No More Guilt About Fewer Training Sessions

SUMMARY: For dogs, once a week may be better than 5 times a week.

Interesting! From a 2007 study:

"Using shaping and clicker training, 18 laboratory Beagles were trained to perform a target response. Nine dogs were trained once a week and nine dogs were trained five times a week. The results of the study show that dogs trained once a week learned the shaping exercise in significantly fewer training sessions than dogs trained five times a week. In addition, weekly trained dogs tended to have higher success rates at the different steps of the shaping exercise than the dogs trained five times a week. The dogs trained five times a week completed the shaping exercise in significantly fewer days than the weekly trained dogs. It is concluded that for dogs learning a given skill, weekly training results in better learning performance than training five times a week, when performance is measured in the number of training sessions required to reach a certain training level."

(c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Meyer, I., Ladewig, J., The relationship between number of training sessions per week and learning in dogs, Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. (2007), doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2007.06.016

(Download PDF.)

(Thanks, Wishy the Writer, for this info.)

Makes a bit of sense to me. When training one's muscles, you don't use the same muscle group every day; you work hard one day on one thing, then give it at least a day or two of rest while working on a different set of muscles. Apparently this translates to mental "muscle," too!

Remington always did better with only one or two training sessions a week, no matter how long or how intense. My other dogs love doing stuff as often as I want to do it, but it does seem sometimes that progress doesn't necessarily occur daily, but in leaps after several days of stasis.

Anyway, worth pondering!

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A Few Carmel Photos

SUMMARY: From among the hundreds I took.

I'm so tired, so very very very tired. Beyond just hiking and beaching tired. Don't know why. I think the sore-ish throat I've had since Friday night is just dry air and/or allergies. I *did* cover about 9 miles Saturday and 4 miles Sunday; but still, just drop-dead bone tired beyond reason.

So here are just a few of the photos from Saturday.

Our hotel room, with the stack o'dog supplies they provided us, and the 6"-deep pseudo-fireplace.

Tika loves the beach.

Boot did some running, too. Here, she looks like some sort of heraldic beast, not so much like a Border Collie. Perhaps a heraldic border collie, rampant.

One spot on the beach smelled really good, apparently. Both dogs rolled enthusiastically, then Tika discovered that if she dug instead of rolling, she could find some really excellent stuff to eat, which Human Mom annoyingly put a quick end to.

Tika loved to chase the frisbee. Boost usually brought it back.

After our beach trip, dogs took a nice nap.

After the nap, we hiked for a couple of hours, maybe 4-5 miles at Garland Regional Park. Thirsty dogs discover a new use for the rainwater collected in the Indian Grinding Rock. [why is this photo not showing up? Maybe it's still processing. Will double-check in the morning--]

Around sunset, we raced back to the beach to try for some sunset photos.

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Carmel-by-the-Sea and Carmel-Away-From-the-Sea

SUMMARY: A vacation day with the dogs.

There is nothing like being in the great outdoors with your dogs running freely off-leash. Wish we could enjoy that with greater regularity.

For various reasons, I got a late start this morning and arrived in Carmel around 12:30 on a beautiful day, perfect for a little hiking. Although check-in time at the Cypress Inn is 4:00, I figured it was worth dropping by early to see whether our room was ready. Yowza, it was, so we made ourselves comfy in our spacious room. (The fireplace is a bit of a fake--it's about 8" deep with a tiny flame and no way to adjust it.)

We then walked the half mile down to the beach (and it is *down*). The beach is over a mile long, and we walked up to one end and partway down to the other, then randomly encountered a friend who happened to be there at the same time we were, and strolled back towards the first end again.

We played some frisbee as we went, but I quickly tired of Tika catching it, running out into the surf and dropping it, and then Boost refusing to get anywhere near moving water in order to bring the frisbee home. Each time, we had to follow the frisbee down the beach as it appeared and disappeared in the waves, until finally it was close enough to the receding edge of the wave for boost to bravely get her feet wet and retrieve it.

Squillions of dogs of every size, shape, and color romped on the beach, off leash. At times when I put the frisbee away, Boost made attempts to do outruns on dogs chasing their own toys, but I kept moving along the beach and so she had to come along, too.

Tika liked exploring and running in and out of the surf, but Boost just wanted to play frisbee. Tika once again became so excited that she had to grab my feet for a while to get it out of her system. Boost, not so excited.

Per the pedometer, we got about 3.5 miles of walking between going to & from and the long walks along the clean, smooth sandy shore. Stopped in the hotel room for a little while to play with my computer: Wireless is listed as being available in the courtyard, but my room is close enough that I get it right here.

Realized to my dismay that I hadn't brought the card reader for my camera's memory card. So no way to upload photos, which means that one again I've missed the deadline for my 52 Weeks For Dogs. Crudola. THat's twice in 2.5 months; I think you're out if you miss 4. Just last week was so busy--

And I think I got a lot of nice photos today, but can't use them next week because them's the rules.

After that, we drove out Carmel Valley Road about 8 miles, through Carmel Valley, to a regional park that allows dogs off-leash. (Carmel Valley is different from carmel-by-the-sea. They just want you to know that.)

The weather remained perfect; sunny but just cool enough that I could walk as briskly as I wanted to and not work up too much of a sweat. I picked trails to walk that were mostly level, but did a little uphill and downhill. One branch of a trail descended abruptly via a series of a few dozen steps cut into the hillside, crossing a broad trail running the length of the valley. Boost apparently found THAT exciting--she blasted up and down the stairs and raced madly back and forth on the trail down in the valley. Not sure what sparked that excitement. OK, for Tika it's surf at the beach, for boost it's stairs in the woods.

Boost was quite happy to just run and explore in the park, unlike at the beach. She mostly used her hobby horse floppy puppy gait (picture those horses mounted in a rack on springs that you'd rock back and forth on--kind of like that) that's so unlike the focused, intense border collie working look.

After the first 25 minutes, I discovered that my pedometer had fallen from my belt and dangled from its leash, and had registered only .2 miles. I'm thinkin' it missed maybe a mile of hiking.

Not a lot of wildflowers yet, but a few here and there. The showiest display came along the Lupine Loop, where--surprise!--a field of lupies blued the scenery.

When we got back to the car about 20 minutes before sunset, we were approaching 8 miles on the pedometer total for the day (plus whatever it didn't count while loose). We then parked back at the hotel and raced to the beach for some glorious after-sunset sky colors, then back up the hill again to the hotel for a shower in a nice marble shower, dinner with the dogs at my side in the restaurant (in the dog section)--AHI tuna and some stuff, and a coconut creme brullee, yum!

I am VERY tired. Dogs are completely sacked out. Think I'll join them.

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Vacation

SUMMARY: A two-day doggie trip sans agility. Can you imagine?!

Last year, a funny thing happened at the worker's raffle table. I earned a bunch of raffle tickets by working all day. I usually put them all into any free-entry certificates, hoping to win one here and there. Just for fun, I dropped one ticket into the bulging-full jar for one free night at the Cypress Inn in Carmel-by-the-Sea. Because, why not?

And I won.

Pets are Welcome there. In fact, all of Carmel loves dogs. Nearby Monterey's pretty good about them, too. In Carmel, I can shop and dine out and hike and go to the beach, all with my dogs along. You know it's dog-friendly when that's noted at the top of their Wikipedia article!

Carmel-by-the-Sea is a truly charming town, originally an artist's enclave but now an extremely pricey (and yet still charming) town that has no street numbers for houses; the houses all have names instead. And they're all different.

Believe me, I will be taking my camera!

You should also read about some of their unusual laws.

We're going next week, just me and the Merle Girls. Our reserved room has a king-sized bed, fireplace, and private courtyard, usually running in the $400/night range at full price. Well--technically, the room isn't FREE because they don't include the $50/night pet fee in the free gift certificate. But that's OK, I'll take it anyway.

I am SO looking forward to a couple of days of off-leash hiking and beaching, some nice meals, tons of photos, and a little pampering. And, although I may meet with some agility friends for beaching or hiking, there will in fact be no agility activities for us at all! THIS is my new life. ;-)

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Class Should Be Interesting Tonight

SUMMARY: We've had no class for two weeks due to rain. And--

--tonight it's not raining! But it's overcast and gray and the wind wails around the house with a message from the north. By 8:00 this evening, the thermometer will read 44F (6.7C), but with wind chill and humidity, Accuweather's estimate on the cold feel will be 39 (3.9C). That's almost bearable if there's no wind, but, dang, that wind!

And I'm running on 3 hours of sleep from last night. We won't mention any names, right, BOOST?!?!

Could be an interesting evening. I am, at the moment, after a nice warm bowl of chicken noodle soup, pondering just crawling into bed and calling it a night. But the canids are restless, prowling around the house and yard, gleeful with temperatures that allow them to run and run and never overheat!

Still, that down comforter and electric mattress pad are calling my name. How cavemen survived without electric mattress pads, I'll never know.

I have 45 minutes to decide. Ah, me.

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Miscellany

SUMMARY: Musings between agilities.

Tika's fur is SO thick that her feet and legs are like sponges, and particularly the thick hairy bits on her behind. I'm thinkin' that makes her Sponge-dog Hairpants. Am I right?

My not-too inspired-photo for week 9 of 52 Weeks for Dogs:

When we go for a walk, and we encounter grassy areas, I play tug of war with Boost and her leash and allow her to run run run a bit with the handle of the leash in her mouth. She runs 20 feet ahead and then comes back for more tug. (She has never ever ever run out into the street, but I'm very careful anyway.) She now gets very excited when we get to grassland! Because we all get to run and play! And so, singing to her as we go, with apologies to Paul Simon:

We're going to grassland
grassland
In southern San Jose
We're going to grassland.
Doggies and walkers with leashies
and we are going to grassland!
My walking companion is five years old
She is so bored with simply smells
But soon we'll tug and play
And pretend to run away
in grassland!

(Original lyrics here.)

We've had no class for two weeks; been rained out. Rented the field with a friend and her 3 border collies Saturday afternoon and went up and practiced for a couple of hours. Mostly ran Tika just to run Tika. Tried to set up things with Boost where she's ahead of me or I have to push her out or I have to serp her. Bars were knocked. Speed occurred. Progress might have been made. I think just DOING things like that over and over until we get them right is probably good.

At home, have done some desultory threadles and serps. Today took a different approach: Worked on sending them into gambles where they had to keep going straight ahead of me. Not too bad on just jump jump tunnel, but stick a teeter instead of the 2nd jump and things went all to pot. This was good. Good practice at keeping their focus straight ahead.

Then the skies burst into a sudden downpour, although the sun continued to shine brightly. I retreated to the back porch, but continued to send the dogs down to the lawn area to do obstacles for a thrown reward. Rain didn't bother either of them! And revealed again that Boost doesn't know her left from right except in certain very circumscribed situations. I think this was actually an excellent exercise, because now the dogs do not have my body language (good and/or bad) to guide them, just my commands! So they have to listen! AND pay attention!

Again, I think progress occurred and I think I'll try more of that. That continued until I looked up across my back fence--and had to abandon the dogs to race for my camera:

Meanwhile, I am STILL liking the idea of not doing agility. Of course, after our 4-day mega-event Apr 15-18, in rapid succession there are my own home clubs' USDAA trials April 24-25 and May 1-2. See, this is the problem with trying to spread my agility out over the year: The convenient ones and the highest ROI ones are all glopped exceedingly tightly in just a couple of spots during the year, and the rest of the year is empy (that's empty without the hard-to-pronounce t in the middle).

Sigh. I will be VERY tired after those two and a half weeks are over! And probably ready for no more agility for a very long time.

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Cars Got Passwords?

SUMMARY: How does it know I made the last payment? Looking at my bank statement?

Paid off MUTT MVR in January. Figured I'd take it in for a check-up in early February, which was wayyy overdue. Didn't look bad at all, only >>gulp<< $900 worth of maintenance and repairs. Plus one more thing that they needed to order a part for, another $150 (including labor).

Took MUTT MVR back today to get that part installed. I walked home with the dogs--35 minutes over 2 miles including plenty of halts for reminders about pulling on the leash. Nice day for a really brisk walk, too.

The work was pretty quick, took them only a couple of hours, even with all of the recall business they're having to deal with at the moment. Their shuttle came & took me over there, I paid my bill, got into MUTT MVR. Rolled up the windows that the technician had rolled down--and--

Crunch, the passenger side window made an awful noise and just stuck halfway up. I know it's not something they did, just miserable coincidence. It made a funny noise a week or so ago when I had it open and reclosed it. That was the window broken into last May and replaced. Thought maybe a piece of broken glass was still in there and had jiggled loose, but of COURSE didn't think about it when I took it in this morning.

They managed to manhandle it closed so I can drive around without rain or pigeons coming through the window. Labor estimate to take it apart and see what's wrong--another $130. Best guess, it's the whooziewhatzer scissoring mechanism that raises and lowers the window. Bet that's not free.

How do vehicles KNOW that they're paid off?! Curses.

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Dogs Got Wednesdays?

SUMMARY: How do they know what night it is?

I don't get it. It's 7:30 Wednesday evening, when we have been leaving for agility class in recent months. BUT.

We haven't been to class in 2 weeks. (Anyway we're supposed to be going on Tuesdays but have been rained out.)

We went for a long walk to the park and some frisbee in the rain instead.

They got a full dinner instead of the usual quick snack before class.

I don't do ANYTHING DIFFERENT on Wednesdays than any other day, and in fact did stuff LESS like an agility class night tonight than I would on a normal class night. Why are they in here nudging me and pestering me and telling me it's time to get going? What do dogs know from Wednesdays?

Renter says it must be because he always brings home Chinese food (and always the same Chinese food) on Wednesdays and they always get the same little Chinese food treat (a single bite) from him. Is that really it?
Dogs are amazing. And I can see it's going to be a long evening. They've stopped nudging but are lying there staring at me.

NO CLASS TONIGHT, YOU HEAR ME? If you can identify WEDNESDAYS, you're certainly clever enought to READ MY LIPS: "NO class tonight!!"
Looking to my left:

Looking to my right:

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Today's Chuckles

SUMMARY: I love Dave Barry!

Dave Barry's Deep Thoughts on Dog Behavior.

Added several hours later, same day:

1993 Dave Barry column on The Secret Lives of Dogs.

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Now What?

SUMMARY: Losing it about agility. A longish and introspective post.

Friends know that I've been saying for several years that I'm doing too much agility and I miss my old life and I'm going to cut back on the agility.

Well, I have...from a high of 23 weekends in 2003 down to 18 last year. Last year was tough because a couple of those weekends were because the dog or dogs were injured or other oddball reasons, and I was sad and frustrated at the time.

But, as weekends have gone by, with and without agility, and has the "without" weekends have at first hurt but then became gifts of free time, I have come more and more to realize:

• How much I hate getting up at 4 in the morning.
• How much I resent agility taking almost all my vacation days.
• How stressed I am trying to get in full weeks of work around agility weekends; there is no time for me, ever, it seems.
• How much I like being around my house and yard with NOTHING SCHEDULED except maybe a movie with a friend.
• How much I can catch up on, or just relax and enjoy, in a weekend at home.
• How relaxed I feel during the week when there's no trial the following weekend.
• How much I enjoy doing things OTHER than agility, like I always used to BEFORE agility.
• How much happier I am to have money to spend on something other than agility once in a while.
• How tired I am of fine-tuning dogs' agility performance. I mean, I *tried* to start Boost right, like with Susan Salo's approach to learning jumping. Maybe didn't do as much of it as I should have, because at some point she started knocking those bars, and now it's drudgery for me to try to fix it. I know all the advice that says that you should make ways to make training fun for you as well as for the dog, but, well, OK, it isn't.
• How crushed I was at deciding--because of Tika's on-again off-again pains and aches-- not to take Tika to the nationals in Performance although she'd had an excellent year...and regretting it and regretting it and regretting it... until she came up injured at that trial just a couple of weeks after when Nationals would have been, completely justifying my reluctance to go. And suddenly it was like I'd been let free from something I'd thought I was chasing. Of course it helps that the USDAA Nationals aren't within driving distance any more.

I've felt that I was coming to this point for a very long time, and I'm starting to think that I'm actually here: I want most of agility out of my life.

We'll see how I do when the USDAA trials start coming fast and furious later in the year. I still want to do some, just REALLY not 18 weekends a year of it!

Which leaves me with the question: So, what do I do with these crazy driven dogs who love agility for so many reasons? I mean, I love agility, too. I've developed such an amazing rapport with all of my agility dogs that I never had with them as pets--and I was pretty close with my "merely" pet dogs. Agility keeps me physically active, which is crucial for me. It burns off their energy. It gives us an excuse to really focus on each other individually. And I've met so many wonderful people whom I now consider my friends--although I almost never see any of them except at agility events. Because they're all always doing agility! There are a lot of laughs and good times in agility.

I'm thinking that, if I take a weekend and don't do agility, I should do somehting else with them. Like, drive an hour to a park where they can run off leash and spend 2 or 3 hours hiking and drive back. Of course, there goes half a day of my weekend right there, and it might very well be a solitary effort rather than with dozens of friends who are all interested in each other and each other's dogs.

Conversely, there's a lot of pain in agility. Dogs die. People's goals are thwarted (mine, too). People and dogs injured. This is all really a very small part of agility, but at times now it feels constant constant constant, and maybe that's a sign of where I am, that the pain grows instead of simply being dips in the background from which one recovers.

I had decided not to do any agility in March... easy enough because it's just 2 of the 4 or so CPE trials I had figured on doing for the year... and now I find that I am looking towards the 4-day trial in April both with excitement (it's a big, fun, exciting event) and trepidation (it's four frigging days of agility).

I dunno. I'm trying to take some time off from agility. I'm trying not to think "but my dogs are getting older and their agility lives are short." I'm trying to remember that, by the time these dogs are gone (gods willing), I'll be in my mid-60s. My arthritic knees aren't getting any better. MY life is going to be short enough, no matter how long it is. I have so much else I want to do in my life and I'm not getting it done.

I think I'm thinking out loud. I think I'm coming to where 230 weekends of agility competition (not to mention seminars and fun matches and classes) over 14 years have just worn out their welcome.

I started agility classes for something fun to do with Remington because he needed more exercise and more of a mental workout than simply tricks and playing in the yard were giving him. It certainly did that. I had never intended to compete, just keep going to classes every week for the fun. Don't know whether I could go back to just that.

Anyway--feels like I'm at a crossroad and I'm not yet entirely sure which direction I'm headed. There will be agility--heck, Tika and I could try again this year for Top Ten!--heck, Boost might actually someday earn a Jumpers Q and her MAD title! (I've almost given up on a championship)--but, like any addict, I'm trying to find a way to do it in true moderation without going cold turkey. Don't know whether that's possible.

Ah, well, yes, Scarlett, tomorrow is another day!

List of competition weekends and number of runs each

Click to see larger images.

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