Success is dependent on effort. ~Sophocles~

Reviewing 2011 with key words

Succes
Training! -that’s the first word that comes to my mind. Succes is build by hard work, dedication, perserverance and enjoying the process. We’ve had an amazing year with lots of training break troughs; the first quarter of 2011 brought us focus for longer periods (jeez hard work and less hormones)- that amazing drive I knew was there is becoming a switch that I can turn on and leave the engine running for a while!

Firsts
There’s a first for everything: our first agility workshop, trial, my first training place and the first ever workshop I’ve organised. I enjoyed all of them and they were a success! I am hoping 2012 will give us many more firsts, and I hope there will be lots of succesful firsts to come.

Special
There’s 1 ‘first’ I wanted to stand still with a bit longer, because for me it was a step in the direction of a dream; starting a dog training career. November 11 and 12 2011,  I invited Karen and Mark Laker to come teach in Holland. We covered various topics from weaves- to course analysis- to foundation AND Sportspsychology for agility handlers. We had lots of first: first seminar organised by Naomi DH Dog Toys, first time for The Lakers teaching in Holland, first ever Sportspshycology seminar in Holland!

I can say we had some AMAZING feedback, beyond my expectations (scores with excellent and good- wow!). Even better was that every person that filled out the feedback said they wanted to come back again. Thanks again to everyone who took the time to reply and to suggest improvements for next time! (there WILL be a next time!)

Plans
With the new year there’s always a chance to start (over) again. I cannot say how excited I am- but I think 2012 is going to be a very exciting, joyful year.

I’ll leave you with a few keywords for my plans and hopefully next time I can make an announcent: Game on!, Travelocity, Teaching and Food for Thought~!

Below are some pictures from the workshops and Seminar Sportpsychology:

Having a good time with Foundation Exercises

Analyzing the course- what works?!

Our Venue for Sportspyschology

What makes a handler a certain type?

Discussing assignments and making up a plan!

My blogging’s been pretty bad lately (read: i haven’t blogged like forever!)… many things going on.

Pan’s training is coming along, and since a month or 2 I am able to train more regularly because I have my trainingplace! It’s a big field, all fenced, needs a bit work still – but we’ve set out our jumps, weaves and seesaw.

I never much progress without a proper training plan, so for October and November I’ve written one- which includes training some specific skills like 270’s, distance grids, value building for decel and acelleration. Pan and I are also working on improving skills in switching between high arousal and relaxation, checking in uncued, sents and a cued stand. Lots really. With the other dogs we are doing some ‘treibbal’- but that’s at a very premature state 🙂

Besides the training, work and all else which keeps me busy- i’ve spent a lot of time in organising a 2 day seminar, which for me is a first time. There’s a lot of work, and yes -stress too- that goes into organising an agility workshop with foreign instructors! I am glad and very thankfull for my family who’ve been helping out and supporting me all along from my first idea. Also thanks to my friends who’ve been helping out.

I am enjoying ‘puppy sitting’ duties every Monday for my friend Bianca (Xzibit of Dazzling)- I just love puppies and seeing them develop. This is one special litter! The puppies are developing well and will be amazing- It’s a very time consuming activity however… but hey- have I mentioned that I LOVE puppies?!

Since the weather’s been so nice I’ve taken out the camera. Here’s a nice shot of my lovely boys in the autumn sun:

 

Just a few weekends ago Pan and I went up to Germany for a mini-reunion.

At the Europen Flyball Competition in Borken we met Ike, Rocky and Karolina. It was great meeting up- and I enjoyed seeing the lovely Ike.

Here’s some pictures of the handsome lads:

reunited

 

Tricksters

 

Lovely lads

“All animals except man, know that the principle business of life is to enjoy it.” ~Samuel Butler~

Just the other night my sister pointed out that Pan must have come in my life to teach me some important lessons about enjoying life, failing and keeping perspective. Inspire Pan, he truly is 🙂

I wanted to share one of my favourite video’s ever, made by a very inspirational person. Watching it makes me eyes watery every time, because those lessons, and the journey is so special.

“

“Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.” ~Greg Anderson

I am in love with my dog… Pan’s amazing, full of life, cheeky, funny and passionate about whatever he sets his mind on!

The male brain
Allright… subtitle should have been male dog brain- it’s quite an interesting thing. It’s been a journey seeing it develop; going from short focus to working up to half an hour, as well as ignoring distractions. Sure eyeing anything for a long time never really was a problem, but focussing on  ‘non moving’ tasks was definetly a challenge. The hormonal teenager seems to have grown up- at least a little- I cannot say I regret neutering Pan.

Enjoy life
This is Pan’s life style- and whenever things do not go as he wishes, he’ll make sure I know (naughty barking).  I am glad to see that our foundation work is paying off; he’s much easier to life with and a joy to train.

Love Life

On the job
Agility training is coming along nicely. Jumping at full height is looking good. We”ve started our weave training, and it’s great to see how he works trough failures: tail up and thinking cap on!

Slowly we- or really I am slowly picking up our new system, it’s exciting to see where I  make mistakes as that leaves room for improvement. Pan’s picking up my body language nicely, allthough keeping a balance between working close and away wíll remain a challenge. Now and then the sheepdog comes in to do an outrun- and truthfully that part is a bit of a training error on my side as well.

We still have a lot to do: adding some verbal cues to my handling, and adding movement. My movement is one of our biggest distractions, and i am making sure that is included in our weave training from the start! (Something I regret not having done more sooner in other training.) And the biggest slice left is our contacts; Pan is happily banging the seesaw and targetting the plexiglass- now all is left is continuing to build massive value and adding distractions. At some point (this fall) I will have to train a proper running A-frame.

So much left to do – occasionally it’s overwhelming, especially when you start to compare yourself and your progress to others.  But from the bottom of my hart- i can really say I enjoy training! I really do! I can get all excited about coming up with plans to train the tiny pieces, see how that pays off, and sometimes change the plan to get rid of the holes in our training…

ANADUNE, which is one of the biggest Border Collie Databases around the world, has made it possible to identify affected EPI dogs!

“testrun” is done and working, and the current EPI-info is updated!

I hope that by identifying dogs, breeding will get more careful, more people
will hear about the defect- and that soon a genetic will be available to predict the inheritance (better).  It would be great if more people would identify EPI
affected dogs!

To go to Anadune: http://www.anadune.com/abcd

More about EPI research can be found at: http://www.epi-research-fund.com/ 

More on EPI in general can be found at: http://www.globalspan.net/epi.htm or at http://www.epi4dogs.com/

—–

ANADUNE, een van de grootste Border Collie Databases in de wereld heeft het mogelijk gemaakt om EPI-leiders te identificeren.

De testronde was succesvol en de informatie over EPI is up to date.

Ik hoop dat door EPI honden kenbaar te maken men bewuster fokt, dat meer mensen van het defect horen én dat er snel een genetische test beschikbaar komt om de vererving (beter) te kunnen verspellen. Het zou geweldig zijn als meer mensen hun EPI-leiders willen identificeren!

Kijk op www.anadune.com/abcd

Just wanted to share a few dogtraining gems- these webinars will remain available the next 6 days. Have pen and paper ready to write your notes!

Video 1- about the period of time we spent training our dogs, and how to improve our current training.
http://www.puppypeaks.com/fe/13453-the-dog-training-time-line

Video’s 2 and 3- about overcoming struggles in dog training-
http://www.puppypeaks.com/fe/13492-struggles

 

Can a target be a lure?

On holidays we had some great discussions- above subject was one of them.

By my definitions it cannot:
A lure is anything that makes the behaviour happen, without the lure the behaviour will not occur. The lure is presented in advance of the behaviour;  it’s not neccesary to have any other awareness then to follow the lure.

A target to me is a learned behaviour that is coupled to a (visual) cue (the target). A target is generally meaningless, untill the moment you pair it with a behaviour that subsequently is followed with a reward.

I would say it’s a very thin line, but for me the biggest difference is that a lure precedes the behaviour, and with a target it follows after the behaviour. Which then brings us to conditioning: there is only a transfer of value if the reward is presented after the behaviour.

My question to you is:

 Is (following) a lure a learned behaviour?

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough. ” – Oprah Winfrey-

Sometimes it is good to stand still and be thankfull: some BIG thanks-es to Sabrina for taking care of bussiness- you did a great job, mum and dad for lending me their (bigger) car, B+L for their advices and to Mark and Karen for the great time I spent at their home.

I am truely blessed with a great family and a few amazing friends!

I enjoyed a (mostly) relaxing holiday: helping out at the World Agility Open in Clevedon, combined with cheering for my friends, trip to Devon, spending some hours training Pan, cooking for friends, chatting, reading a book, getting better acquinted with friends… lots of good things really!

Here’s a few of my favourites in a slideshow:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Last Sunday (29th) I came back from a 3 week holiday in the UK. Since I got back I have been running; cleaning up the car, unpacking, work- 5 hours of meetings- in just 2 days, so just catching up now.

Pan and I spent quite some time training agility with Karen.  I am amazed at the leaps in progress we seem to be making; focus, attitude and quick learning. Pan picked up most exercises naturally. The biggest compliment we received is that we have build a great foundation!

The main focus of training was to improve my skills as a handler. Karen did an amazing job staying focused on my handling, without loosing the bigger picture. She broke down the exercises in small pieces to create drive and many opportunities to reward Pan. Clever thinking of placement of rewards. She then also gave suggestions for how to move forward at home. Just how I like my training. As with good trainers, they give you a kick in the butt when you need one 🙂

The more exciting news is The Lakers (Mark and Karen) will be doing 2 seminar days in the Netherlands on November 12 and 13! A full day of Sportpsychology and a day of agility workshops such as course analysis& walking, handling, gridwork, obstacle exercises etc.