Do You Like Green Eggs and Ham?

After much thought and reading TONS of dog training materials online and on my Nook, I have devised a training protocol for Jefferson.   Much of Susan Garrett’s training blogs, and even quite a bit of her “Recallers” training really made me think and reassess my training.   In fact, I have developed a bit of an analogy between Team J-Dawg’s agility performance and my feeling much like “Sam I Am” from Dr. Suess’ “Green Eggs and Ham.”   

If you are not familiar with the storyline, here’s a brief synopsis taken from Wikipedia.  A character known as "Sam I Am” (This would me ME…the handler!) pesters another character (this would be Jefferson….the doggie) to taste the bizarre-looking titular dish (this would be agility). He declines, claiming to dislike the delicacy in question. However, the persistent Sam I Am (ME) will not cease following him (Jefferson) around and trying to encourage him to try the green eggs and ham (agility), asking him (Jefferson) if he will sample the dish (agility) if he does it in various locations (like a boat or a house) and with an assortment of dining partners (like a goat or a mouse). At the end, the disgruntled character (Jefferson) gives in to the nonstop nagging of Sam I Am (ME) and tries a bite of green eggs and ham (agility), which he finds he does indeed like.

So, from all that I have read, I have gained much insight and my take on the situation is three-fold.  First, I believe that much of our difficulties lie in the gap of my training – more specifically – obedience training.  While the sport of agility does not require the rigid heel positions as obedience or rally, it does require that your dog has focus on you, the handler.  One simple fix I have in mind is to retrain the “Come” when called command.  Jefferson blows me off whenever I ask him to “Come;” so I am re-training using a different word, “Here” and using lots and lots of goodies for whenever he comes “Here” to me.  Whenever I watched our videos from the CPA trial, he was wagging his tail a few of the times he stopped on the field during a run as if to stop to play a “come and chase me” game.  At a trial, I end-up participating in this game and then we run out of the ring earlier and he gets to his treats.  In other words, he is getting something out of this unwanted agility behavior of stopping during a run.  Inadvertently, I have been rewarding the behavior that I do not want.  Here is a video from this Sunday's practice run-thru, but whenever Jefferson runs off, I am successful in getting him back to complete the course because I do not go "play his game."

Madison wants to know why that darn ole dog gets so much attention!

 Secondly, I am working on gaining much of his attention and having him in the state of mind to be “On” for training and focused on me.  Whenever I think about the truly successful agility teams, they are the ones whose dog is focused on the handler way before they enter the ring for their run.  In fact, the dog and handler team are “On” prior to even getting near the ring.  So, I have read training materials about being able to turn your performance dog “On” and “Off” in order to have a good run.  Finding the balance between having a dog that is too revved up and one that is not revved up enough is a fine point of which I need to do a lot of work.   I plan on using food and toys to continue to get Jefferson “On” for whenever he runs.  Likewise, I want him to learn to recognized when it is time to turn "Off" from agility or training.

Thirdly, I have learned from reading many different training books that instead of focusing on the “Bad” behavior, I should be focusing on training the “Good” behavior that I want.  Instead of trying to psychoanalyze my dog to determine the “why,” I should read his trial behavior as an opportunity to identify gaps in my training.  Much like the character in “Green Eggs and Ham,” Jefferson (and me too) need to learn to work through our stressors and be able to run an agility course no matter the environmental or social stressors.  I have already worked on distractions during last night’s Weave Pole Issues class.  Since he does not have any real weave pole issues, I took him off leash and had him walk with me around the field for about 15 minutes.  He stayed right with me – attentive the whole time – while I treated him and asked him to perform various commands.  I was so pleased with how well he did with this spontaneous exercise.  We will be working this behavior quite a bit!  

 

I like green eggs and ham!
I do!! I like them, Sam-I-am!
And I would eat them in a boat!
And I would eat them with a goat...

 

I have thought a lot about how much our non-agility behavior is manifesting itself in the agility ring.  We will be working on our basic obedience in hopes that this will make us a more proficient agility team on the field. 

"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. "
 

~Aristotle