender, he gives me more of him and I find there's less of me. And when there's less of me, there's less heartache. There's less struggle. There's less guilt. It's not that I'm gone, only that I'm more like him, and when I'm like him, I'm like I was made to be.



Even if you aren't a dog person, I hope you understand. It doesn't matter what in life you struggle to do. Do you realize that you shouldn't be mad but still are? Do you struggle to get out of bed? To work in the house? So do I. It's the same thing. Living as a Christian doesn't mean you have "more important, Godly things" to do. It means you do the same chores, you endure the same grumpy customers, you struggle in the same world. However, you do it with someone by you who will never leave. You do it with someone who knows every struggle of your heart. You do it with someone who gives you the power to be who you were made to be.


I'm not a hypocrite. I'm simply human.

Another challenge, another lesson!

Rusty is always teaching me lessons about training, and tonight was no different. I was reminded again just how important it is to have precision in shaping. Making a shaping exercise precise as well as understandable and motivating can be a bit of a challenge. I had to sit back and think, try again, and cheer my dog on to keep him trying as well.

It's been a while since I first trained the "say no" command, and it was my goal to have my dog shake his head in an emphatic no. Our practice petered out when his emphatic no turned out to be a snake dance with a lot of whining. We decided to try again, and tonight I was able to start applying some recently learned lessons.

The first question I should have asked was "what do I want out of training this trick, and what do I want the end result to look like?" After trying unsuccessfully to fix the problem, I finally came back to that question and actually answered it! What a thought... Here's what I came up with.

I want my dog to gain confidence and enthusiasm, and I want him to shake his head no. (No snake charming here)

The next logical question of how I was going to get there, and well, that took a little bit of thought. I needed a way to cause the large shakes of the head to happen a very high percent of the time. Rusty needed to know exactly what I wanted, and an easy way to do that behavior.

I'm training this the very same way as I did last time - using two chairs with targets at nose height. The dog touches one target, then the other, and receives a treat on the opposite target. Easy right? Well in theory yes, but when you are precision challenged when it comes to using the clicker at the right Milli-second, and providing the treat at just the right angle, it can get very interesting.  I am challenged in both those areas. I know how to use a clicker, but when a half a second delay can ruin what you're doing, it's hard to get it right.

In order to give Rusty confidence about what he was suppose to do, I found that I had to click for direct hits to the targets, instead of rewarding the attempts that were slightly shy of hitting them. The more I rewarded the attempts, the more he became confused and lazy about swinging his head far enough to hit the target. My biggest challenge was not clicking a moment too soon before he really touched the target. I was anticipating his moves, and he began to anticipate the treats at the other target. I started listening for the hits, which really helps. His whiskers made noise going across the targets and sometimes he hit the chairs hard enough to make noise! Those hits were highly rewarded...there's the enthusiasm I was looking for.

Now it's just a matter of making sure he knows that those hard swings to hit the contacts is what I want, and then we'll start fading the targets...again.


The lessons I learned tonight were many, but here are the main ones.
1. ask the "what do I want out of this" and "what do I want the final product to look like" questions before you start working! Just saying that it should look like he's saying "no" and that you want him to do it on command isn't enough! The dog doesn't understand what "no" looks like. And your goals need to be more about your dog and your relationship with your dog than anything else.
2. If the behavior starts to look fuzzy ( not sure if it's quite "on") then it's probably not what you want. Take a step back and understand what you need to tell your dog in order for him to understand it. Think from his point of view, or have someone pretend they're the dog - are the clicks clear enough and precise enough?
3. Fade targets and change it slowly! Make sure the dog knows the last step before moving on. If you go to the next step and it starts to look "fuzzy" then your last step wasn't clear enough. Was your dog 80% +  successful? Do you even know how successful he was? You can go through the steps quickly if your dog truly understands each step. Otherwise, you both need some practice with marking behaviors.
4. If you go too far, and the behavior isn't quite right it's "Yay! Good dog, you're still trying even though my signals are not clear enough!" More than likely, you're the one signalling this other behavior. Go back to the last step to give your dog confidence, using jack pots to tell your dog how amazing they are. Then take a break and write out that next step.


In all honesty, it's hard to remember these things. That's part of the reason I'm writing them down. Just like I said to write out that next step in your shaping exercise, sometimes it's helpful to write down exactly how you should train. Drill these things into your mind, because it certainly isn't the dog's problem that we forget the fundamental basics. It's hard to do these things when you're frustrated, because we often revert to the way we were first taught to train, whether by other people or by natural consequences.

I'm always telling my students, I'm not there to pick on them about being positive and using markers correctly, or anything else. I'm simply there to encourage them and remind them. I tell them the theories of how to train positively. But it's more than hearing it. It's learning how to do it moment by moment. I'm afraid I still need others to do this for me, and I need to make the effort to seek out those who will. We're all learning, and all growing in our training skills! The eyes watching are certainly better than the eyes doing.

Well, that's all for tonight. I hope that anyone who comes across this will be reminded what training is about, and encouraged. Remember, it's not "me or the dog" it's "love the dog, forget the trainer".

exercise - the 8 letter word

Everyone knows that exercise is a must - it's key to a healthy, long, and happy life. It's also one of the hardest things to be consistent about, at least for Rusty and I.

During the holidays is the hardest time to keep up with exercise, and also the most important time, if you ask me. With company around, there's an added level of excitement and of goodies. My dog felt the stress as much or more than I did, and the total lack of exercise was certainly a culprit.

My poor dog got the backseat during this Christmas season - and of course, as much as we like to think they love Christmas with their stockings and presents, I know he doesn't understand how these days were any different from the previous. I didn't realize how much he'd missed his exercise, however much he actually gets, until I took him for a walk yesterday.

He's usually pretty decent on a leash so I often use the extendable ones. I know, there's been a lot of fuss over these leashes. In my opinion you can't ban them because some people with misbehaving dogs have used them irresponsibly. So I happily take mine out on a regular basis. But I'm off on another subject, and who wants to open that can of worms?

Instead of walking in his normal manner, he decided to be a yo yo. By that I mean he'd come to me, and then sprint to the end of his leash. It drove me nuts! However, when I really thought about it, I realized that in fact it was my fault. Perhaps I drove him nuts as well.

I struggle to give my dog the exercise he needs. We had started the C25K running program, and I intend on doing it this spring. But till then, what of all the days between? My own exercise plan involves some indoor exercise to build strength - that way all by bones stay where they're suppose to be when I work on running this spring. But as for Rusty, I'm not sure what to do. I've taken him with my bike, but with the winter weather I think it could be dangerous. Ice + dog + bike + clumsy me = not such a good picture.

I know some jumping exercises would be good, but I only know a few. Rusty and I have also added to our trick list. We are now doing jump roping which is great for exercise - but not enough for an aussie.

I've recently heard of a school that allows dogs in their field, and thought some Frisbee might be in store for us. I was wishing that the trails would be open, but I'm sure they'll be muddy most of the winter, and if they're frozen it's a little cold to be out!

So on goes the search for exercise. I highly doubt there will ever be a perfect answer, but any ideas would be appreciated! 

Reward - A Dog's Definition

I have recently read a few blog posts on dog training, and I always find it interesting to read other's opinions. They make me observe and critique my own training. If you read my last post "against the grain" you'll know that I often use non traditional ways of training and rewarding. One post that I read was discussing rewards, namely what is a reward?

The idea was that anything that your dog desires can be used as a reward, whether a walk is the reward for sitting politely while you put the leash on, getting to go outside when sitting politely at the door, as well as the basics - treats and toys.

In agility, toys are considered to be the best reward because it increases drive and placement of a thrown toy can be a training tool in itself. It has been a challenge for my Aussie in that he doesn't always care for toys. There are times when he'd prefer not to chase or tug. Sometimes it works to switch up the toys and play with something else each time, other times he could care less. When he does not desire the toy, it is no longer a reward, and when there is no reward why would he work hard for me?

One of Rusty's favorite games is racing to the toy followed by a game of keep away. When I get him, a wrestling game often ensues. That is his desire - that is his reward. When we play this game, he will often tug as I push him around. But he doesn't always enjoy a simple game of tug. He doesn't want to pull me around, nor does he want to just stand there tugging back and forth. It's boring to him.

I wonder if the fact that I've forced the issue with tug has taken away some of the joy of agility. It's a constant battle, it's not fun. When we're done playing tug he doesn't act like he's enjoyed the reward, nor does he work to get it again. It's "what you're suppose to do" - and as I have found with Rusty - we've had the most fun when we do "what you're NOT suppose to do". Instead of trying to teach Rusty to like the games that I want him to play, why not play the games he enjoys the most? Isn't that the joy of training dogs - finding out how to train that individual dog? It's got to be worth his time to do what I ask, why would he work for something he doesn't enjoy doing?

Now I'm not saying that the tug should be discarded in the game of agility. On the contrary, I know it's very useful. But perhaps it should only be used as a tool in the game - and the underlying game should be whatever game your dog wants to play. I can play keep away and chase and use a tug at the same time - I can teach my dog that when he has the toy, the game that HE wants to play will ensue. That will make the toy more valuable. He will play a small amount of tug in the context of that game, and his tugging skills become better and better as we work on it, but the "game of Tug" cannot be the base reward.

Consider this scenario - a child has homework to do, and the parent tells them that if they do it very well they will get a reward. The child does the work, but finds that the reward is to go shopping (game of  tug). The parent knows that the child would like going to the park (chase), but shopping (game of tug) should be the better reward since they are going to get school supplies ( better drive that tug gives) to help them do better in school (agility). The next time the parent offers a reward for doing a good job in school, the child discounts it and does not improve his performance.

It's a silly scenario, but the basis of the idea is what I'm trying to get across - if you really don't care about something, why would you increase your performance to get it?

Whatever reward your dog likes - whether that be tug, a thrown ball, a splash in the kiddy pool, a wrestling match, the next obstacle, or a pat on the head - that's the reward you should use in agility and in all dog training.

Against the Grain

          Everyone on planet earth is different from everyone else. We learn differently; we process things differently; we work differently; and we train differently. Many dog trainers would be appalled at how I train Rusty, but when I go with the grain things don't go well. Instead I go against the grain.

         Today I went outside with Rusty and did a single two by two weave pole training. He was not excited and didn't want to work. I tried going inside and ignoring him whenever he decided to sniff around. It didn't work. I played tug with him, running after the toy to make it more exciting. Still, his enthusiasm wasn't what I wanted it to be. I threw all the rules to the wind and did it my way.

         I played chase. I ran after him all over the yard. He was running with the toy, growling and speeding around for all he was worth. I did it over and over, every time he went through the poles. He was going nuts with joy, happy as he could be. Isn't that the point of agility? To actually have fun? I was laughing, and I could tell he was smiling. Away with the rules and on with the fun.

          Now I'm not saying you should do this with every dog. It might encourage the dog to do victory laps in the agility ring. It's something I'm willing to risk - all in the name of having fun. Rusty and I have a very special relationship - it trumps his desire to play with toys and run laps and not come when called. He knew the exact moment I wanted the toy back, and he brought it to me without any more loops - he came strait to me and offered me ownership of the toy.

         It's the same thing when we wrestle. Yes, I wrestle with my dog all the time. He bites and growls and barks and jumps on me. I in turn pull him off his feet, pin him, and growl at him. But again our relationship keeps him from biting me hard - he usually just mouths me, if that. Somehow he knows when I'm done, just by my body language. Without knowing I'm signaling him, I'll grow tired of the game and he quits immediately even when he's not tired. All I have to say to end any game is "enough" and it's over, no questions asked.

         Other things apply the same thoughts - When I play tug with him I yank him around, get on the ground with him, steal the toy and run. I let him on the couch and bed - yet he doesn't assume that he can get up whenever he likes. He can walk in front of me on walks, but he pays attention, not pulling, and can heel when asked. He gets human food once in a while, but doesn't beg at the table. All the things I was told were "taboo" to training have turned out to be just fine with him and for what I want out of him.

           Go against the rules. Allow your personality and your dog's personality to dictate how you train. I'm still learning to do this - I don't do it with others around. It's something to work on, and worth it too.