Well, we'd been making progress, I thought. Last night I had my husband hold Laev's dinner while I took her through roughly half a BH routine, at the end of which I sent her for supper. It wasn't a world-class routine, but it was good enough, and I was happy that she was able to work that long.
This afternoon, however, I felt as if I were begging for every scrap of behavior, and Laev was failing abominably at stuff she's known forever -- the down out of motion, for example, which has been nearly foolproof since she was six months old. What on earth is going on?
My plan was to hit the road and work in all-new locations this week. Conventional wisdom would have me continue at home until she's much better, but 1) I don't have time for that, and 2) I think a good chunk of the problem is conditioned critter-hunting in her own yard. Maybe she'll do better away.
I'm just nearly ripping my hair out. This is a test she should have been able to pass months and months ago, consisting entirely of behaviors at which she's been fluent for well over a year. I had no reason to anticipate particular trouble with this. I don't know why I'm getting trouble with this. She's driving me crazy!
Hormones and Fun (wow, what a subject line)
Hormones are a good thought, but we'd gotten the heat safely out of the way in March. (Thank goodness, too, because it was a nasty temperament one.) She apparently had clear hormonal sailing. (I don't make any claims about me!)
And the reason I felt Laev could handle it is that I fully expected her to pass last fall! This isn't new material for her. I just hadn't calculated the emerging hibernation population into my plans. /sigh/
I understand what you're saying about fun, and I agree. I have no problems pulling a planned trial when it just isn't right. (Did that this weekend, in fact.) And that's why Shakespeare isn't doing some sports anymore -- I enjoyed it, but he didn't find it as inherently fun as others, and there's no reason to push him into something just for my sake. The moment it's not fun for both of us, we're outta there.
But Laev has a great approach to work. And when I mixed toys and food in a fresh location, she looked good. (This was after my last post.) Got the reinforcers off me, and she looked good. She was, and is, capable of this.
But, stuff happens. ;-)
Laura &
a suggestion
These are just my ramblings...
Perhaps she senses that this is something that stresses you (no offense intended, but you sound pretty stressed in your posts) and is reacting with insecurity ..."am I doing this wrong? "Mom" is acting weird"
Did you do what traditional trainers around here would call "overtrain" ... even with positive training I have found that if I keep going at it (and at the same thing) at a high intensity for too long the dog will loose erhmm "momentum" the behaviour gets worse, not better.
Taking a break, either doing nothing at all for a week or two, or at least just working low intensity on a few fun tricks tend to get the dogs enthusiasm for the "serious" stuff back up
"serious" in "" because it is serious to me, but to my dogs...well, it is all a game. And is I get too serious and tense and keep training the same stuff over and over for weeks they loose the sense of fun, and get exactly like you are telling us Laev is... slow, uncertain even.
I understand that you are working on a tight time schedule here, but i encourage you to take a small vacation from training. I have found that when we go back to work the dog has improved immensely during the break.
Best of luck, i look forward to hearing how you end up solving this problem... as I am sure you will ;o)
Christina
overtraining
There was a possibility of overtraining, but I doubt that was what was happening -- we still were spending probably a total of <30 min/day on working, and Laev's ordinarily a pretty intense girl who can go for long periods of time. I think it was more the squirrels than anything else. :-) She seemed to do better away from home.
I had a built-in break coming, anyway, as I had another convention out of town just before Nationals, so Laev was getting four days totally off during that time. Then we went to Nationals, and she did very well at first....
More on that coming. /weak grin/
Laura &