Thoughts On Learning/sudden Change

[Agility Dogs]

Background - CK is from a line that his breeder describes as 'soft'. Not in itself a problem, but I think CK might have started life on the softer end of the soft line. Again, not a problem in itself.

THEN at 4 months he broke his elbow - not smashed, but cracked the tip where the tendon (or is it a ligament???) attaches and was not allowed off lead for about 9 months while we got him sorted. ENTER problem - as a very novice (read clueless) dog owner at the time my response was to keep him at home with limited exposure to the world.

By the time we got him back into the world EVERYTHING was scary. I quickly realised my mistake, but the damage was already done - between the ages of 14 months and about 3 y.o. he would pee himself if a scary man (not sure why, but almost always men) would approach him. He would totally freak in situations where he wasn't comfortable.

Adding to this he was attacked a couple of times when we were out on walks, so any dog that walked past him needed to be warded off.

The only places he was comfortable were our house/back yard the flyball ring/training (go figure) and playing frisbee in a 'safe' area. In the agility ring he was just a nervous mess.

So.....undersocialised soft dog with some bad experiences into the bargain.

We did heaps of work with him and finally got him to tolerate a lot more, but he was never a really drivey dog (except for flyball and frisbee), nor was he confident around other dogs (except in the flyball ring). Then I did a workshop with a really good agility trainer and put some serious rules into his life as well as working VERY hard to develop drive/value for whatever it is we were going to do. Progress continued SLOWLY, but it still wasn't what I wanted for him so I nearly retired him from agility. Sadly we decided to give up flyball so I didn't retire him from agility and things gradually continued to improve until May of this year.

Since then it is almost as if someone has stolen my dog and replaced him with a new one. After 3 years of slow improvement it is almost as if he has discovered himself and exploded into his full border collieness.

He is confident, pushy and happy all the time. At the recent ADAA GP in Tamworth (a place he LOVES) he just wanted to play and flirt with other dogs to the point of almost pushing some of them too far and then ignoring when they started to give warning signals. (At which point he was removed from the situation - in the past he would have tried to eat them for rumbling/growling/lip lifting.) Every time he set foot in the ring instead of kind of giving 50% to 60% he did everything at a 'flyball' pace - to the point where I was struggling to keep up, despite being used to running a quick dog. Since we've been back he's come up another notch and is quivering with excitement when I get him out of his crate - even in 30 deg heat. On the weekend he was running quicker than my girl.

I've done a LOT of work with this dog and he is almost where I want him to be, but my question is why after 3 years of effort did it all happen so quickly in the space of a couple of months. It's almost as if someone has flicked a switch and turned him on, but has since been slowly feeding in more and more power.

I'm just interested if anyone has any thoughts on why things have happened this way and I now have totally different and very cool dog or if they have had a similar experience.

[corvus]

Sometimes I think there are a bunch of different things you can be working on at once to address a single basic problem because you have several different triggers that you want the same general response to. I'm often surprised how things can come together all in a rush at the end. I think that they just become proficient at what you have been teaching them, so they are faster, have a better understanding, and grow more confident. They default to the new behaviour and start applying it to novel situations or to situations you haven't been dealing with directly. They have success with it and grow even more confident.

On the weekend Kivi tried to jump onto a rock, fell off, tried to jump again, slipped again, then tackled it from a different angle and got up. All because he's had a few months of careful challenging and rewarding for getting outside his comfort zone. A few months ago he would not have even tried to get onto the rock. It's not just because we rewarded him for jumping on rocks. We did loads of body awareness exercises and taught him balance and encouraged him to just try, even if he didn't get there. It was an entire program, really. He was the same, and it came together in a rush as he suddenly realised he could do this kind of thing. Very much a generalised concept rather than a single behaviour.

I don't think I'm communicating this very well. Does it ring a bell?

[JulesP]

As you know Brock was a heap like your CK. Very soft and quiet.

Just before he died he got heaps more outgoing and bouncy. He was starting to work in his obedience with heaps more drive and I could easily have entered him in CD.

What had changed? I didn't train him any differently. I was focusing more on the girls and he was only getting token work. He used to get trained last and would be very keen to come out after watching the girls.

He never really played with Poppy but was playing heaps with Amber.

I always felt that he needed time more then anything. He was 5yo. How old is CK now?

[Agility Dogs]

Corvus - I get what you mean. I guess what has surprised me is not that it has happened, but the speed with which it has happened. Seems that the planets have aligned.

Interesting JP - CK is 5 next month!

T

[The Spotted Devil]

AD - congratulations on your persistence. My Dally has had a similar "epiphany" the last few months - his confidence has skyrocketed and he can be really feral (in a good way) at training. No bad early experiences but just an unusual breed to train. He's running harder and with so much more enthusiasm at trials as well. I think the changes in Ziggy have crept up on me so slowly that I just haven't noticed - it wasn't until he hit a certain threshold and I had to change the way I handled him in the ring that I realised how much he had improved. For so long I had played "come catch me" in agility but now I've had to learn how to give a really, really strong decel cue to keep him on course. It feels WIERD but amazing at the same time

ETA: Zig is also 5 in about a month ;)

Edited October 18, 2011 by The Spotted Devil

[Casima]

My Raffy (pound dog) took awhile to get his confidence, especially around other dogs, but when he did, he came good really fast and has been great ever since

It's really great reading your stories, they give me hope for my BC girl Anna (another pound dog) She stresses lots, many things worry her (quite a bit better since I started her on Troy Behave) she hates the heat, she hates the rain, she hates the wind, she noticibly flattens when you take her to the marshalling area at agility and she only gives me about 50% effort on course. She is very hard to motivate and I've tried lots of things to help her, she is gradually improving on average, occasionally she is pretty good which gives me hope, and then there are times like last weekend where she is terrible and I get thinking maybe I should just give up and retire her. Although watching the video recording of her, a run which felt really terrible to me at the time, is much better than our old level of really terrible, a year ago I would have been estatic if she had run like this. Anna will be 4 in January, maybe another year and she will find her inner BC too

Edited October 19, 2011 by Casima

[Bull Arab]

2 thoughts for what they are worth.

1. Have you been to the vet / chiro / acupuncturist (I don't know how to spell it) lately? Has something changed for he better inside CK? You know how when a behaviour changes rapidly for the worse one of the first things you look for is an injury or similar could this be happening in reverse? Has a pain (physical or perceived) gone away and he is able to concentrate more on working and being a dog?

2. Have you been spending more time in your training with Z and W at the things CK loves doing as you prep for bigger and better things? I do know of other dogs that have had a change in mood as they thought someone else was getting all of the attention, could this be happening on a grander scale and he is hell bent on working for you to get your attention and praise??

and a 3rd I always thought CK was a pretty damned good dog perhaps someone really did steal him and replace him with a look alike???

[Agility Dogs]

My Raffy (pound dog) took awhile to get his confidence, especially around other dogs, but when he did, he came good really fast and has been great ever since

It's really great reading your stories, they give me hope for my BC girl Anna (another pound dog) She stresses lots, many things worry her (quite a bit better since I started her on Troy Behave) she hates the heat, she hates the rain, she hates the wind, she noticibly flattens when you take her to the marshalling area at agility and she only gives me about 50% effort on course. She is very hard to motivate and I've tried lots of things to help her, she is gradually improving on average, occasionally she is pretty good which gives me hope, and then there are times like last weekend where she is terrible and I get thinking maybe I should just give up and retire her. Although watching the video recording of her, a run which felt really terrible to me at the time, is much better than our old level of really terrible, a year ago I would have been estatic if she had run like this. Anna will be 4 in January, maybe another year and she will find her inner BC too

I nearly retired him 4 times - each time I had entered the next trial and he did something just good enough to encourage me to keep running him a while longer. I haven't had the retirement thought for quite a while now! I used DAP spray and rescue remedy for a while too. I think they helped, but I'm not sure if they helped him or me more!!

[Agility Dogs]

2 thoughts for what they are worth.

1. Have you been to the vet / chiro / acupuncturist (I don't know how to spell it) lately? Has something changed for he better inside CK? You know how when a behaviour changes rapidly for the worse one of the first things you look for is an injury or similar could this be happening in reverse? Has a pain (physical or perceived) gone away and he is able to concentrate more on working and being a dog?

2. Have you been spending more time in your training with Z and W at the things CK loves doing as you prep for bigger and better things? I do know of other dogs that have had a change in mood as they thought someone else was getting all of the attention, could this be happening on a grander scale and he is hell bent on working for you to get your attention and praise??

and a 3rd I always thought CK was a pretty damned good dog perhaps someone really did steal him and replace him with a look alike???

LOL. No to number 2 - very careful to make sure that the dogs all get what they need, you idiot to number 3, but number 1 could be part of the puzzle.

Rowan has seen a marked improvement in his flexibility and movement in the last 3 months. We had also tried a magnesium supplement for him which may/may not be part of the puzzle.

Funny - you could have had him very cheap no so long ago. Imagine that - giving away a dog that can achieve a .2 flyball start without any handler!! I reckon if ever we get back to flyball there'll be that much pent up frustration that he'll rival the Coopmeister.