I wanted to post an update on Brian’s “side” position for freestyle, which we will eventually evolve into a moving lateral side. But when I pulled out the camera, the progress I’d seen the day before disintegrated, and I had to pull out the loaded dish of food again to straighten him out:
Was I disappointed? Nope. This is typical of a learning plateau with a new, difficult behavior, especially one that works against his lifelong positions parallel to me in left and right heel. His struggles to get it are all part of the process.
And happily enough, the next day showed a lot of progress! So we tinkered with his moving lateral side, which also looked stronger:
I anticipate more training sessions like these, where he moves up and down a little ladder of fluency/non-fluency until the behavior becomes solid. I’m excited for that moment when he can find the position all on his own, but I’m willing to wait for it, and go up and down that ladder with him as needed.
Would you like to see more behaviors-in-process like this? Let me know in the comments!
Kerrie’s Beginner Novice legs gave me good information for our heeling training in the next several weeks. In the ring, I got many moments of solid engagement, and then sporadic look-aways, especially on her about turns. So in a recent training session, I set up an open lid of food on top of a bucket and planned to heel into about turns as we reach the bucket. Kerrie has had practice with an open plate of food and maintaining a stay; however, motion creates a very different level of difficulty.
You’ll see mistakes here. In the old days, a mistake would have meant a correction. The trainer I am today sees those mistakes as “tells” about what the dog needs in the moment, and how we need to adjust to get success. I could “make” Kerrie avoid the food and do her about turn with attention, but I’d far, far rather she chooses to do her about turn, utilizing self-imposed control and commitment to her heeling.
By listening to her tells and adjusting the training, I got a lot of information about what she is ready for, and how we might approach this exercise in the future. And we ended with success!
I got some lovely photos of Brian and Kerrie in the obedience ring from the last weekend in January, thanks to Nina Sage, so wanted to share them here.
First are some photos of Brian jumping in the Open ring. I can’t help but post multiples, since we’ve worked long and hard on his jumping skills. I don’t think English cockers are natural jumpers–their short backs and their muscular but moderate rears are meant more for plunging into the brush than flying over a jump. And Brian doesn’t find jumping naturally “fun.” So lots of work around technique and building motivation went into these moments:
Heading over the jump to retrieve his dumbbellAnd back againThe broad jump is harder than it looks given the required handler position
Kerrie’s Beginning Novice class is comprised of some brief heeling and then mostly stationary exercises. We’re continuing to work on the balance between enthusiasm and precision in her performances; this will be an on-going process for many years for this young springer. I’d far rather have that enthusiasm “baked-in,” as it is with Kerrie.
A moment in her heelingHer recall, where her enthusiasm is obvious!
In 2025 I’d like to add more content to this blog that goes beyond simply reporting about our training/competing life. Instead I hope to provide posts two or three times a week that might be helpful or interesting to readers who want to learn more about training various behaviors, especially if you have spaniels! Please let me know in the comments if there is something in particular you’d like to see.
One category I hope you’ll find interesting is training new, unusual behaviors for canine freestyle. We’re starting some early prep for Brian’s Grand Championship in the InSync division, which is heelwork to music. In this division, there are no weaves or distance moves, and the dog needs to stay in close proximity to the human. One position I’d like to progress to moving laterally is Brian’s “side” position, where he is perpendicular to me, rather than the standard parallel position in heeling. He has only a rudimentary idea of that position, which you can see in the short clip below from an earlier video competition:
For his Grand Championship, I’d like to utilize this position more in one sequence, asking him to move laterally (to his left or right rather than forward or backward). To teach this, I’m using various aids that he’s familiar with–a platform, gate, and open dish of food–to help teach the position. He’s used all these aids before in learning other behaviors, so he has a strong history with them. Here’s an abbreviated video of our second session, along with some doodling at the end where you can see we “accidentally” discover the end behavior. Sometimes training is fun that way!
Along with the training itself, you might be hearing in the background the music I will likely use for this routine: Einaudi’s “Divenire.” In sum, after a few sessions, I now have a successful process for training the side position itself, as well as combining the position with movement. I’ll provide an update on this training in the next few weeks.
Let me know what else you’d like to see in this blog this year!
The end of 2024 brought some initial disappointment when I assessed my dog training goals for the year. Neither Kerrie or Brian achieved the titling goals in obedience that I had laid out, ones that I thought at the start of the year were quite achievable. In AKC obedience, I expected Kerrie to finish her Beginner Novice title and for Brian to finish his Open title. But both dogs ran into challenges. Kerrie’s was relatively minor, with her having trouble maintaining a sit stay while I walked around a 40 to 50 foot ring, which included walking behind her. Being a 2 1/2 year old springer who is still working on her impulse control, this turned out to be a challenge in the last show weekend of the year.
Brian’s journey last year was more arduous, with a benign lump in his leg that ulcerated and lip fold dermatitis (a common cocker issue) that bothered him far more than I realized. Plus a life-long issue with digestion became worse. The skin/lump issues were resolved in May with surgery, and I finally found a diet that works for Brian by the end of the year. But showing him with those issues (that I thought were minor) built up his stress level, so we spent a good half-year rebuilding his confidence and enthusiasm. While he didn’t have the titles to show it, I could happily say by year’s end that his attitude had improved tremendously. And look what happened at the start of 2025:
Brian earned his first leg in Open with a solid performance, and Kerrie finished her Beginner Novice title! Re-assessing what my real goals were at the end of 2024, and realizing more important things than titles did occur, was a key element to moving forward positively.
Here’s an excerpt of the mini-chain of behaviors that Brian struggled most with last year:
This mini-chain consists of Command Discrimination (a mini-signal exercise), the Drop on Recall, and the retrieves. In the second half of last year, Brian would fail just one of these. (With the retrieve, the error was running around the jump; the retrieve itself was fine.) We’ve worked a lot on chaining these exercises, having positive transitions between them to maintain connection, developing distance, handling judge pressure, and jumping at angles. Between 2024’s last trial and this one, I also switched from a hand signal for the drop on recall to a verbal cue. It worked!
Kerrie’s solution was simpler: using a PVC box to help her keep her feet still during the stay, and practicing the stay in many different locations, including with “judges” who stared at her for the whole exercise. Then I needed to gradually fade the box. She did a super job in both trials on this exercise. Now we need to go back and work on her focus, which slipped at times. But overall I was really pleased with her performance.
Sometimes we humans make human-centric goals without recognizing or anticipating the challenges the living beings we work with might experience. It’s okay to not know, but once I do know, I need to be able to quickly adjust to their needs, and remember that the important goals, the ones that truly matter, are not measured by ribbons and titles. I’m glad to have this lesson brought to my attention once again, and that I responded as I should.
The AKC has created a new titling event called “Fetch,” part of their “FitDog” program to encourage more dog owners to participate in various activities with their dogs. The Fetch program is, of course, all about retrieving. It starts out fairly simple with 3 30-foot retrieves with mild distractions, and progresses up to blind double and triple retrieves at 80 feet at the highest “Retriever” level. This is the second weekend we’ve attended tests, and it’s great fun. It’s pass/fail and thus noncompetitive, and the atmosphere is supportive and upbeat. It takes two tests with two different judges to earn a title, and Kerrie earned her Intermediate title while Brian earned his Novice title.
Kerrie passed the Intermediate level easily, which is 4 retrieves at 50 feet. The only problem that came up was my struggle to throw 50 feet! Fortunately if the length is difficult for the handler, you can get someone to throw for you.
Brian also did well in novice, which is 3 retrieves at 30 feet with buckets as distractions. I left in the initial retrieve that required a restart, when his cocker nose got the best of him. (Novice allows 2 restarts.) Once I got him back in heel position, I made sure to throw in a different direction, and when we returned to the center throw, I threw in a slightly different area.
We’ll definitely continue this fun new game, and I have hopes that Blossom will one day participate as well.
Our household has been turned a bit upside down with the arrival of a new English cocker girl to our household in February. Her name is Blossom (which might yet be changed to something else, but is currently shortened to “Blos”) and she comes from an outstanding breeder of merit from Oregon/Arizona, After Hours English cockers.
Blossom is a complex mix of intelligence, craftiness, independence, and willingness to “do stuff,” combined with a strong personality who has admittedly taken a while to fit in with my close-knit little pack. There have been some interesting developments on that front that I’ll delve into in later posts. For now, I’ll put up a link to an early training session from March that showcases that willingness, cuteness and food drive.
Good things are happening with Kerrie and Brian as they continue to show the fruits of their training. I’m more and more engrossed with the world of freestyle, which combines training, connection and musical creativity.
In early November, Kerrie earned her very first leg in a video freestyle competition in the “Entry” (a required pre-novice level) InSync class. “InSync” is called “heelwork-to-music” in other organizations, and in RallyFree simply means the dog needs to stay in consistent proximity to the handler, with no distance work and no weaving, other than to provide transitions. I kept this first routine fairly simple and short, especially since I really wanted to create a waltz-style dance to a lovely waltz in the movie Emma, called the Last Dance.
Kerrie also passed her first Fenzi Academy TEAM test. These are very fun-to-train foundational tests, at least in the first 3 levels. Levels 4-6 are more like open and utility exercises, but with some fun variation. We’ll start working on her Level 2 right away.
Meanwhile Brian earned his first Advanced freestyle leg in InSync in the same video competition, dancing to “Recomposed” by Max Richter, which was used as a dance in Bridgerton. This is very exciting, as he just needs two Advanced legs, and then he can compete in the championship class. With this leg, he earned a thrilling score of 95, a high score we’ve never earned before.
At this writing, the dogs have progressed further with their freestyle, which I’ll report on in a next posting!
Our church has a Blessing of the Animals on St. Francis Day every year, and this year we decided to just take Kerrie. She behaved herself pretty well for a 1 1/2 year old adolescent, despite a cattle dog in the next pew enticing her to play, and the organist doing distracting things nearby. It was a lovely day for Kerrie!
I’ll be a good girl!That cattle dog wants to play with me!Hey! What’s going on up there?Who is this guy? Does he have cookies?The blessing; she was just a little headshy so Father Jim approached from the side.
And Kerrie emerged blessed for the year, and we are too with her sweet, enthusiastic, biddable self.
Kerrie’s tracking is coming along! That’s a good thing, since the local tracking tests are coming up. This track was 360 yards long, 3 turns, with spacing of reinforcements at about 20-25 steps. I’m in the process of reducing the reinforcements and increasing her understanding of turns, so next we’ll work on dog-eared turns.
The Spaniel Annals 