Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde - How my dog and I get ready for our run!

Today's blog in a part of the Dog Agility Bloggers Event on Mental Management!  Here is the first article, The How To Guide for Multiple Personalities.  The second article is Rehersals! My mental management


I have developed a split personality disorder on purpose.  To learn how, read on....

I have done a TON of work on this front.  I didn't start out with this in mind, but it was really brought about by self preservation.

The journey started with Tip, my first agility dog.  She would arrive ring side (no doubt way too early) and begin her wind up routine.  She would watch the dogs on course, get more and more wound until it was finally our turn.  I would walk out of course and release the wound up spring.  As you can imagine, we hit every obstacle on course, probably twice and would end up with high points in trial.  Only served me well in USDAA Gamblers where her random obstacles would gain us "good" points!!

Conductor of the Crazy Train

I began my journey with myself, determined that this routine wouldn't get me upset and wound just like her.  It took me a couple of years, finally realizing the calmer I was, the more calm she was.  Our runs began to come together.  Also realizing (way too slowly) that I should only get her to ring side about 3 seconds before our run so she couldn't continue her wind up routine.

Tip is an extraordinary agility dog, she is the only one of my dogs that can be truly handler focused and obstacle focused depending on what I need.  I began to incorporate some of this into my warm up routine with her.  So, if we were doing Gamblers (of which she was already an expert) I would warm her up with some distance work.  If we were doing Snooker I would warm her up with "come to hand" and tight flat work.  She slowly began to understand that this translated to what I was about to ask of her on our runs.

Don't get me wrong, we have not arrived.  Tip is still the conductor of the "Crazy Train", but we do manage to pull it together more often to win our share of races.

I will contrast this with Tangle.  Tangle is the opposite of Tip and my third agility dog.  The closer Tangle would get to the ring the more stressed he would get.  Sniffing, calming signals, never playing, and slowing his pace.  We would go into the ring and he would be very careful, never wanting to be wrong.  Always doing a great job, but never having fun.  This is just who Tangle was (yes, I said "was").

Holy cow, now I had a dog that I needed to figure out how to "wing up"!  This journey also took a couple of years.  I needed to learn how to be happy, relaxed and playful around Tangle.  I am these things in real life, but running Tip had taught me to be more meditative when going into the ring to run.

So, I had to teach Tangle that it was OK to play no matter where he was.  We had to play in the backyard, at starbucks, ring side, every where.  I actually had to teach this!  He had to learn to bark and be wild on command.  We had to learn to take that behavior to the ring (the gate steward hates me now, but I am OK with that).  So, with Tangle I broke all the "Tip" rules.  We stayed ring side, I let him get wound watching dogs, I asked him to bark and spin, and finally he agreed to tug ring side!
I documented some of this journey in the blog -- IYC, and  Training in Crazy Places

Cynosport 2012 - Playing before a run

Tangle and I still have some work to accomplish at really big events, but we are setting patterns of success which is important.  He is having fun, running fast, and relaxing!

Then there is Split, not to be minimized, but he is somewhere in between.  He would stay calm ring side, yes, excited to run but not really showing it.  I honestly don't think the excitement hits Split until he is about 3 obstacles into the course.  Then he realizes again why he loves the game and looses all connection to me (joining Tip on the crazy train).  So, with Split I had to bring his excitement level up BEFORE the run so that he could begin to level out before we hit the startline.  Split (thanking the universe as I say this) is fairly easy to deal with mentally.  We have begun to tug ring side (which I also had to teach him to do) and our runs are beginning to level out and be fairly nice.

Split's Crazy AF

All three dogs get the same treatment at the end of our runs and I am religious about this!  We never stop to talk to anyone, we run to their reward, I smother them with praise and we play!

So, no story is the same in terms of mental management of your dog.  But hopefully, you take away the bits and pieces that make sense for your team and learn to get your dog "in the zone" and become the person that they need you to be!

Out of the comfort zone!

One of the things that I learned as a musician was that if you want to improve you have to practice at the extremes of your ability.

I am not the person who sits in her comfort zone for too long.

The day has come when I have decided to step COMPLETELY outside my comfort zone and do something in agility to really push myself.  I am going to try out for AKC's European Open World Team with Tangle (now 2.5 years old).  I am going this year as a demo dog which means that I have zero chance of making the team, but for me this year isn't about making the team.  It is about pushing myself to improve and this is an experience that will do that.  It is about learning to play successfully with the "big boys".

This already has been a totally new experience for me and will continue to be for months to come. 

How do you prepare yourself and your dog for this challenge?  I have thought about physical preparation for both of us, and mental preparation for both of us. 

Physically - Tangle normally jumps 22", I have to move him up to 26", and get the muscles built.  Along the way, I have been working to keep his confidence intact (he is only 2) and increase the fun factor for him.  I have had adjustments in my timing and how much space to physically allow him on course.  I have to enter him in some competitions at the new jump height.

For myself, I am working hard to get my pulled muscles recovered, keep from pulling more and just develop a solid base condition.

Mentally - It is very important to me that Tangle enjoys this experience.  Sure, he loves running the courses, but there is so much more.  Tangle stresses when he is surrounded by stressed people/dogs.  Hum, there might be a couple of those (including me) at this competition.  I am working hard at training all sorts of "fun" tricks that we can pull out of our bag when the need arises.  I don't want to push myself at the expense of my dog.  It is a journey for both of us.  One of my goals is to keep Tangle's stress at a minimum.

For me, I need to remain mentally attuned to the challenges that each moment will bring.  What are my measurable goals for this trial?  When we have our "practice" run what will my objective be?  How do I use my time now to sharpen my mental game?  As a demo dog, I will be the first in the running order, I want to come to the start line with the confidence that I have in a local trial, how do I do that?  I have so little time to prepare (made my decision to go late), how do I prioritize and make the most of my time?  Don't let your confidence get shaken by those around you.

I have read the rules and know the specifications for the equipment.  I am not normally a rule reader I just follow the customs around me.  But, this is so different. 

There are several pieces of equipment Tangle hasn't seen before--wall jump and the "Euro" double (two singles placed 18-22" apart in ascending order).  Made those and trained on those.

I am studying course maps.  Lots of the obstacles are the same, but the approaches that they give you to those obstacles are totally different than what we encounter at any US venue.  Setting up exercises that allow us to practice those items.

Lessons learned so far:
Prepare your family, this will be an obsessive effort and will invade life as you know it.
It takes more than a month to prepare for this type of competition (given my experience base)
Talk to everyone you can who has actually done what you are going to do to limit the surprises along the way.
When the weather doesn't cooperate, you have to still figure out how to be productive

So, for me, this is a fairly steep hill to climb: really young, but talented dog, physical and mental preparedness, building my team, making equipment, researching courses, connecting with people, etc.

I know, you say "dah?" of course you have to do all this.  I would too if this was actually a goal of mine 3 months ago!

Practice April 9th! - Restrained sends to a tunnel

P.S. of course this is the spring where it has to snow every 4 days as well!  Thankful for the water, but it isn't helping my preparedness :)

Make it a game!

Trying to be true to the new year and my goal to lighten up a little while training.

The dogs and I went over to the park to run and stretch.  After that we did a bit of proofing contact behavior with the travel plank.

The dogs did surprisingly well.  I was surprised and please with Tip.  She is my queen that has lots of moments of brilliance which is sometimes peppered with no impulse control.  I love her to death and most of the time I don't mind that she is constantly testing the rules (I have put the frustrating days behind us).

Tangle did great.  Broke a couple of times, but that is ok.  Gives us an opportunity to clarify the behavior.  I am trying really hard to keep his dog walk contact solid.

Poor Split has been retrained one too many times and not by a person who knew how to retrain behaviors (it was me).  To compound his problem, he was initially taught a 4 on, which when I think about it now the criteria is next to impossible to communicate to the dog.  Then I tried to retrain the behavior to a 2o2o.  So, now I am thrilled when Split gives me either!

In this particular video I was only working with a medium value toy.  After this, I brought out the tennis ball (over the top value) to make the game even harder.  I didn't incorporate too much motion into this for 2 reasons.  1 - I have a strained muscle and was hoping to get it healed, 2 - that is the hardest for the dogs and I wanted to keep a high rate of reinforcement today and just renew their love for the end of the board.


Next session we will put in more motion, forward and lateral.  I will begin to reinforce the dog maintaining the forward line.