National Train Your Dog Month

The Association of Pet Dog Trainers has declared January to be NATIONAL TRAIN YOUR DOG MONTH!!!



This is a great opportunity for you and your people to learn new skills and brush up on old ones. I know that many of my dog blogging friends are already doing lots of training. The Happy Heelers herd, Ludo does tricks, Honey does freestyle, Big Pupi is a therapy dog and Mango's momma is always training him to stand in a cardboard box.

The better behaved you are the more places that you get to go with your person. Because I am well behaved I get to go to outdoor cafes. Barbara wouldn't take me if I went all cracker dog in public.



It doesn't have to be hard. You can incorporate training into all your daily activities. When you are on walks, practice your sit stays at every traffic light and stop sign. Even Ambrose has learned how to do that. Practice tricks while your people are watching TV. Every time a commercial comes on they can do a trick with you!

Learn a new dog sport with your person. As you know I like to do tracking.



I also practice my rally exercises.



Here is a video of me last year while we were learning our freestyle routine. Barbara rewards me as we practice. Sure, we made some mistakes but that just meant that we had to practice some more.





I love training. It is always fun, full of rewards and I have Barbara's undivided attention when we practice together. The funny thing is that the more that we practice, the more that I want to train. The training time with Barbara becomes its own reward (although I do love all the treats, praise and petting that I get).

Don't know how to get started? Get your people to sign you up for a training class or get help from a local trainer. APDT has a trainer search where you can find a trainer in your area to help you. Or get a group of your dog pals together and go for training walks around town. People will be impressed with how well behaved you are. Learn some new tricks. There are lots of training books and videos available.

Keep it positive in 2010. Training should be fun, fast and effective. No rough stuff. Reward based training is the best!

So get training and take some photos. Check back here because we will be announcing a training contest that will be an officially sanctioned Mango Minster event.

Happy New Year!!

Variable Surface Tracking

We've been very busy here so I am sorry that it has taken so long to post about the Variable Surface Tracking Workshop. I worked very hard and learned a lot.

This is Ed Presnall, the tracking expert who taught the workshop. VST tracking is the hardest type of tracking and he set up lots of great exercises to help us dogs (and our scent handicapped people) succeed.



I met lots of nice dogs at the workshop. It was interesting to see the different ways each dog approaches tracking. As you know, I am pretty intense about my tracking but some dogs are more deliberate or relaxed about it. I actually have to learn to slow down!



We began with easy starter tracks and article games. I know them but Ed said it is very important to practice them often. I am not very good at article indication so we are going to be doing a lot more of that.

In VST we don't just track on grass but on pavement, sidewalks, near buildings, near cars, across roads, up and down stairs and such. Each track that Ed laid had a problem for us to solve and each track got progressively harder.



Here you can see that I've made the turn. Barbara has to read my body language to see when I've gotten to the turn. She also has to learn to trust me, that I know more about scent than she does!



I've found the plastic article on this leg of the track. I also had to find leather, cloth and metal articles.



Even though this is the fourth track on Sunday, you can see that I am still going strong. It was a lot of work but so exciting. The only time I stopped tracking and got a bit silly was when one of the tracks went near goose poop! I just couldn't resist and grabbed some before Barbara saw it and told me to leave it!



We were all very tired after two days of intense learning and tracking. My brain and my nose needed a rest from all the work.



If you are interested in seeing more pictures of us tracking go here. Grady's person took lots of great photos of us working. Maybe you and your person would like to do some tracking. You can go to Ed's website to find out more about next year's seminars. You will learn a lot.

I had a great time and of course we are trying to put into practice all that we learned at the workshop. It is too hot here in NC to do much tracking right now. Ambrose has stopped itching so much thank goodness and no longer has to wear his satellite dish. I am glad because I was getting sick of getting bashed with it. Tomorrow I will be practicing my freestyle routine because that competition is in 3 weeks! Yikes! I better get down to work.

Puppy Training

The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior (AVSAB) thinks it is vital that all puppies get trained. I do too. Ambrose is bad enough as he is. If Barbara wasn't training him I don't want to even imagine how bad he would be. Barbara started teaching a new Junior Puppy class the other night. Of course I went to demonstrate and Ambrose came too. The puppies are pretty cute but they are all very silly

Goldie



Abby



Milo



Ambrose made friends with a Lewellyn Setter named Chief.



They practiced doing their sits.



My boyfriend Trotter's special person Chris came with their new Golden Retriever puppy named Scout. Poor Trotter. Now he will be neglected the way I am while Chris spends all her time with this new puppy. I have a great idea. Trotter can come to live with me and I will send Ambrose over to Chris to live with Scout. Then neither Trotter or I will have to deal with icky puppies.



Ambrose gets lots of training at home. Barbara takes him out into the woods to climb over logs and to practice his obedience. She says it will make him confident and strong. I think that he is too confident and strong already. He has tried to put his paws on my shoulders, the little brat!



He climbs over logs.



He crawls under branches.



When he isn't looking at her, Barbara will hide behind a tree and call him.



Ambrose races to her and gets bits of hot dogs. This is a great game to help with the recall. I love to play hide 'n seek.



Here is a photo of the two of us. You can see how big he is getting.



Now we are off to play bitey face. I've been tagged for a game and received an award. We'll get them up in the next day or so.

Bite, Bite, Bite

Ambrose has very sharp little teeth that he uses all the time. Barbara says he is a little barracuda. So it is really important for him to learn bite inhibition so that by the time his adult teeth come in and his jaws get powerful, he knows how to control his mouth.

Bitey face games, or jaw fighting, teach us to control the force with which we bite and keeps our mouths soft. Who knew that something so fun is also a good way to learn an important skill?

Ambrose and I had a good game of bitey face today. Notice how my mouth is open but I am not biting down.



I am doing what trainers call self-handicapping. Instead of jumping on top of Ambrose, which I certainly could do, I am stretched out on my side to make the game more fair for him. This way he can lean over me and bite on me.




Then I take his muzzle in my mouth but I don't bite down.



This gives Ambrose confidence to play with me and understand that I won't hurt him.



Good bitey face games are reciprocal. That means that no one is in charge all the time. We reverse roles so that sometimes Ambrose gets to think he is controlling the game. Of course, I am really in charge!



Then I put my foot over his face. The game continues as long as Ambrose controls his mouth.



What usually happens is that eventually Ambrose bites me too hard and then I flip him off me and make him squeak. That ends the game and he learns that the game is over if he looses control of his mouth. After such a work out, we have to take a nap.



Ambrose also has to learn bite inhibition with people. Barbara doesn't play bitey face with him of course, but if he bites her hard when she is petting him, she gasps and takes her hands away. Already his bites are getting less intense. Puppies have a lot of things to learn. Now if I can only get him house trained.

Puppy Class

Aren't these little puppies cute?





They are two of the students in Barbara's Junior Puppy class at the humane society. I go to the puppy class to act as the demo dog and show the puppies how to play nicely. These pups will get lots of good socialization, learn that training is fun and get some basic obedience training at the same time. Puppy class will help these puppies and their people prevent behavior problems in the future and get these puppies off to a good start.

If you went to a good puppy class when you were little, your teacher was probably influenced by Dr. Ian Dunbar. Besides founding the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, Dr. Dunbar revolutionized puppy training. Before he came along, most people didn't bother to take their pups to puppy class. The conventional wisdom was that we dogs couldn't learn things until we were 6 months old! 23 years ago Barbara took one of her puppies to a so-called puppy class where her Brittany puppy was put in a prong collar and spent the class heeling around in a circle! You can imagine she didn't last long there.



Dr. Dunbar showed how puppy class could be fun and educational at the same time, that proper socialization is more important than rote obedience and that we pups could learn tons of stuff.

Dr. Dunbar has a great website called Dogstar Daily. He has excerpts from his books available for free on the site as well as articles from other great trainers. Check it out when you have a chance.

Photo Shoot and More

Thank you to my Scottish friends the Dughallmor Beagles for this lovely award created by Crystal at Memoirs of a Mommy.
It is beautiful.



Well we are a little behind here and so finally Barbara arranged to do a photo shoot for my Christmas card. Since she is not that good of a photographer (as you can see from some of the photos on my blog) she asked my boyfriend Trotter's person Chris to take the pictures. I am always so happy to see Chris as she always makes a big fuss over me and of course when I see Chris I get to see Trotter too.

Unfortunately before I could play with him I had to pose for all these pictures. Very boooooring. Standing and sitting still is so dull when there is a nice big fenced yard to run around in. It didn't take too long and here is a picture from the shoot. I think I look pretty nice and I didn't even have to have a bath! Then Trotter and I got to play for a little while.



My boyfriend Royal's person is a dog trainer too. Her name is Jenn and she was on TV tonight. The local CBS station WRAL had a Bad Dog Challange and Jenn was one of the trainers picked to help a young Sheltie with problems. Jenn really shows how positive training can help. You can check out the video of Jenn and Mali the Sheltie here.

Here is a photo of Royal and me hanging out at the dog park.



I am off to Drill Team practice now. Our team is going to be in 2 Christmas Parades in December and we want to look good.

Why Train?

As a dog, I must say I think we are just perfect and that people are lucky that we are around. However, sometimes to help us fit into human society we have to have some training. Why bother? And how do we know if the trainer and the training is right for us?

Archie and Agatha have described their recent experiences with dog training and their efforts to keep the trainer from coming back. Since my person is a dog trainer, I think that I can share my thoughts on training. There are many different ways to train dogs, some good and some bad. Barbara always says that training is something you do with your dog, not to your dog. I agree with this. We do reward based, positive training (which is the only kind I am interested in) and it has made me even more bonded to her.

Training stimulates my mind, I get to go interesting and fun places and I get lots of rewards. Dogs who don't behave well stay home because their people are embarrassed to take them anywhere.




Dogs that are trained get to do fun dog sports like tracking, agility or freestyle.

Sky and Shari practicing their freestyle moves.


The Drill Team performing.



Tracking




They can learn lots of tricks and show them off. Royal is learning to play the piano.



I am learning to leap.



All around training makes me a better dog (and I was pretty good to start with).

Now training is as much about training your person as it is about you. Barbara says that if she just had to train us dogs her job would be very easy! But the whole point of training is to make you a good team so you and your person can communicate and work together.

If you need some training it is important to find the right trainer who will train you in a way that you will enjoy learning and help your people to be consistent with you. They can start by checking out the trainer search at the Association of Pet Dog Trainers. The APDT advocates dog friendly, reward based training and helps trainers get education on the best ways to train. You can also check out the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers whose members have taken a national exam to show that they know how to train.

Your people should check the trainer's references, or if it is for a group class, they should attend a class without you to see what methods are used. Training should be fun and humane. Training should never, ever cause you fear or pain.

Will training make you tired? Sometimes. When I have been working very hard on a new skill or trick I need a little nap when I get home since my brain got stretched. Training should not make you afraid of the trainer. I love to train (and I have been doing it since I was a pup), learn new things and have fun with my person while I do it. You can check out her website for more info on training. Have fun and get lots of treats.

Puppy Class Graduation

I showed you some pictures of Barbara's Junior Puppy Class several weeks ago. Last night the puppies graduated! They have grown so much and learned a lot. They have learned to pay attention, sit, down, leave it, come and do some tricks as well as lots of socialization. There was a contest to show how long they could pay attention to their people, they showed off their tricks and ran an obstacle course. Then they got diplomas and ribbons and treats (Barbara gave away some of mine!!!)

It is so important for puppies to get off to the right start so I am very glad that these people were smart enough to take their puppies to Barbara's class.




Louie coming out of the tunnel.



Akiko getting ready to sit.




Rose going over the hoops in the obstacle course.




Now to something that is of more interest to me - taste testing the treats. My tummy is all better so Barbara thought it was safe for me to try some. She brought home 9 different kinds of treats from the trade show at the APDT Conference. Actually she brought home 12 kinds but gave 3 away to friends which has me a bit put out since I wanted to taste them all.

However last night I got to try 2 flavors. The Muttos Duck and Sweet Potato treats were quite delicious but they paled in comparison to the Buddy Biscuits Beef Madness.



Yum!! I wanted to try all 9 flavors but she was afraid that too many treats would upset my tummy again. Maybe tomorrow I can try the peanut butter and the lamb flavors.


I want to thank my British Border Collie friends Holly and Zac for this great butterfly award.



I'd like to pass it on to my friends Tom, Sen-Chan and Tama-Chan, Kirby, Pedro and Stanislaw and Big Pupi. I enjoy their blogs so much.

Now Barbara is off to stand in long lines and vote.

The Association of Pet Dog Trainers Conference

I am sorry that I haven't been able to blog for quite awhile. I was in the kennel at K9 Kindercare for 10 days while Barbara went to the Association of Pet Dog Trainers Conference. This is a huge 5 day conference for dog trainers to learn the latest in positive reinforcement, dog behavior and training. Barbara goes every year so she can learn things to help more dogs. Over 1000 trainers came to the conference. Barbara is on the Board of APDT and on the conference committee so she had to go early and stay late to help with the set up and the planning for next year.

They had an entire day about dog play at the conference. I could have taught that class myself as I have very good play skills. But the best part of the conference, as far as I am concerned, is the trade show. Lots of vendors come and sell treats and toys and training equipment.

Kong gives every attendee a conference tote bag. There are lots of free treats from the vendors inside. Then Barbara goes around the trade show and buys more.



You can see that I am very anxious to get into that bag.





Look at this great pile of treats and toys. Some treats are duck and potato, some are peanut butter and many other delicious flavors. I will be doing some taste tests this week to determine the best kinds.





I thought that all these great toys were just for me but it seems some are for her students' dogs. This is not fair as they look like a lot of fun.



This is a special fox toy that is all mine!



I missed my person a lot while she was at the conference but I'm very glad that she went and I wish all dog trainers would educate themselves about the dog friendly training methods. There are too many people out there that call themselves dog trainers who don't know the first thing about training and shouldn't be training a gold fish never mind a dog. So I am going to learn lots of new things, play with new toys and get delicious treats!