Loving them is so easy - Losing them is so hard

“Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”

                                                                                                           - Dr. Seuss

 

The Last Chapter

This will likely be my last post - and, at some point soon I will try to figure out how to delete the blog - if that's possible. I started this blog back in 2009 to help me organize my thoughts on training, try to put things in perspective, and track our progress. At that time we were starting our quest for the UD (Utility Dog) title. We achieved that goal as well as the ultimate goal of earning the UDX title. Since that was the main focus of our blog, there hasn't been much to post about in Jackson's 'retirement.'

It was a great journey and I am really appreciative of the comments and support we received from our blogger friends. And, I will continue to follow the many blogs I discovered when I started blogging.

Jackson was my first attempt to train for competitive obedience. We were both learning as we went - through trial and many errors! What I learned was - the best thing about obedience is the relationship you forge with your dog. That's  also what makes this time so terribly difficult. Jackson has been diagnosed with osteosarcoma (bone cancer). It came on suddenly a few weeks ago and there is no cure. After consultation with experts at the vet school we decided that the best course of action for Jackson would be pain management. Osteosarcoma can be treated agressively with amputation and chemo/radiation, which may buy you some time. However, because of Jackson's age and size, this is not an option we would choose.

He is currently on Rimadyl, Tramadol and Gabapentin for pain management. He's eating, drinking and resting comfortably, however, he has trouble at times moving around. So.... we spend our days doing what he enjoys most - laying on the front porch keeping an eye on the neighborhood : )

Hug your dogs and don't worry too much about qualifying and earning titles because when the last chapter is written, they really don't matter that much.

Blog has been hijacked by the gardener today

Can't believe it's been five months since we blogged! I guess that's what retirement does to you :) Since Jackson has retired from the obedience ring, there's not been a lot to blog about. However, he is doing fine. We had two school demos this week with others from the obedience club. Jackson is always a hit with the kids - not because of his talents - but because of his size. I'm always a little surprised at the comments we frequently get like, "Wow, I've never seen a dog that big before!"

We are back in Iowa and now spending a lot of time relaxing on the front porch - checking out the goings on in the neighborhood. I love front porches and don't understand why so many people close in their front porches - ahh, but I digress :) Jackson and Jolee love the front porch too, so much so, that they would storm the door when they thought we were going out. Ah-ha, an opportunity for training. With a handful of treats, it didn't take long until they would stand patiently at the open front door while I put the ex-pen across the bottom of the steps. When the release word - 'okay' - comes, they can then charge out the door.

Jackson at his 'look-out' post

Now, a word about the title - 'hijacked by the gardener today'. Since I have trouble remembering from year to year what plantings did well and what didn't, I decided recently that I needed to take some pictures and start a gardening journal that I can refer to next spring when it's time to plant. We have a small, very shady yard so it's a challenge to find things that do well - except hostas - so I try to experiment with various flowers.

Since I had all these photos of plantings, I thought I would post a few on Jackson's blog. I don't think gardens are ever finished products - they're always works in progress. So, if anyone has suggestions for plantings, please don't hesitate to comment.

the front view

front yard view from porch

front yard view from the sidewalk

Not one to let space go to waste - I planted the parking strip in front. Actually

it has more to do with reducing the amount of yard that needs to be mowed.

the backyard - wishing I had a wooded view in the background instead of

neighbors' garages but, oh well - that's life in the city: )

One of my favorite places to relax in the side yard.

Evidently, the squirrel's too!

Back to blogging about Jackson next time!



Hiking in the desert

We took a hike in the desert recently and snapped a couple pictures. A friend also snapped a picture of me snapping pictures. The last picture is of a coyote we saw when we were hiking. Coyotes are very common around here. (The one pictured was not very close - the zoom lens makes it appear we are close-up and personal : )

 

Been there, done that.....

....that seems to be the conclusion I usually come to when thinking back on Jackson's obedience career and my plans for the future. I've been thinking about it a LOT lately - since Jackson's retirement from the ring - but MW's blog post last week about her goals for 2012 spurred me on to put it down in writing. (That might help me think things through.)

It's been quite a journey for Jackson and me as we pursued the elusive UDX title. I've learned a lot about training, what works and what doesn't work for him, and for me. I will confess, training with the goal of achieving titles has at times gotten in the way of our 'relationship.' I believe I've been able to fix that now (thank goodness dogs are very forgiving : ), and I won't make the same mistakes again.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the journey and the great friends I've made through training....but..... would I do it again with my next dog? I don't know. I tend to think, not. Oh, there will be another dog at some point. It will be a Great Dane, as I love my breed more than I love obedience titles. And, I love training. I am really anxious to get a puppy at some point and start training from the very first day and see how far we can go and what we can accomplish - not necessarily in obedience titles, but in terms of what we can learn and the relationship we can develop.

Now, lest it sound like Jackson has one foot in the grave, he's doing fine. We're keeping active in training and hiking - although we're having to trim the distance of our walks due to some occasional lameness resulting from some arthritis issues. Future posts will likely be about our hikes in the desert, rather than training for the next title : )

Holiday Greetings!

Jackson meets the Cactus

Jackson's ear -

The Cactus -

Now picture a hunk of the cactus in Jackson's ear.

As if to prove that we actually do live in the desert, Jackson came in the house this afternoon with a hunk of cactus in his ear - acccckkkkk!!!! When we first got here a couple months ago my husband came in the house with a hunk of cactus hanging from his arm. I didn't panic - I just got a tweezers and started pulling the needles out one at a time - about a hundred of them, and they seem to have hooks on the end that make pulling them out a challenge. But, hubby held still - and didn't even scream - so we managed to free the cactus from his arm.

When Jackson came in with his cactus, I did panic - a little. I tried to pull them out, but he didn't want to hold still, and let out some yelps as I tried. Since I was alone and didn't have anyone to help hold him, I called the nearest vet and asked if I could come in right away and get some help with this. They said 'yes,' so, I put my mastercard in my pocket and off we went.

Long story short - I got him out of the van at the vet's, he shook his head, and the offending hunk of cactus went flying across the parking lot! Problem solved. I ducked into the vet office to cancel our appointment and we went back home.

Lesson learned: don't panic, it's probably not near as bad as it looks : )

Now if I were the home owner instead of the renter, this sucker would be gone!

Life in the desert, training, an award, etc.

Life is good in the desert - and busy. If Jackson thought retirement from the ring meant sleeping on the couch all day, he was in for a surprise. Although we're not training to go in the ring again, we have hooked up with a fun group of trainers here in Arizona and train in a park with them on Sunday mornings. My goals for Jackson now are to keep him moving and thinking, and maybe try to figure out some new training strategies that will help him relax in distracting environments, and build our relationship.

I'm also working on training with lots of games and positive reinforcement. Jackson loves going for our daily walks around the neighborhood so on these walks I'm doing a lot of treating when he's in the 'reinforcement zone' - which is keeping him in heel position and paying attention - by choice. It doesn't seem like 'training' but it's working. He's choosing to stay close to me and check in with me frequently - looking for that treat. Makes for enjoyable walks : )

Thanks to our friends, Falkor the Great Dane and Famke the Field Spaniel, we've received the 'Liebster Blog' award. We are honored. This award goes to 'up and coming' bloggers. Now I need to come up with five bloggers to pass this on to. I'll be working on that.

In the mean time, here's a few pictures of Jackson's life in the desert.

 

Wishing all our friends a very happy holiday season!

 



Where in the world is Jackson???

If you guessed the 'Valley of the Sun' - you'd be right!
Jackson is wintering in Arizona. Would write more about what we're doing here, but having an unbearably slow connection today.
More later.

Finding the Balance

Lately I've been thinking a lot about finding the balance between the time spent training and the time spent just enjoying activities with my dog. When I think back over my time with Jackson, it seems as though we've spent 95% of our time outside the home training for competitive obedience. I'm thinking now that's way out of balance.

Although I have tried to make training fun, a lot most of it has been  just plain 'work' and repetition. Probably not something he would choose to do, if he had a choice. So I started thinking, "What would Jackson enjoy doing?"  He doesn't like to play with balls or toys. He doesn't like to retrieve. He doesn't like to run and jump. However, I think I've found something he loves to do - sniffing and exploring new territory!  With that in mind - and being blessed with some gorgeous fall days here in Iowa - we have been going on walks and exploring some new parks in the area.

Jackson's "heaven"

I don't plan to do training on these excursions, however, I don't pass up a chance to reward him when he is in the 'reinforcement zone.' I find that he frequently checks in with me and falls into heel position on his own. I guess I could consider that 'choosing to work with me.' 

Growing old is a 'state of mind' .... right????

Am I getting too old for this obedience stuff?

The heartbreak of owning a giant breed dog such as a Great Dane is knowing that their life span is estimated to be eight - ten years. Considering they need two years to reach physical maturity, that doesn't leave a lot of time for training and competing in obedience.

I was perusing my 2010 National Invitational catalog recently and was not surprised to see the ages of the top obedience dogs. Looking through the sporting breed listings, I found the majority of the dogs competing were in the five to seven year-old age range, with a dozen more that were eight to ten years old.

I feel fortunate that Jackson stayed healthy enough to compete through the udx level prior to his seventh birthday. However, I think I am now seeing some signs of his age catching up with him, which may start to limit some of the jumping exercises. He has started refusing the bar jump lately - something he has never done in training. I'm not sure if it's his eyes or a lack of umph when he needs to jump.

Oh, we will continue training, although we will be lowering jump heights or omitting the jumping exercises altogether. I think it's important though to keep him moving and thinking. We just need to find some different things to keep him - and me - learning!

Still trying to figure things out - some random thoughts

Labor Day - can't believe it's the official end of summer. The summer has flown by and we're still training regularly, although with somewhat fuzzier goals. It was easier to stay focused when we had title goals we were working on, but I must say it's been a lot more relaxed without them.

I do have goals though. I'm working on changing the way I train with the goal of making Jackson more comfortable in the ring. He's a natural-born worrier so it's always been stressful for him to be in the ring. Now I'm wondering if my approach to training had something to do with that. Jackson was my first attempt at competitive obedience training, so when we started training I used quite a bit of 'have-to' / compulsion training, which is where my limited experience laid.  However, I've really been trying hard to move away from that toward 'it's your choice' and making the correct choice the most rewarding option. (You can probably tell SG has had some influence here : )

When Jackson walked into the ring, things changed - his happy demeaner in training disappeared and he became somewhat of a zombie in the ring. Some trainers will say it's because there are no treats in the ring - but, in Jackson's case I don't think that is it. I think it had more to do with his fears - fear of distractions, fear of making a mistake, and his general lack of confidence. Anyone watching us in the ring would probably think, there's no relationship in that team. I'm left wondering if my initial training with compulsion and corrections helped set the stage for the stressful performance.

On the other hand, could he have held it together to qualify if it weren't for the 'have-to' training?

Another trainer that I follow online, Denise Fenzi, recently posted about 'fixing' a client's dog's unhappiness in the ring. First on her list of things to do was: 'remove all compulsion from training.'
That got my attention! Is it possible to get a dog to perform competitively without compulsion? It works for her dogs - but then she has high drive dogs - so would it work for Jackson?

DF also makes a point about 'work is a privilege when trained motivationally.' She recommends 'putting dogs away (in the house, in the crate, etc.) for failures of effort - dogs don't get to work who don't want to work.' Hmmmmm..... I'm thinking that may be exactly what the dog wants - to be left alone????? I guess the challenge there is to make training so exciting, they will choose the training over being in the crate.

So many theories, so many things to try - maybe something will work for us : )

Have you Googled your dog?

You might be surprised what you find when you google your dog's name. I sure was. On a tip from a friend I googled Jackson's name last night and was surprised at a couple links that came up. The biggest surprise was the picture below that was published in the Waterloo, Iowa newspaper in April 2006! I had never seen it and didn't know that it had even been taken.

The caption was: "With front paws on a chair Great Dane "Robindane's Heartbreaker CD RN" takes a good look around Saturday morning at the Waterloo Kennel Club Dog Show."

Rich Chase / Courier Photographer.

Another link came up that had two win pictures from a trial in January 2010 that had been published on the Northstar Working Group Association website, plus loads of other stuff I hadn't seen. So, if you haven't googled your dog yet, do it. You might be surprised at what comes up : )







It's a miracle - my dog can tug!

Now, those of you that have dogs that are natural tuggers, you're probably asking, "What's the big deal?" Well, I have been working with Jackson off and on (usually 'off' because I have given up a number of times) to try to get an enthusiastic tug from him. Unlike a lot of dogs, he just never seemed to have any interest in tugging with me. I've tried all kinds of tugs - soft, hard, ropes, food-containing ones, etc. - with not much success..... until recently.

According to SG, and a lot of trainers, this is the foundation to building a relationship with your dog and building drive. (Heaven knows - we could use some drive : ) So, I've started working on the tugging again with him. I'm not sure what is different this time, but we seem to be having some success. We have a long ways to go to get to the point where he will tug with me in new settings with distractions and when I ask for it, but for now, we are building value with tugging in the house. We'll gradually try to move it outside where there are some distractions and then to the club, etc.

And for now, I am only asking for tugging when he is 'up,' like before we go out to train, or when it's time to eat. If anyone has any tips on how they have gotten a non-tugging dog to love tugging, please share. We can use any help we can get to keep this thing moving in the right direction.

Here's the proof : )

The invitation and the questions

Jackson's invitation to the NOI (National Obedience Invitational) arrived today. This is the second year in a row that he's received an invitation. This year's invitational will be held in December at Orlando, Florida.

I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about posting this. Don't get me wrong -- I feel honored to have received this invitation. I think it does recognize all the hard work and effort Jackson and I have put into training and trialing, as well as the unique challenges some of us face when we choose to train dogs that are not of the traditional obedience breeds.

For those who may not know how invitations are decided, AKC invites the top 25 obedience dogs in the country based on number of OTCH points earned in the reporting year. In addition to these 25, the top three dogs (according to their OTCH points) in each breed are invited. A third way to get invited is through regional qualifying events.

Some breeds have no qualifying dogs; some i.e., herding and sporting group breeds have lots; and some breeds i.e., Great Danes, have very few competing at that level so their chances of getting invited are much less competitive - although they do need to have earned OTCH points to be on the list.

I guess the thing that seems incongruent to me is - the goal of the NOI is to have dogs compete for the title of National Obedience Champion (NOC), which to me means the best obedience dog in the country - at least on that given weekend - but they also invite dogs such as Jackson, who are nowhere near the same level as the top obedience dogs are. Perhaps AKC is just trying to encourage wider participation in obedience and are recognizing the accomplishments of nontraditional obedience dogs - and if they are - that's okay. I am proud and honored that we have been invited, even though it seems a little weird : )

Just thinking out loud. 

If you have thoughts on the NOI, I'd love to hear them! 

Dog Days of Summer

Temps - 90s

Heat Index - 100s

What's a guy going to do?

Tracking and Training update

Just a quick update on our training and tracking progress.

It has been too hot to get out in the field much to work on tracking. Even if I could get myself up at daybreak - and that's a big if - it would still be too hot to track. Nighttime lows have been mostly in the 70s this month with high humidity. But - we did get out a couple mornings ago when the temps dipped to the upper 60s. I was really, really pleased with his enthusiasm for finding the glove. We did 30- and 50-yard straight tracks, with the track layer doubling back on the track, and Jackson took off flying (well, loping - which is flying for him : ) to find the glove.

What I'm noticing now with the longer tracks, is when he gets about two-thirds of the way out he realizes he can't see the glove and he starts using his nose. Now, I don't know if he is smelling the treat on the glove or if he is smelling the track, but either way, he is finding the glove with no problem.

The next level is setting the 30- and 50-yard straight tracks but not doubling back on the same track. I may stay at the current level a couple more times out to make sure he is using the scent of the track to locate the glove.

We are also going to the club regularly to train to keep us mentally and physically active : ) Trying to keep the training fun and games. Susan Garrett has been posting some videos about her training challenges and struggles. She talks about staying in 'Do-land' as opposed to 'Don't-land.' In other words, communicating to your dog what you want him to 'Do' rather than what you 'Don't' want him to do. It makes sense to me and I'm trying to stay in that land more often - but, it's hard sometimes : )

A new title....and a patch to go with!

The American Kennel Club (AKC) is now issuing Therapy Dogs a new title - THD -  to place at the end of their names. This program went into effect June 27, 2011, and Jackson received his letter and patch in the mail today.

From the AKC website:

    

     "The purpose of this program is to recognize AKC dogs and their owners who have given their time and helped people by volunteering as a therapy dog and owner team.

     The AKC Therapy Dog program awards an official AKC title awarded to dogs who have worked to improve the lives of the people they have visited.

     The AKC Therapy Dog title (THD) can be earned by dogs who have been certified by AKC recognized therapy dog organizations and have performed 50 or more community visits." 

Jackson's name is now -

 ROBINDANES HEARTBREAKER UDX RAE THD

We are particularly proud of this title as this is one of the things he does best : )

Tracking - Part One

Part One - Building motivation to the glove
When I first started tracking three years ago, the method used involved dropping food along a track to teach the dog to follow a track. You eventually fade the food so the dog learns to follow the scent on the track to get to the reward (glove/treat) at the end of the track. After a few months of tracking, winter came and I got focused on obedience training and did not get back to tracking until this spring.

The food drop method works great for some people, but I felt Jackson and Jolee were lacking in motivation to find the glove. Then I came across a website that described another method of training, which focused on building motivation.

In this method, you start close in with the glove and treat in sight and get the dog excited to get to the treat. You gradually lengthen the distance. At first the dog is finding the glove by sight, but the theory is that as you lengthen the distance and the glove is out of sight, the dog will transition to using the scent of the track to find the glove. That's a real quick and dirty explanation. If you would like more detail on this method go to this Basset Hound website.

We've just started this method and I'm really liking it. We're still at the very beginning stages of it and I'm excited about how motivated the dogs are to find the glove. I don't know how the transition will go to finding the glove by scent, but we're having fun with this stage of it.

The video shows Jolee first with the initial exercise of getting the dog excited about the glove. Then I taped a couple short tracks with Jackson, who is surprisingly motivated to find the glove : )

Dog friends are the best!

I received this photo recently and was reminded why I love dog training - it's so much about the friends you make along your journey :)

The photo is of the decorated cake that my training friends surprised me with at one of our training club meetings shortly after Jackson earned his UDX. The relationhip you build with your dog through obedience training is great, but having friends to share it with enriches it all the more!