This Above All . . .

"This above all: to thine all self be true,
And it must follow, as the day to night,
Thou canst then be false to any man" - William Shakespeare

This has been Bandit's lesson to me: I must be true to myself.  In particular, as a dog trainer - but maybe it goes beyond that.

In recent months I had found myself frustrated with Bandit, particularly in Agility class.  He was not progressing as I had hoped he would progress, and I found that he was become more distracted, not less, and I was distressed that I was unhappy with the entire situation.  When we trained Freestyle or Rally FrEe, Bandit and I were able to bring out the best in one another.  Agility was not bringing about the same result.

This was particularly bothersome because Bandit is a joy to train.  There is something about him that just makes me ridiculously happy when we are training together.

Recently someone on a Facebook group saw a video of me working with Bandit on paw lifts to a cane and she commented that she loves how I smile when I am working with Bandit.

This is how it should be!

The fact that it wasn't in the Agility context was something that I had to take an honest look at.

I have always been an outside-the-box dog trainer.  I had to be.  Speedy had countless special needs, Maddie started out with no motivation, Dean had a whole different set of special needs, and Tessa started out terrified of everything.

I don't know where the expectation came from that Bandit should not require outside-the-box thinking, but suddenly it was there.  And Bandit and I were starting to crash and burn . . . and that is not acceptable to me!

Today Bandit and I went up to the training building - just the two of us alone - for a training session dedicated totally to making the experience 1) Successful and 2) Enjoyable for Bandit.

When we first got there, he was typically distracted.  His nose was on the floor.  I gave him a few minutes to sniff, and then went over and put a treat on his nose.  He ignored it.

Information Alert!  Bandit gets slightly overstimulated by the barrage of scents he encounters when we go into the training building!

I put down his mat and he went right to it and offered a splat down on it.  Then he could take the treats.

This was good!  Here was a tool that I could use to break him out of the overwhelming allure of the floor!

I released him and tossed a treat.  He ran to it, ate it, and got interested in the floor again.  I called him and had him go mat again.  After a few repetitions, he was able to go get the tossed treat and come right back to go mat.  This was huge progress.  By his own choice he was selecting the mat over the floor!

After we did this a few times, he was down on his mat and I sat and looked at him.  I knew that I needed to find a way to help him deal with the reality of a bazillion scents in his world.

I made a small box out of four ring gates, and we went in there and did the foundation game for Give Me a Break.  I released him to do whatever he chose ("Be a dog!") and let him sniff, as I stood still.  When he chose to raise his head up toward me, I clicked gave him a treat, and released him to "be a dog" again.  At first he was taking his sweet time sniffing, but before long, he was orienting to me faster, and after a few minutes he was able to choose to forgo the break and stay focused on me.

Score one for that!

When I went over to the side of the room to get more treats, he stayed with me - focused!

Then we worked on some movement.  We worked on some heeling around the outside of those four gates.  I noticed that after I gave him a treat, his head would immediately drop to the floor!  So, I held a second treat over his head and did two click/treats in a row to show him to keep his head up upon getting a treat.  By the end of the session, he was heeling around, focused, keeping his head up when I gave him a treat.

We made so much progress in just that one little training session!!  I kept telling Bandit that he was amazing, and he was just beaming with pleasure!

At the very end I took him out to the Agility field with a toy to work on something that had been a source of great difficulty for him, and frustration for me - the tire!  It was set with the tire resting on the ground - perfect!  I stood still and let him choose to go through the tire himself, and we tugged as reinforcement.  The second time he ran around the tire and came through backwards.  I reinforced the effort.  Then I stepped back and sent him to the opening with an arm gesture - perfect!!  He did two off of each side!

The thing that I loved most about that tiny little training session was that I could see in Bandit's eyes that he completely understood what I wanted and he was loving this game!

That's what I want to see when Bandit and I train Agility.

And that was when I realized the lesson that Bandit had been trying to teach me.

I must be true to myself.  I simply must.  This won't work any other way.  It doesn't matter what "should" be.  It doesn't matter what anyone else might choose to do.  Bandit and I are only going to be a success as a team if I am true to myself as a trainer.

What does this mean, exactly?

First, I absolutely must pay attention to my dog and listen when he is trying to show me that I am asking too much.  He is a normal dog, and everything in his brain functions correctly, but he is still young, inexperienced, and he experiences stress and being overwhelmed just like everyone does.  He will show me clearly that I need to break things down for him or take another approach.  I must listen to him!

Second, I need to take what I learned from Speedy, Dean, and Tessa and run with it with Bandit.  The fact that he's normal and sound does not render everything that I learned from my more special needs dogs useless with him!

I'm still me.  I'm still the trainer and handler I had to learn to be for each of them.  Bandit can benefit from all of that!  I need to be who I am.  And that means taking it slow, working on one criteria at a time, giving Bandit a chance to shift his brain into learning mode before asking him to work, and letting him know as we go along that he is awesome!

That smile that was noticed - it should be there every time I train him.  Not because I somehow make it be there, but because it is what Bandit inspires in me.

That's who we are.  That's who we need to be.