Pearls – it’s a bit of a running joke in my BNI group – is a tidbit of valuable info.  Stuff that I’ve learned from the actual experience rather than a video or a story told.

In May, we got to see what we’ve been working toward.  Until this past month, we had only competed in Florida.  We joined the CFDDC, which is an awesome group, and did every competition in FL we could get to.  With Lilli, Jason did really well and Moxie and I had great potential right off the bat.  We had seen videos of other top disc doggers around the country, but not live and in action…. until we went to Freedom Weekend.  I was awed, excited, humbled, inspired and it was so super cool to meet Tracy.

Moxie stylin' at USDDN Freedom Weekend

Between then and now, I’ve learned a lot of valuable pieces that will take us to the next level.  Here are some of the top ones on my list:

1. Don’t repeat tricks if I miss them.  None of the top teams do it.
2. Focus on flow and catch percentage. Can’t get a big score if I’ve got a low %.
3. Video the teams you love the most – and the ones that WIN – and learn something from them. 
4. Relax.  Breathe.  I’ve really enjoyed playing with Moxie at the last 2 events, mostly because I was relaxed and only had the expectation to play with my partner.
5. Try cool new stuff – be innovative.  We added a Japanese dog catch and a butterfly vault to our routine.  Hard stuff is fun to try and creative stuff is fun to watch.

Our first butterfly vault caught in competition!

Some random thoughts:

I think Moxie may be a ACD / Kelpie.  Been wondering what she’s mixed with and saw 2 different kelpies today that look just like her!  Kelpie would be so much cooler in the mix that a terrier of some sort…

Last weekend, the day after UFO in Jacksonville, Jack and Kat Fahle, Chris Engel and Mike Dillon, Jason and I got together at Mike’s place in central FL to jam.  We all played with other people’s dogs and worked on some new tricks and the dogs all ate horse poo (which is a separate story).  We really enjoyed hanging out and playing.  We learn so much watching other people play.  Mike and Molly are coming over this weekend to work on some more vault training and a dog catch.  We’re gonna take lots of video and put together some new videos for the blog.

Moxie and I have made great progress on the shriek.  If you’ve ever seen us in competition – you’ve heard it.  Earsplitting.  A 5 minute session with Susan Garrett and like magic (and holding criteria) – we’ve made fantastic progress.  I love and appreciate the gurus we have in our lives and hope to someday be that for other people.  We’ve been so honored to hang with and learn from great people – Ron and Apryl, Susan, John Arnett, John Geraghty…  We look forward to finding a “more local” mentor to get us to the next level of play.  Can’t wait for Ron and Apryl’s camp this summer in MI!

Fancy Footwork

Turns out it was very easy. Especially as a third party observer. Much more challenging to have a clear a view of flow from inside of it.  And I have zero flow with Moxie. She is way over my head. Watching Andrea and Moxie I could see the simplicity of positioning and purposeful movement that would lead to a synchronized effort.   Linking tricks is cool yet it is the mechanics and footwork between tricks at the heart of flow.

An Eye for Tendencies

Understanding the tendencies and strengths of our dogs makes a big difference.   With Kai I payed attention to her preferences and considered how I might enhance our flow.  Kai is much more dynamic when I throw her a flip with my left hand, and she needs to be exactly in line with me.  From the flip she is perfectly lined up for an inverted side vault. A non inverted side vault would take a step longer to set up.  Upon landing from the inverted Kai turns back and lines up perfectly and in time for a leg vault.  This sequence requires minimal adjustment or setup. It matches Kai’s natural movements to create smooth transitions as she exits each trick.

Agility Crossover

Lilli knows the most tricks. She is comfortable in any direction.  Her agility training and experience gives her a greater variety of moves and understanding of movement.  I think agility is great cross training for disc dogs and handlers. Ron Watson likes to reference front and rear crosses in his disc dog seminars.   There is also the hand movement, pressure and other techniques used in agility to move the dog through the course. This relationship can translate into more dynamic movement in a disc routine.

Disc Skills

Nothing kills flow like a poor throw. And 2 bad throws in a row is really silly.  Not directed at noobies and rookies.  Anyone who has spent some time in the sport should have a firm grasp on mechanics and throwing with intention.  It’s best for the dogs, flow and spectators I find myself being lazy when I practice and my dogs suffer the consequences with those sliders that jam them up, sloppy vault tosses, etc.

Practicing ( throwing ) with intention is better for me and my dogs.

In competition I am more focused and my throws are sharp. How when and where I place the disc is key for flow.  Moxie is wicked fast and it is easy to be late presenting the disc for an over.  Lilli prefers to jump off to the right on a back vault so I need to consider that when I place the disc or my head will pay the price.   Moxie likes to jump vertically, Lilli prefers more of an out, Kai likes them high and outside.  My biggest challenge is timing and placement on vaults.  I am often low and late.  When I play with my different dogs or new dogs, I watch how high I can throw the disc on an out to improve the chances of a reception.  Some dogs have more of a vertical leap than others.  And what pace do I need to put on the disc based on the tendencies of the dog and its speed.  Lilli is very good at reading discs but like most dogs her weakness is a straight up jump on a slow over head disc. She looks much smoother when the disc is at the right place at the right pace.

We would do a great service for our dogs if we all take more responsibility for proper throws.

Attitude

Moxie is about pursue and kill, Lilli about possession, and Kai is about the chase. Leila wants to please I think.  Knowing their attitude and behavior helps me create games and set up movement that works for them. Moxie will chase the disc anywhere no matter what.  Lilli is a bit more thoughtful.  Kai just wants to run after it and jump up for it cuz thats what she likes to do.  So it works out to keep Moxie moving or she will get antsy.  Lilli enjoys the whole process of obtaining the disc so the pace is less frenetic.  And of course there is the handlers attitude.  A bad attitude is surely a flow killer. Let’s take a note from performers and just smile like nothing happened when mistakes occur. A bad attitude kills it for everyone, including the dog, the spectators and little bunnies.

Anyway, that’s enough blabbering about Flow.  Just keep an eye out for it. never stop looking for it.  And appreciate it whenever you find it.

Lilli is 3 yrs old. We have had her since she was 4 months old I think.  Andrea got her specifically for the purpose of being my disc fetching dog.  Freestyle and agility were not really in the plans at that point.  We started at ground zero as it pertains to training dogs.  In some ways that was awesome because we were a blank slate.  At times it was overwhelming as there are a variety of styles and strategies from old school discipline to new school positive training, mirror training and pack leader strategies.   We had one dog and that one dog got basic obedience training in the kitchen.  We were thrilled at the success of sit, down, stay.  Lilli was great at learning basic commands.  A few months later we took an official obedience course with a local trainer.  She fired us up to train for agility, which Lilli loved.  Then we felt like freestyle would be the next obvious step for Lilli who had really showed a passion for disc play.   We met again with a local superstar disc dogger who gave us some basic steps.  We were thrilled with the progress.  But one dog and two eager handlers was not enough so we opted for a second dog.

Leila , our red merle, arrived in a plane from Michigan.  Cuter than any puppy I had ever seen.  She was a princess, bred for confirmation, we were sure (ok- hopeful) she would work out as a disc dog with such fine lines and breeding.  We left a few weeks later, flying all the way to Canada for a puppy camp with Susan Garrett.  And it really changed everything for us.  What Susan teaches is like dog training college.  Truthfully we felt behind the curve on just the first day.    We came home with a renewed energy and deeper understanding of the mechanics of training.  Crate games by Susan Garrett for sure has been the difference maker in having our high energy dogs become great house pets.   It wasn’t long though before we felt more lost than found.  Unknown to us we had misunderstood any number of suggestions and tips given to us by Susan.  Our enthusiasm and energy waned because we saw minimal success (really we were just expecting too much- going too fast)

Our First Biggest Mistake

We thought Lilli should teach Leila how to be a proper dog.   Leila is an awesome student when it is time for training. Probably the best in our pack of four.  She is also the worst.  By letting Lilli and leila romp through her early months, Leila bonded with Lilli way more than us.  And now Leila is such a dog’s dog that we can not be assured of her recalls in doggy situations. (more about this later)

Lesson #1    Bond with your dog (puppy or new dog) and establish a solid recall before allowing unsupervised free play.

Susan calls it second dog syndrome. Seems people get an awesome dog and sort of expect the same results with the 2nd.  But novices like us had  no idea the impact of a second dog.  The dynamics change in ways difficult to see with human eyes. And we were dog dumb. We didn’t know enough about packs or dog behavior.  I think it was Ron Watson (maybe Susan) who told us that dogs let loose on their own find all sorts of reinforcement from their environment.  Reinforcement away from us creates unwanted (does not always mean bad) behaviors.  Like Lilli chasing Leila created a Lilli who bites heels and a Leila who wants to be chased by every dog she sees.  And for some reason Leila is the most inappropriate dog I have seen.  She playfully jumps on every dog she sees and one day…that might not go so well.  A dream for us would be to have leila spend time with an experienced pack so she can learn appropriate pack manners.

Lesson #2      Reduce free play/free roaming of young dogs to avoid unwanted reinforced behaviors. This also makes training sessions more valuable.

Ok so Leila was too young and developing really slow and we decided we wanted an older dog we could start playing with right away.  We were warned.  We didn’t listen.  

LET ME SAY RIGHT HERE – there is nothing wrong with anything we did or anything you do.  Dogs can be dogs and however it works for you and your dogs is fine.  As it pertains to having (in our opinion) properly trained dogs these are the issues we have and are experiencing and choose to address for our pack.

We got Kai, a beautiful black bi with brindling aussie.  We didn’t know any better. I am certain if we were to do it over again with what we know now we would not have taken Kai bear.  Not because she isn’t wonderful, but because we realize we want disc maniacs.  Like Moxie and Lilli.  We were not great judges of drive and mostly because of my soft heart we made Kai part of our pack.  At the time Kai would barely even look at a disc.  (She is now a talented disc dog)

So a week later we were heading north to see Susan again. But before Canada we would stay a few weeks in MI with Ron and Apryl of Pawsitive Vybe.  This was like mind blowing canine disc training for us.  What we learned there took us from the backyard and into competitions with all four of our dogs.  We can not wait for another week at Pawsitive Vybe and I will explain why in a bit. First you should know we left MI and continued to Susan’s Camp. Intermediate training!  We focused on Leila and Lilli and mostly left Kai in the borrowed camper(thanks Lynda).   And it was like being there for the first time.  I mean she said a lot of the same stuff and it was like we were hearing it for the first time. The light bulb came on there. That’s why going to Ron’s camp again will be so valuable. It’s like these guru’s impart the basic ideas the first time and then the second time you hear it you have the foundation to begin to really practice the principles.  My friend Andy Steed used to say we are different people every moment and so a story told over and over is experienced differently in each telling. We were different people attending camp the second time and left much better equipped.

Lesson # 3.  Learn everything at least twice.  Come back in 6 months and Learn it Again.

Now we have a fourth dog. And for me, three of the most important lessons come here.  Moxie is an absolute maniac. She is fast and furious, a cattle dog is not an aussie.  That’s not one of the lessons though.  Moxie is Andrea’s dog. And she is working with Leila as well.  Lilli and Kai are my dogs.   Kai has become a frisbee fan. She LOVES to vault and she loves to chase discs.  She still has a weak bite and not nearly the intensity of Lilli or Moxie.  Leila at 16months old is just starting to catch long discs.  She seems like she needs a few more months to grow up yet.  Moxie came into the world a frizbeast and Lilli has a very long trick list and here start the final lessons.

Lesson #4   Focus on Fun when training for competitions.

Last month I got caught up in trying to compete.  It’s a normal human reaction.  I went to the first few for fun, did well, and then felt like I needed to keep doing well.  I started to feel pressure to do things right and found myself not having fun in practice.  After a few weeks of being frustrated and delivering poor throws (poor dogs) I sat down and thought it through.  Having fun was way more important than competing.  So the next week I just went out and played and it was the most fun I had in a while.  It inspired me to edit the routines I had created for Lilli. Instead of trying to jam in all the cool tricks she could do, I narrowed it down to the ones she and I do very well and have fun with.  I’m going to sneak in a tip here about competing  in disc events.  Practice like you are competing to get a real feel for the status of your routine.  Go to a strange field, play music and have someone time it.

Back to Moxie and on to the next lesson.

Lesson #5  Don’t settle and don’t settle for unwanted behaviors.

Moxie has a horrible shriek.  Andrea and I both hate it.  Susan says barking is a low cost behavior for dogs. Super easy to for them to do. No work at all.  It’s the one behavior that really brought up this topic for me.  The things our dogs do well are the things we hold strict criteria for.  The unwanted behaviors are things we have not yet chosen to address.   Our dogs sit at the door because we hold that as a strict criteria.  Lilli will bite at Leila’s heels when they are playing together because we have not yet addressed it.   All the dogs will go to their crate when asked because we maintain that rule.  Leila will not recall 100% if there are other dogs present because we have not yet trained the wanted behavior.  We get what we train and we get what we don’t train.  A dogs behavior is absolutely a reflection of the trainer.  And repeated behaviors are naturally reinforced.  This is a reminder for me that I am responsible for my dogs behavior.   I can’t really ask or expect from them anything I have not taught them.  Once they know the behavior I do expect it from them.  If I don’t, they won’t.

What are the costs.

The cost of not training. The costs can’t all be measured and thankfully many will never be realized.  There are horror stories and funny stories.  Lilli use to chase ducks into the middle of ponds.  We stopped that.  We lived in fear until we did because Lilli could not swim at the time.   I would be swimming to the middle of some nasty body of water to rescue my doggie paddling dog. Leila might one day meet a dog with no patience and big teeth.  We are always yelling at Moxie to shut up.  Using her name in vain, because we have not yet trained her to shut up.  This will likely confuse or water down the power of the recall.  Lazy is what that is.  I speak for myself of course.  Yes we are busy, busier than ever!  Our business and our dogs has reached an all new demand.  And plenty of people say just let your dogs be dogs and that’s fine. We do. They are dogs.  And we are responsible for their training and their safety in a world of cars, wild environments and untrained dogs.

The next step for Andrea and I is to take a look at the unwanted behaviors and decide what we will address and how.  And any behaviors we don’t address are the ones we choose to live with. We’ll do this with a  consideration for the costs of allowing certain behaviors to continue.  What will that look like over time after years of reinforcement?

And Finally Lesson #6   Rescue a Dog

Leila was our first and last puppy.  We will be getting Lilli (this week) and Leila fixed. Kai and Moxie already are. The world does not need more dogs (you know what I mean). There are millions of abandoned super stars, cuddle monsters, and abused pups in shelters all over the country.  In time we will get more dogs and they will all be rescues.

So at the heart of all this is being responsible for our dogs.  We have learned so much from our pack.  We were in over our heads and maybe we still are.  But we love our dogs and they seem pretty happy too.  We will continue to learn from the great friends we have who are enthusiasts or gurus who love to share their knowledge.  And we will make time to teach and share what we know with others.  We’ll be back to see Susan and Ron this summer I am sure.  Sorry this one rambled on a bit and I hope the post helps some other up and coming dog lovers in their dog training adventures.

It may look simple enough but if you don’t know the techniques of throwing a good butterfly to your dog, you can stand bewildered for months….even YEARS as to WHY your dog won’t catch butterflies and all these other cool disc dogs are!  Well now you can breathe – be at ease.  We have a video to show you the basics of butterfly throws.

The butterfly throw is challenging to catch and can add variety – and a ton of difficulty to a freestyle routine.  Overs and vaults and flips can all be spiced up with a butterfly toss.  The most common detail that’s missed is to help your dog by spinning the disc towards their mouth.  Shhhh…don’t tell everyone you know or it will take away from the “cool trick factor”.  If you have any cool ideas or videos of how to include a butterfly into another trick – we’d love to see it!

The video outlines a very basic road map for flipping.  We were awestruck and totally stumped when it came to flips and that had us stopped until we got help from John Arnett of Airk9z.com.  John started us on the path and we have had some help along the way, Ron Watson, and we hope we can bring the beginners view of flipping into focus for new disc dog teams.

So originally we taught sit using the traditional method of a treat.  Hold treat near face, move it back, dog sits.  As its butt nears the floor you say “sit” and reward.  This works.  And I have learned it also breaks…

I may be terribly misquoting her, but I believe Susan Garrett would explain it something like the call of nature eventually erodes behaviors taught using baiting or luring.  Or dogs will do the least work possible to get their reward. So if they learn they can get the reward without sitting, they will. Shaping behaviors is what the pros call it.

Well, did I reward my dogs for not sittin?  You betcha!  Not with a cookie mind you, I rewarded them at the doorway.  The conversation goes something like this.  -Me-Now look dogs, I’m in a hurry, so you need to sit so i can let you out.  – Dogs- Sit? Hurry? Out? Too many commands.  Out sounds good. I’ll go with that one.  – Me – Quit jumping around, you need to sit. Sit. Lilli Sit.  Errrr.  Fine just go outside!  – Dogs – That was fun. Wonder why he has to say so much before he lets us out?  Next time we’ll just start jumping right away so he will let us out sooner.

Smart Dogs-Dumb Dog Trainer.     ok. I’m not dumb, just silly or lazy sometimes.  So now that I totally let the criteria of a good sit erode, and I have reinforced not sitting on the cue of sit, I need to retrain the desired behavior.

Retraining is a great opportunity for ME to learn how to train sit another way.  Ron Watson could say it much better than I will here, so please feel free to skip right to his post on canine communication.

Ron says a command is something a dog must do now and a cue gives the dog a choice.  Susan taught us at puppy camp that giving dogs the opportunity to choose teaches dogs to work for their rewards and expands the possibilities of enhancing the behavior.  If you lure a dog over and over you get a standardized behavior.  Could you stand on the roof and cue your dog to sit in the midst of a herd of cats?  Now that is what’s possible with operant training.   if your dog knows that sitting in that herd of cats mean even more fun of a reward than the cats, you have just nailed the sitting game.  You will have a much harder time accomplishing that with command and/or lure tactics.

So back to my wonderful dogs.  First thing i am going to do is drop the sit cue.  i can re-introduce it later if i want. For now, i will try some new games.  I don’t know how to teach sit.  I’m pure novice.  What i do know is that sometimes my dogs sit.  So i will look for the actions that naturally cue my dogs to sit, and I will reward them when they do it.  No words for now.  Put them in a situation where they will sit as their own choice, and reward the behavior with a great treat or play session.  Then, as Apryl and Ron teach, only when i am $100 confident will i add the verbal cue.

Oh and if I am in a  hurry and my dogs don’t want to sit at the door. OK. I’ll just let one at a time out, on a leash.  If they happen to sit, they can be released withut a leash together.  I’ll update my methods as I learn from those much more experienced than I am.  Until then, I’ll do my best and have fun with my dogs.

So here are a few things that I learned this weekend – first hand experience with agility trials.

10. 6 month cut off – Only a couple people mentioned it to us…(and none of them mattered because they weren’t the judge) but no dogs under 6 months old are allowed.  Leilani was there – she just turned 10 weeks, so just a little under 6 months…

9.  Lots of leeway in Novice - Man, there is a lot of leeway in Novice.  You can jump over the wrong jump, go through the wrong end of the tunnel, then reset and go back on course and it’s only a 5 point fault!  Don’t know who did that this weekend…

8.  Meeting before the start - Not really shocking, but cool to know.  The judge meets with the handlers before each run and goes over the rules and answers any questions. 

7.  Don’t line up too early - Several people this weekend that we were chatting with shared that we shouldn’t line up for our run too early.  There is a lot of tension in the starting area, barking and people riling up their dogs in preparation.  Wait until you see your buddy set up (see Pick a Buddy below) and then head into line about 5 minutes before your run.

6.  Pick a buddy - We ran next to the same dogs/handlers both days this weekend.  So while I was waiting to run, we chatted and I said that I’d keep an eye out for her when she went up to line up that way I knew I was coming up soon.  We ended up chatting all weekend and “being buddies” the next day too.  Turns out we were also competing for 1st and 2nd spots all weekend too. 

5.  Take Videos - If you have a friend or partner with you, ask them to video each of your runs.  It’s amazing to look back at what “actually happened” versus “what I think happened” in each run.  I can go back slowly and over and over and see exactly what happened in each problem area.  We use the Flip Mino Series Camcorder as an inexpensive and really portable option.

4.  85 is Q – You need 85 points to Qualify in AKC Novice.  This article is really simply written and explains the differences between AKC and USDAA points and qualifications.  I definitely need to read it a few more times!

3.  Weaves are freebies – This detail is covered in the above article but it’s a super cool point to know so it deserves its own number in the countdown.  You don’t get marked off for missing or messing up on your weave attempts.  As long as you complete them, there is no penalty.  You just lose time from having to do them over and over, and over…(wonder who had to do that this weekend…)

2.  Don’t stick both stickers…- When you check in to a 2 day trial, or a 3 or 4 day trial for that matter, each day that you’re registered for runs, you get a sticker to put on with your number on it.  Don’t stick all the stickers to yourself the same day.  I know that sounds funny, but really.  I saw 2 stickers and put one on my hat and one on my pants thinking that – Wow I just got an extra one… – yah, no.  Thankfully I could just wear the same hat on Sunday!

1.  Knocked Bars are auto NQ – On our last run, the Novice JWW, we knocked the second jump bar.  Someone came and told us that knocking a bar was an automatic no qualify.  I had no idea.  I also didn’t find this on the above article, but a couple blogs referenced this rule.  If anyone has something more “official” or any more detail on this, please post it in the comments, I’d love to read it!  I chose this one as the #1 thing to know this weekend since it was the only reason I didn’t get 2 double Q’s this weekend and run the tables – even though it was C.R.A.P.

If anyone has any more cool rules or tips the newbies could use, please share!  I’ll read over them and make a new list of the best tips.  Lilli and I had a blast this weekend – Jason mostly avoided being bored out of his mind.    I look forward to our next trial in a few weeks.  Hopefully we’ll be a little more seasoned and prepared by then…

Here’s a video of Freestyle Weaving and How to Train this trick below.

How to Train Freestyle Weaves

Start with a toy or frisbee that your dog LOVES.  Set the dog up facing you to the front.  Spread your legs wide enough to fit the dog easily and take a step forward with one foot.  I suggest always leading with the same leg.  This was a tip from our disc trainer John Arnett – always starting on the same side helps the dog to anticipate the behavior.

Take the toy and hold it behind your back and drop between the space in your legs and shake it while giving the command (weave, through, etc…).  The dog should go through your legs toward the same hand the toy is in – looping from between your legs off to your side.

Then take a forward step with the opposite foot and switch the toy to the opposite hand, placing it behind/between the other leg.  Shake the toy and give the command, luring the dog through.

Take your time with this process and give the dog lots of praise for each successful “through”.  Reward with the top you’re using as a lure – toss the frisbee or tug with the toy.

Once your dog is able to do a few weaves, work on the release word – like Go! – which tells your dog that they can look for the toy to be thrown and no longer need to focus on weaving. I also always complete the weave on the same leg every time.

Wala – you’re weaving! If you’re also doing agility, I suggest using a different word for the agility weaves, like poles, so the dog doesn’t get confused. Have fun!

For most agility dogs, weaves need poles…but Lilli isn’t just an agility dog.    She loves her disc more than anything.  Weaving – frisbee style – is often included in freestyle routines.  It’s also a great way to get Lilli’s muscles and joints warmed up before doing any more advanced tricks like vaulting or flipping.

Here’s a video showing her sharp cuts and focus.  Training Lilli to weave this quickly has taken several months.

The improvements – She weaves faster and for longer time.  She waits for a release word (Go!) before looking up for the disc. She has a higher catch percentage after release.  Simply consistent practice and patience developed these improvements.

Want to learn how to train this trick?  Check out our post here.