Getting up to date

Whoops! I've missed a few updates again *blush*

The evening of the day after our first platinum class, we had our second clicker class. I thought that we weren't very well prepared at all for the homework that we had to do, but I underestimated my boy again. I'd done a few quick training sessions with him during the day before class and he was:

1. steadily offering his default behaviour, wherever I positioned myself;

2. becoming more consistent with his left paw targetting but was still thrusting his paw out and dragging the target rather than just tapping it;

3. still loving 'roll over' and would follow my hand even if it didn't have a treat in it.

At class, we worked on making the paw targetting more accurate (beautiful left paw taps from Mr Beans!) then started to shape the left paw targetting into a 'wave', we started to introduce right paw targetting with a new target (hit and miss to start with but Bran improved quite quickly with this), we were working on introducing the verbal command 'roll over' just before using the hand signal then phasing out the hand signal all together, then we tried to "free shape" a behaviour firstly from a 'stand' then from a 'down'. Bran found the last 2 exercises quite difficult as he is very good at holding his position in perfect stillness! Anyway, we had just 4 days before the next class so had lots of homework on top of out platinum homework!!

The following day, Bran was really off colour :o( He kept crying and taking himself out to the kitchen away from the rest of us and those are usually big flashing signs that something is causing him pain, but he was walking well and seemed ok in himself in between the bouts of crying and hiding. He's due to start a new med regime soon to try and manage the pain from his elbow dysplasia but needed to finish his steroids first. He took his last steroid on Saturday 14th and should be starting on his new tablets on Tuesday 24th, but I'm monitoring him carefully in case he needs to be whisked off to the vets a bit early.

Given his being so unsettled, I didn't really push Bran much with our homework over the weekend, but by Sunday evening he seemed brighter so we had a few short training sessions throughout Monday before heading off to class in the evening.

During our sessions on Monday, Bran was:

1. becoming much more accurate with his left paw targetting, but reverting straight back to trying to drag it if I lifted it off of the floor;

2. becoming more consistent with his right paw targetting and was offering his right paw for 3 in every 4 times;

3. happily performing a 'roll over' just on a verbal command;

4. starting to offer a head bob down to his right and back up during free shaping from a 'down';

5. starting to offer a little bottom shuffle with his front paws tapping and a little wuff during free shaping from a 'sit', having refused to attempt anything from a 'stand'.

At class, my clever little puppy dog happily started to build up to a 'wave', despite all previous resistance at home! His right paw targetting became SO consistent that even when I took the target up, he was tapping the spot where the target had been!

We then learned a new game which will help the dogs to focus better. Jo called it 'watch the mousey' and we had to, initially, get our dogs to a point where we could put a treat on the floor in front of them with our hands nearby with them not trying to get the treat without being given a command (such as 'leave'). Once we'd got this far, we needed to be sure that the dogs were focussed on the treat and not on us. Once they'd got that far, we flicked the treat! The dogs then charged off to get it and returned. After a few of these, we then had to be cheeky and try to distract the dogs whilst they were carefully watching the treat. Jo's demonstration was done with my food loving puppy dog and she clicked her fingers behind him. As soon as he broke his concentration to look at her, she picked the treat up, hid it for a moment, then offered it again. Next time she clicked her fingers, he never moved ;o) We can build up on this by offering more and more distractions but the dogs are only going to be rewarded if they remain intently focussed on the treat. Bran LOVED this game and foresee lots of fun times with it at home. Jacob had a few problems with smartypants Casey as she carried on focussing carefully on thrown treats for the rest of the session after the game had finished and he was trying to reward her for behaviours!! LOL!

He happily showed off his big, flouncy 'roll over', but was so tired by the time we got around to demonstrating the 'sit' free shape behaviour that he couldn't sit straight. Often when he is tired, he flops over on to his left hip and this is what he kept doing. I tried to click him for some straight 'sit's, but he only managed two before lapsing back into the 'lazy sit' so I conceded defeat.

Jo then introduced us to 'go through' and 'go around' where we teach our dogs to either 'go through' a hoop or 'go around' something like a cone or a chair. As the chosen demo dog was a bit wary of the hoop, Bran went up to show her how it was done. It was very funny watching him watching her being afraid as it was very reminiscent of when I first tried to introduce to the doggy brain training game and Flora was in the crate screaming to be let out to show him how to do it properly! How the times have changed :o) Jacob has decided to teach Casey 'go through' and I'm going to do 'go around' with Bran.

We had our second platinum class this morning and were back at the Nailsea hall due to the on and off heavy showers we've been enduring. Bran enjoys the company of the dogs that he attends platinum with so much that he just becomes a complete airhead when he sees them all - wuffing and playbowing and bouncing. Clown dog.

We started off with trying the obedience 'sit and 'stand' and I had some success with the Pickle!! He was coming in much closer to my side than he has been during home attempts, so it is definite progress :o)

Next we had a go at our 'fetch it'. Bran happily ran off to fetch his rabbit disc a few times for me, consistently spitting it at my feet each time he was about a foot away from me. He got fed up of fetching this, so I placed it to one side on the floor and picked up the keys with the dummy keyring on. He ran out happily to fetch it, got halfway back to me, then stopped, spat the keyring out and picked up the rabbit disc! Little monkey! Jo came over and gave me some tips on getting him to hold the item in his mouth for longer (I made a huge mistake a few days ago and started teaching him 'hold it' with a verbal command right away and making him hold the item in his mouth and he just looked utterly miserable the whole time - bad mummy!).

Dummy Keyrings

We went back inside and Jo announced that we were going to do some work on getting them all to hold their toys for longer - woohoo! Just what I need! We were each given a piece of hosepipe (as something - hopefully - new for them all to hold in their mouths), encouraged to get them as excited about it as possible, then taking hold of the end of the hosepipe and telling them to 'give' before quickly offering a game with a toy or a treat. It was all very fast, but Bran did get it very quickly and I have high hopes of this working out. I am VERY excited at the prospect of having my little gundog delivering to hand at long last! :o)

We then did some work on getting the dogs' 'bow' put on to a verbal command and a clear hand signal as well as trying to build in some duration. Jo offered us the command 'take a bow' to make it sound different to 'down' and that was a much better suggestion than the 'dip' I had in my head ;o) Bran really likes this exercise too and will happily hold the pose for a few seconds and will perform when I just use the new hand signal and verbal command without a treat in my hand. Good boy.

Happily, Jo then also told us that we were going to teach the dogs 'go around'. Life becomes easier when clicker and platinum class merge a little ;o) Bran went up to demonstrate the 'go around' (and Jo has promised to give me some tips at clicker class next week to work around his 'shark teeth' method of snatching treats from pincered fingers!) and he was quickly doing what was asked of him, bless his little paws. We all had a go at teaching our dogs the 'go around' before class finished. Bran seems to really like this exercise and was absolutely shattered by the end of class!



*If any of you are interested in buying a dummy keyring or 2, or a rabbit covered disc, my lovely friend Helen sells them on her gundoggery website Hilost :o)

Platinum training commences

Nice early start to the day and we arrived farrrr too early thanks to my being worried about not being able to find where we needed to be, but we had a nice little walk in the field with Jo and her terrier boy, Boots.

Bran was absolutely thrilled to see his "classmates" again and spent an inordinately large amount of time bouncing on the end of his lead and wuffing at everyone. Marvellous way to start!

Jo, in her wisdom, has decided to teach us following the Kennel Club Pre-beginners obedience and has tentatively suggested that our little team could enter a show being held in Birmingham in August. No pressure then!! I did put forward Bran's name as team mascot rather than have us carrying any responsibility to achieve something....

Jo then went on to teach us the start of a competition obedience 'stand' - having the dog leaning against your thigh, with their head right up and chin on your body whilst you are in position as if you are about to take a step forward; a 'sit' - having the dog sat tight to your leg, again with the head right up and chin resting on your body; and a 'present' - having the dog recall to a tight 'sit' in front with their chin resting on your body as they look up at you, ready to be sent into a 'finish'.

Bran decided that all of this was a load of tosh and what he would most like to do is roll in the long wet grass. Gorgeously frustrating is this boy of mine!

The 'stand' and 'sit' were practically non-starters. With the 'present' we were supposed to be rewarding for any little movement of the feet towards to bring the dogs in tighter than they are used to. Bran lost the plot as I tried to lure him forwards a little. He offered a 'sit', 'stand', 'down', 'paw', 'roll over', 'bark' and a leap into my arms, but never moved his backside off of the spot if I put him into a 'sit'.

Jo then decided to give the dogs a rest from all of their hard work (!?!) by teaching them a new trick. She suggested a 'bow' and I was a bit worried that Bran's elbows wouldn't let him bend enough to do it, so she suggested he try a 'beg'. Lo and behold, Bran LOVES doing 'bow' and picked it up very very quickly. Although, Jo also showed me how to start teaching a 'beg' and he quite enjoyed that too!! Clearly, this dog is built for tricks and not obedience ;o)

We then went to start an exercise which will encourage the dogs to fetch any identified object. I breathed a sigh of relief with this one as Bran knows 'fetch it' well and will happily fetch anything once I've identified it as an allowable object for him to put his mouth on. As expected, he happily mouth targetted the rubber ring we were given, then waited quietly as I threw the ring on, then happily bombed off to 'fetch it' and then happily threw it at my feet. We are supposed to be building up to delivering to hand which is something I've been trying to teach him for ages so this should be fun :o) We then swapped toys and once he'd had a quick mouth of the new toy, Bran happily trotted off to 'fetch it' for me.

Homework is to polish the competition 'stand', 'sit' and 'present' positions, advance the 'bow' (although we may try to work on 'beg' too) and have the dogs fetch 10 different items, so it should be a VERY interesting week ;o)

I then drove my car off of a concrete section that had a higher kerb than I thought for, thereby eliciting scary banging noises from the underneath of my car as we dismounted, but we'll not go into that.....

Bran's Law

I am now convinced that Bran is the one who is well and truly running this show and I am a fool to have ever thought differently.

I believe that he watches me try to introduce him to something new and he then makes the following assessment in his head and gives everything a score out of 10:

1. how worthwhile it is for HIM to learn it;
2. how important it is for ME that he learns it;
3. how many treats he can milk before I get so frustrated that I stop trying and, therefore, stop producing the treats;

For example, when Jo first introduced 'roll over' to him, his little brain went "Wahooooooooooo! I LUFFS rolling AND I gets treats!!" and so it was given an assessment of a measly 2, simply because he was getting so much out of it and will now happily carry it out with no treats in sight.

When Jo asked him for a default pre-training behaviour, I suspect he assessed it as about a 5: it wasn't going to take much effort on his part once he realised that all he had to do was sit directly in front of her and look at her face (quite difficult for him when there's a treat bag on display!) and he would be given a treat.

Now, with the paw targetting, I think he sensed the niggling worry in my brain about his "poor elbows" and just how much I felt that he'd be able to manage, realised that I could be played and assessed it a 240.... In class, he managed to dismantle the box with a bone crushing smack of his paw but refused to move his feet whilst in a 'stand' or 'sit'. At home, he refused to acknowledge that there was even anything on the floor and would happily hold his position whilst grinning inanely at me for whatever length of time my nerve could hold for. Until this morning, when (after a 2 day break) he decided that I'd been stressed enough, the threat of treat removal was looming and reassessed the exercise to a 3 and happily planted his left paw - time after time - on the target - not too heavily, just nicely.

I don't stand a chance really.....

Progress, sort of...

Bran is doing brilliantly with learning the default behaviour and immediately positions himself in front of me in a steady 'sit' and holds eye contact as soon as he sees the treat bag and the clicker. If I walk around, then stop, he quickly hurries into position and is very pleased with himself for getting it right :o)

'Roll over' is also coming along really well as he just adores performing it! Our friend, T, asked if we could possibly get a video of him doing it and I have managed to get a little one, but bear in mind that the camera is also out for filming so he's not *quite* as enthusiastic as he usually is!



Paw targetting is not going quite so well. Bran is used to targetting with his nose and is struggling with the concept of using his paws so I've been gathering some helpful advice to try out and see if we can crack it. I will report back on how it goes!

Apologies for the delay!

Huge apologies for not keeping this up to date but I hit a bit of a mindnumbing wall with the Good Citizen classes and, especially, the 'stop' command so took a blogging break ;o)

I am very happy to say that Bran successfully passed his Silver test in January, despite a rather determined kitten trying to put him off on the "road walk" and the car not starting in the "car behaviour"!



By some miracle, about this time, Bran's body suddenly remembered how to gain weight and he started to steadily gain. Although, for every ounce of weight he put on, he also gained a little more energy and a little more naughtiness, so training became LOTS more fun as I tried to rein him in. Luckily, his classmates have seen him when he has been very poorly so were all thrilled to have him playbowing and wuffing at the most inappropriate moments!

On one memorable occasion, we were practising the 'stop' command and all owners and dogs were waiting in a line with the dogs practising just holding position on their beds whilst waiting for their turn at the exercise. We were then taking our dog out, placing them in a 'sit-stay' with their backs to the waiting people and dogs, walking away from them, then turning and recalling but asking for a 'stop' when they were part of the way to us. So our turn came, I walked up, put Bran in a 'sit-stay', turned my back on him and walked away. I stopped when I heard lots of laughter, not really sure of what to expect. I turn around and find that Bran has decided the 'stop' exercise is rubbish and he's taken himself back to his bed in the line!!!

Eventually, the time came for us to take our gold test. There were only 4 of us taking it and, somehow, we were one of the two who passed! It has to be noted that Bran did the whole thing with a twinkle in his eyes, his ears cocked and a wag in his tail that all told me that he could have taken flight at any moment.



Our lovely friends Emma and Sam sent Bran his gold KC citizen tag so that he now has a full set :o)



I have to say that Bran is most definitely nothing like any of the gold citizen dogs that I've ever met before. They have all been very well behaved, mild mannered creatures and that is NOT Bran! In the space of the week following his test he:

1. ran off down my mum's (very quiet cul de sac) street after a strange cat;
2. refused to follow me up to the house from the car until the lady walking towards us (who we didn't know) had stopped and made a fuss of him;
3. was barking at the lounge window, then turned his nose up at me and/or ignored me when I told him to stop;
4. created his own commands - for example, if I said "Bran stop barking in that window and come here" he was clearly hearing "run out into the hallway and continue your barking there";
5. had been having mad hoolies round the house, up and down the stairs (yes, he does still have terrible elbows) and over the sofas with the puppies yapping at his heels every hour or so;
6. had been encouraging the puppies to take toys upstairs and to either leave him in precarious positions on the stairs or hide them in my bedroom;
7. attempted to steal a whole jam doughnut from my hand whilst I was talking and only stopped when I caught him with his mouth open and hovering right over it - one bite and it would have been gone, probably with several of my fingers too;
8. discovered that plastic bottles can now go in our recycling box, so believes that he now has an outside toy box whilst leaving chewed up plastic bottles all over the garden;
9. had been coming up with more and more clever ways to steal Sophie's sofa spot!

Thankfully, I attended this year's Crufts and took some time to watch the KC Gold Citizen display team and they almost all played up at some point or another, so I felt MUCH better after that! LOL!

We attended one more training class after passing our test and have now had a break of 5 weeks as Jo is creating a platinum class for those dogs who have been training for gold for some time now. We should be learning all sorts of exciting things like clicker training, scent work, tracking, etc and I'm really looking forward to a complete change from the obedience work. Our first class will be on Wednesday 4th and we'll both enjoy getting back to "work" :o)

However, before platinum class we are enrolled on a 4 week clicker workshop which is an advancement on the course that we did some months ago. Jacob and Casey are also going to be attending.

Now before I go any further, remember that I have already told you that Bran is currently this pile of naughtiness....



Our first clicker class was tonight.

It started with Bran being ridiculously over-excited to be back in class and to see Jo which involved LOTS of bouncing and wuffing and rolling on his back and rarrrrring.

The first exercise was to teach our dogs a default behaviour - a behaviour that will not be put on a cue and that they could offer when they have been told that training is about to start but have not yet been asked to do anything.

Bran was called up to demonstrate with Jo. He proceeded to bounce on the end of his lead, jump up at her and try to roll on his back. Joy. However, he did start to focus and Jo started to click and treat him for sitting calmly in front of her and looking at her.

We then took over and Bran might never have been up doing the exercise with Jo as, with me, he bounced on his lead and rolled on his back again!! As before, his brain eventually kicked in and he was quickly offering lovely steady sits with held eye contact :o)

The next exercise was to start teaching a one paw touch on a target. We are eventually going to teach them 'left paw', 'right paw' and 'wave', but tonight we just focussed on getting them to use one paw repeatedly to tap a target. Both Bran and Casey found this really hard as all the targetting they've done in the past has been with their noses. Casey quickly worked out what Jacob was asking of her and shone. Bran really didn't get it at all, although we had a lightweight wooden box as a target and he managed to scrunch it up in his teeth then rip it apart with really heavy paw "tapping". We're supposed to continue practising with the same targets at home, but we'll be starting from scratch with something a bit sturdier!

We were supposed to be teaching this exercise with the dogs in either a 'sit' or 'stand' as a starting position, but Bran kept offering a 'down'. I'm not sure if that's because he finds it difficult to 'sit' or 'stand' whilst balancing on just one front leg because of the elbow wreckage or if he's just being difficult, so I'll give it another go at home and see if he does it any differently.

The final exercise was supposed to be building up to teaching the dogs to 'roll over'. Seeing as both Bran and Casey are dogs who love to spend a lot of time on their backs, I had a feeling this was going to go well! Jo called Bran up to demonstrate again and he absolutely LOVED it. Within just a few clicks, he was already quickly rolling over. When I took over, I just ended up in giggles as Bran was SO excited about performing this "trick". I had to give up when his excitement got out of control and every time I tried to lure him into a roll he just wiggled on his back and RARRRRRRRRRRed! LOL!

Ah well. It can only be better next week.........

Just 'STOP', Bran!!

Arrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!

Ok. So. Last week we went in armed with a perfect 'STOP' that could be performed in the house and in the park with distractions, plus a 'go round' in one movement if Bran was paying enough attention. We didn't do either exercise at class - typical! However, we did lots of recalls with distractions: Bran had to first be recalled from a group of dogs and he came straight out; then he had to be recalled whilst Jo was feeding him treats and he came straight away; next was recalling down the paddock with toy distractions dotted about - first time recall; recall down the paddock with toy distractions, bowls of food distractions and a set of weave poles - perfect recall; recall to heel and continue to walk at heel for 10 paces - spot on!

I've continued to work on the 'STOP' at home and at the work. And at Mandy's house after I moaned about him not doing it at class and he executed it perfectly.

His elbow was sore during class last week and he is back on a rather hefty dose of tramadol to manage that, but all the same he continued to execute the perfect 'STOP' at home on laminate flooring so of course he couldn't fail to perform at class - yet again! - could he??

Today we've done recall to heel and continue to heel whilst weaving through cones - brilliant; recall then finish at the same time as another dog - marvellous (even with a barking collie beside him!); paying little attention to someone eating food - interested but not bothersome and distractable; sending to bed - lovely (although he offered a 'sit' instead of a 'down'); 2 minute stay - great until he got up to come to me at the end of the exercise instead of waiting; 'leave' with food in a bowl and then in an open hand - fab; and then we had 2 'STOP' exercises - the one we've been practising with the dog recalling to you and starting to teach a 'STOP' whilst the dog is moving away from you.

Jo offered to give Bran some leeway because of his elbows but I insisted that if he can do it perfectly on a laminate floor at home, there should be no reason for excuses on a grassed paddock.

Did he 'STOP'?

Did he bugger!!!!!

He didn't even shuffle a few paces and then stop like some of the others did - he just kept coming at me slowly! 5 times he was given a chance to sort it and EVERY SINGLE TIME he just kept walking at me.

Then we had to try the stop whilst walking away and, again, he just refused to halt!

Jo told us to keep practising but I feel like banging my head against a wall now because I don't know how I can keep practising when he does it perfectly everywhere except at class.

Oooh I could swing for him right now!

Oh and an added bonus: we're taking our silver test on 8th January and Jo's enquiring about whether we can do our gold on the same day!

And extra exciting news - Moss and Sophie are moving up to the bronze class next week!!

Having fun

Well both Bran and I are having lots of fun learning our new exercises.

Having managed to get to a point where he was pre-empting the new 'stop' command by stopping and immediately turning on his heel and running to fetch the treat that I hadn't yet thrown behind him, I decided to bring the clicker out and use that to capture Bran's 'stop' BEFORE he had a chance to turn on his heel. By last Wednesday, he was reliably stopping to every hand/vocal command and holding it for a good 20 seconds before having the treat thrown. On Thursday we went to class and I got the old 'Are you speaking English? What is this 'stop' you speak of?' from him. Swine ;o)

Today, we took the 'stop' command to the park and I used a squeaky Kong ball instead of treats and my boy was perfect. Just perfect. Of course, we'll see how he performs on Thursday but at least now I have it on record should he call me before a jury doubting my training again!

Learning a finish has been........ermmmm...........entertaining. I've been trying to guide Bran round to my right with one treat, then offering a treat in my left hand to bring him round to my left and into a sit. Nightmare. Not fun. Hard work. Every single time without fail as I remove the treat in my right hand to guide him with my left, he would follow the right hand back out and get himself in a right old tizzy! Clicker to the rescue again! I started clicking him just for following my right hand to halfway round my back. Once that was nailed, I commanded him to go that far then lured him round to my side and a sit. He can now do a finish in one movement to the command 'go round' and a brief hand signal, although we do need to make it quicker and get his 'sit' a bit closer. Mucho progress though :)

What else have we been doing?

Changing pace with onlead walking: 'steady' warns him we're going to slow it down; 'come on then' warns him we're going to get much faster.

All of a sudden he seems to know 'heel' for perfect offlead heelwork which bemuses me as I don't remember ever teaching him 'heel' as a command. We've done a lot of heelwork both on and off lead but I've never given it a command so am amazed that I suddenly have a dog who can 'heel' like a pro!

Recalling whilst I'm still moving and keeping him to heel and in pace for 10 paces is just beautiful. For some reason he just "got" this exercise the very first time that we tried it at class and continues to nail it every single time.

'Mat' is being dusted off and solidified so that I can reward him on the mat and he doesn't come off of it, even if there are distractions around. He did this brilliantly on Saturday night when he was on his mat whilst Sophie and I practised 'mat' with the puppies.

I still need to start clicking him for having 4 feet on the floor when people come through the door as I think that's going to be his hardest exercise for the silver exam. I also need to do some more work with getting him to focus on me if we are walking around someone with food. He pays no interest if we are eating at home but apparently it's very exciting if someone is eating at class!

Anyway. That's where we are for now. I feel happy with the progress that we're making and was delighted when an older couple who had obviously seen us training at the park came up to me to tell me what a lovely, obedient dog Bran is. I absolutely agree!