The Spaniel Annals

working and living with performance spaniels

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I’m a retired English instructor, now devoted full-time to training, showing and enjoying my spaniels in many sports.
I’m an English college instructor by trade, a dog trainer by vocation. And lifelong baseball fan.

  • “When violence begins, training ends”
    Anonymous

    The importance of ring entrances

    Recently I stewarded at an obedience trial, and was struck as I always am by the unstructured, unfocused way many teams enter the ring. Often the handlers will rush in to the ring, completely disconnected from their dog, and then suddenly attempt to get the dog into heel position, after the dog has been pulling on the leash, or been distracted/stressed by a steward or the crowded entrance, and the result is a disconnected, unprepared team. Guess what the rest of the performance often looks like?

    Brian and I recently showed in a Graduate Novice class while we are preparing for the Open level of his obedience. Both days, I had a planned and trained ring entrance, but one of them gets a bit more discombobulated. And guess which performance went better?

    Saturday’s run was quite lovely: the best heeling he’s done in a new space and the first time he’s done his drop on recall in competition. He had a jumping blooper both days, but for the most part successfully overcame a showing issue we’ve been working on lately. Overall I was very pleased with his work, as I regarded this weekend as more of a practice for Open and a test run of my upgraded mental management skills (more on that later). Suffice to say that ring entrances are a vital piece to train for competition!

  • “When violence begins, training ends”
    Anonymous

    Kerrie’s heeling journal – June 2023

    Kerrie is now 15 months and working on her heeling. Since I’m trying so many new things with her training, I’m keeping a video journal to review and have them for future reference. Sharing them here will help renew this blog!

    What kinds of new things am I doing? Starting with Brian, I committed to getting away from lured heeling and shaping the behaviors more. (Note that heeling in the stylized way I train for competition obedience requires many complex behaviors, not just one.) To do this, I train the position first before any movement–no more luring the dog around with her head up. Instead I’m shaping her position on a raised pot, working first on her being able to find the position on her own, then pivoting in heel.

    We’ve been several weeks away from that here, as she’s moved off the pot and is now practicing turns. Her left turn in strong; her right often causes her to swing her butt out, so then I add back in a left pivot. We’re also doing 1-step halts and “heel grids,” a system of shaping heeling through intermittant rewards created by Laura Romanik. I’ve done this system with both Robbie and Brian, and really liked the duration it builds in simply heeling around in a big clock-wise circle.

    I’ll be posting more heeling journal moments in the coming weeks. I’m very happy with Kerrie’s progress and how well the combinations of training tools are working.

  • “When violence begins, training ends”
    Anonymous

    Say hello to Kerrie!

    A hectic school year dealing with re-entry into live teaching after the COVID shut-down has taken me away from this blog. Meanwhile Roz has continued to age, struggling far more than she used to. Brian is maturing, earning his first freestyle titles (through virtual shows) and preparing for live obedience trials this fall/winter.

    And we have welcomed a wonderful addition to our home: Kerrie, an English Springer Spaniel from a kennel in Minnesota, one I’ve long admired and followed: VinEwood Springers.

    Kerrie has been raised through the puppy culture program, and I certainly see major benefits from her upbringing: easy to housebreak, relatively easy to handle for husbandry chores, unafraid of strange noises and objects. She has slid into our pack remarkably easily, so much so it feels as if she has always been here. She is delightful to train, although more thoughtful than Brian. Here’s a compilation of our first month of training:

    Welcome home, Kerrie!

  • “When violence begins, training ends”
    Anonymous

    Rozzie at 14!

    It’s been an eventful October, and the best part was Rozzie turning 14 on October 5th. As far as I know, she is, sadly, the last living dog of her litter of 5 springers. She’s had a wonderful life, and continues to amaze me with her energy and brightness. Several times a week she does exercises and stretches on platforms and inflatables, and loves doing scent games, mostly using birch odor to scent in boxes or hidden in the training building. Her liver enzymes starting rising several months ago, and we’ve gained a wonderful reprieve through SAMe, a natural compound that is supposed to support the liver. She gets a special liver-friendly diet, and she loves her food more than ever. Galliprant has also been a huge aid for her mobility, as she has arthritis in her back. I hope and pray we have a lot more time with her.

  • “When violence begins, training ends”
    Anonymous

    Brian in the Park

    I was very pleased yesterday to get a great practice session with Brian in a local park that he has struggled in before. At our last visit, for instance, pretty much all we accomplished was some focus work and work on platforms and pivot disks. He’s a young, environmentally aware spaniel (as his genetics say he should be), and so outdoors is challenging. It doesn’t help that I tend to depend too much on training in our little building! But this session, with Brian now at 15 months, shows his growing maturity. After an acclimation period (walking him around on leash to let him check out the area), then back in the car, and then back out again to start on his platform and pivot disk, he then gave me about 7.5 minutes of solid focus and effort. Below are excerpts from his heeling, pivots and freestyle work. His heeling has moments of head dropping and inaccuracy, but I’m rewarding for his effort. You can see at the end of the freestyle work with twists and laterals he’s losing some focus or perhaps just getting mentally tired, so we revisited his right-side pivot on his disk to wrap up. As I look at the full video, I see I should have played more often as we trained, but for his part, I’m thrilled!

    Sorry about the poor vantage point. I’m ordering a portable tripod today!

  • “When violence begins, training ends”
    Anonymous

    GORDON HILL SPRING SEIDEADH, CD, JH, RN, BN April 24, 2010 – July 6, 2021

    Today we said goodby to Gael, so the vile cancer could no longer rob her of her joy of life.  We had all kinds of wonderful adventures together; they’re just not evidenced by lots of titles.   Gael always liked to do things her way, and often they didn’t align with AKC regulations.   I will always treasure the memories of her special relationship with my husband, Jeff, and her love for our pasture (which I bought for her, of course).  Her vitality for life was immense, and in the end, she taught me the lesson I am always, always having to relearn: to accept life on life’s terms.  Run far and free, Gael, and because you always wanted to know where we were no matter how far you ran, know that we are with you in our hearts and minds, always. 

    Puppy Gael at Marymoore Park
    Gael tracking–she got certified and then started pointing birds on the track [sigh]
    Freestyle at a Specialty
    Happy dog back at the Park
    Ah yes, we did get to Open.
    Gael’s Open leg and then AKC changed the rules! We were about to try again after some retraining and the cancer hit.
    My beautiful girl and the upper part of her pasture
    We got her to 11.

  • “When violence begins, training ends”
    Anonymous

    Return to fundamentals

    Once Brian and I progressed to moving circles in his heeling, a lack of clarity emerged in his training: his commitment to heel position. Small dogs especially tend to heel wide, to get away from those big human feet and to be able to look up and see the handler/trainer’s upper body. I’ve been sloppy with this in the past and allowed it with several dogs, and really want to fix this with Brian.

    But now that I’m committed to shaping his heeling, I lack the tools I’ve had in the past to train this. Sure, I can get him in position and moving by luring, but I don’t want to do that anymore! So we’re going back to our fundamentals for the next month and wait for Shade Whitesal’s “Moving Foundations” class for June. I could use an instructor’s eye on us as we move to the next stage.

    So here’s what’s in the list of fundamentals: find heel on and off the pivot disk; 1-step right and left turns, with a platform on the right turn to help with his butt swinging out; laterals; 1-step touch; 1-step halts; and serpentines thrown in for fun! He gets lots of rewards for landing in a close position, and I’m cutting myself off from my tendency to repeat after success. If we’ve done it 3 times, we’re done. If he gets it right, we’re done. Anything after that, he starts losing motivation and/or starts getting creative.

    After just about a week of focusing on these aspects for our heeling, I’m very happy with the results! His concept of heel position is much better, and I sense a rise in attitude and confidence too. Here’s a compilation of some of the fundamentals above, with musical accompaniment:

    After watching this, I also realized it’s time to pare down my talking. For the most part, I need to just use my “yip” word to mark the behavior, and more often keep my yakker shut, so he doesn’t get voice dependent. Always something to refine, but I’m thrilled with his progress!

  • “When violence begins, training ends”
    Anonymous

    Brian’s tracking March 2021

    I spent an entire winter quarter telling my creative writing class to blog more consistently, and yet here I am coming back to my blog after a long break. Oops! Brian has shown promise as a tracking dog since puppyhood, and here is today’s track, consisting of two 100-yard legs with 1 open turn. We had been doing longer tracks with 2 turns, but were running into some wilder behaviors (lots of casting) so pared things down to get him more settled and focused. It worked, and we’re back to the focused tracking dog I knew in his early months. We’re using a system I really like, created by Lucy Newsom, an instructor at Fenzi Dog Academy. We have a new class starting up for spring, and I’m looking forward to more progress!

  • “When violence begins, training ends”
    Anonymous

    Brian’s heeling mid-March

    Just a catch-up on Brian’s heeling in early spring of 2021. While sometimes I feel like we’re behind where my past dogs have been at this age, I have to remind myself that I’m trying a new approach with him (much more shaped and almost no luring), so taking it slow to watch out for issues and to problem-solve is fine. Also there is nothing wrong withsetting a strong foundation and letting his body grow up, as heeling with his head up asks quite a bit of a young dog. So here we are, in late March working on turns in slow motion, and then moving to big inside circles with randomized reward. I need to create a booklet for myself of the steps we took in producing this, starting with Denise Fenzi’s pockethand method and the pivot disk. The path I’m taking includes her method, exercises from Hannah Branigan’s book Awesome Obedience, Shade Whitesal, and Laura Romanik’s heeling grids, which we’re just getting into.

    While Brian has a great left turn, on his right turn and about turn he tends to swing his butt out, so in the next session, I’m pulling out more “aids” by adding back in the pockethand or food up at my elbow, and checking my footwork, probably with tape on the ground) since I tend to walk into my dog in the middle of the about turn, and warming up with “close” practice. I’ve got more matting down since this session in my newly enlarged building, so we can make bigger circles too, which should help him. Whatever issues we encounter, I love his attitude and energy level.

  • “When violence begins, training ends”
    Anonymous

    Brian’s first TEAM run-through

    Brian has been a student in the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy “TEAM” program, a program that teaches and tests fundamentals online. I highly recommend it, and while any dog/handler team can participate just through the program itself, Fenzi’s classes are superb in their level of instruction and feedback. We took the Level 1 course with Laura Waudby, who was wonderful, and she encouraged us at class’s end to post a run-thru. While Brian is not ready for the true Level 1 test, there is a “pre” test that requires 6 out of the 10 exercises. While in some ways we’re not ready for apply for the actual test quite yet, I was very happy and a bit surprised at how well Brian did here. His exercises were:

    • Engage w/o food or toys, and move into a disk pivot
    • “Find front” straight-on and from an angle
    • Back up to a target
    • Send to a vertical target
    • Jump
    • Go around an object

    Brian was so wiggly and excited through this test, I found myself in a state of laughter the whole time. Hmm. Can I translate that to an actual ring performance? My “handler’s presence” varies for each dog, and if laughter and joy are the hallmark for Brian’s obedience performances, I have reached handler nirvana as far as I’m concerned.