Week #41

And you thought we weren't working.

The Core Studies are going quite well. Clearly, we need to focus more on extracurricular activities.

As always, click to see larger.

Week #38

We are working our way through the core studies (sit, down, come,...) evaluation, with Zachary in blue and Henry in red. A green square means they both have passed the item. A yellow square means one or the other has.

I'm really liking this concise format - so much so, that I have added a new chart, this one for basic skills needed for Extracurricular Activities. Sadly, Henry knows few things on this chart, but I'll give them all a try and see what moves him. :)

While I was out today, I stumbled across something that would make a great halloween prop, but it will require a bit of work. We'll see if we are successful or not - but until I give up on it, you'll see it at the very end of the page.

Finally, for the moment, the weekly quiz has been replaced by a weekly warmup. This is mostly because the sort of basic skills I normally quiz on (sit, down, come,...) are what I'm evaluating, and "all work and no play makes the boys go away".

So, for at least the next few weeks, the warmups will be tricks they enjoy, get them moving, and "in the game".

(As always, click to see larger)

Week #37

At least I think it's #37 - I have admittedly been woefully quiet here. That said, here's the start of the Fall Quarter. After a rather long (vast understatement) absence, I decided to make an easy chart of what I expect from the boys at a Core Studies level, and march my way through it, updating their progress on future sheets.

This isn't any one specific training plan, although it borrows heavily from the steps I progressed through training Sue Ailsby's original Training Levels to Beau and Zachary. For the curious:

Attention = is the dog looking at me  (Focus or Watch)
Chill = Go to Mat
With Me = Heel
Zen Hand = don't eat what's in my hand
Zen Floor = don't eat what's on the floor

Some of this should be easy for the boys. Some may be new to Henry. We'll just see how it goes.

My own job for this week is to decide what non-core (family member, citizenship, and extracurricular studies) things I'm going to add for this quarter, and come up with a single sheet of wishful thinking that will take me through the end of November.

To that end, I'm going to take the curriculum jpegs I've uploaded here, and recreate them in manipulatable form (i.e.: word, power point, or excel.)

(Folks might recall that my hard disk crashed over the summer, taking all the originals with it.)

The concept of the Quiz hasn't changed any - I test each dog, once a day, on the skills listed there. These are things they should have no problems with.

Blue Star = Zachary, Red Star = Henry, indicating "passing" that item.

(As always, click to see larger)

Week #30

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Week 28

Yeah... been a while.  :)

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© 2011 BZ Dog Activities - All Rights Reserved

Canine Modeling 101

Summer School...

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© 2011 BZ Dog Activities - All Rights Reserved

Week 8

Seven weeks down, 45 to go.

Yeah, I know. It's been kind of quiet around here. I've been wrapped up the Daily Shoot, and kind of stalling on training, hoping Sue's new book will be out soon.

But I can't wait forever, so here's a rather photography/trick centric worksheet. I may not be making a lot of progress on Levels, but I'm having more fun training the boys than I've ever had before.  :)

(As always, click to see larger)

Week 5

Four weeks down, 48 to go.

Every so often, it seems I hit a bump in the road and progress comes to a grinding halt. Last time that happened, I spent several angst-filled weeks, wailing away on my other blog, going through an elaborate (and ultimately helpful, if tedious and drawn out) problem-solving process to try to figure out (and solve) the problem (ie: my training was boring, and needed some pizzaz.)

This time, I'm just going to cut to the chase: I'm ditching most of New Training Levels from the Weekly Worksheet (for now) as I can't seem to get questions answered in the Yahoo! group, and when I finally have to strike out on my own, I later find out I did it "wrong".

So - for now, until Sue releases her book (and I'm getting the feeling that will be sooner rather than later) I'm going to table New Training Levels in the formal, although I will obviously continue to work informally on the obvious things like sits and downs and stays and such. Once I can get my hands on a copy of the book, New Training Levels will be back on the menu.

Filling the rather substantial void it leaves, will be things related to The Daily Shoot - those things I think will make taking pictures a lot easier.

I will, of course, continue the Trick of the Week, as we are having a great time with that, and if I do something "wrong" we just pick a new trick!  :)

(As always, click to see larger)

Week 4

Three weeks down, 49 to go.

Accomplished this Week:

Good question. It doesn't seem like I accomplished much on my list, although I've been having a blast with The Daily Shoot and Trick training.

Training Levels is going nowhere, as I seem to have different ideas to what the terse descriptions mean vs. what Sue meant them to mean, and so I'm left in limbo-land awaiting her book.

I left the Training Levels items on the page, too lazy to rip them off this week, but don't be surprised to see a shake-up in the program next week. Not sure quite what - perhaps just the skills listed (jump over a bar) instead of the Training Levels tag attached to it.

That way, there is no "wrong way", and yet the basic skills will be covered so that I should be able to make good progress once the book comes out.

Perhaps.

Or I might just devote all our time to photography, tricks, and my own curriculum.

Anyway, here's the list. (As always, click to see larger.)

Week 3

2 Weeks down, 50 to go.

It was a week of discoveries and disappointments. I discovered The Daily Shoot, and have added my attempts to fulfill the assignment at the end of my last four posts (as of Monday 12:01 am) back on BZTraining.

In addition to being a fun challenge for me to figure out how to meet the assignment requirements with dog(s) as my subject, it is rewarding for the dogs (who love posing for the camera as that means cookies), and a boon for training.

No, really. I can't take a picture of them posing if I can't get them to pose, and that's training!

I also (crossing fingers) managed to squeak my trick in under the wire. My fingers are crossed as I haven't actually made the video yet - the job for Monday. However, last night (Saturday) he was being successful, so things look good. I'll go practice again (once I get off the computer) and I can work Monday on it is as well if need be.

Oh, what is it? You'll have to see Tuesday's post on BZTraining to find out!

The disappointment was that I was stupid and didn't print out my 5x5 Quiz, and therefore I didn't do it. I know, that sounds like a really lame excuse, but there it is. (If I was good at this training stuff I wouldn't have to blog about it to stay motivated!)

My other issue is with New Training Levels, which constitutes portion of what I train. I have several times misinterpreted the terse web descriptions (all we have to go on at the moment) and so I'm now basically idling, awaiting the book, as to do anything else seems of dubious value given that I'm having trouble getting my questions answered reliably on the Training Level's Yahoo! group, no doubt due to Sue working 14 hours a day trying to get the book out, so I'm certainly not complaining.

The upshot is that while I'm working on the obvious stuff, I'm not doing much videoing and not really crossing anything off unless I'm darn sure I've done it right.

Finally, the first Family Dog class for Henry was canceled due to a few specks of mist.

(sigh)

At least the forecast looks good for this week!

Enough talk - see this week's list below, followed by a more generic 5x5 sheet that will hopefully prove more useful, if less explanatory.

(As always, click to see larger.)

Week 2

1 Week down, 51 to go.

Accomplished Last Week:

I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that my less than stellar attitude about uploading here (of late) has more to do with hating to create this summary than anything else, so let's keep this brief:

Finished Henry - New Training Levels 2 Step 1 (Focus, Crate, and Go to Mat) and Step 2 (Target)
Finished Zachary - New Training Levels 1 Steps 1 and 2

Trick of the Week: Through My Legs

Planned for This Week (Click to see Larger)

5x5 Quiz of the Week:

Trick of the Week

As mentioned over in BZ Training, I'm trying to teach a Trick of the Week. For completeness, here's the form I will be keeping my records on.

(As always, click to see larger)

Week 1

Zero down, 52 to go.

Fine, I'll admit it. We did pretty much nothing this past week except eat, drink, and be merry.

But now it's time to get back to work, especially if I have any hope of accomplishing a goodly number of the Goals and Resolutions I posted about just a few days past.

(As always, click to see larger)

January Syllabus

The first month of the shiny New Year.

As I haven't a clue how long New Training Levels is supposed to take, I've thrown in quite a few Steps just to make sure I'm covered.

Too many? Too few? Haven't a clue. Keep in mind that Henry just turned 5 months old and training a teenager can be a... humbling... experience.

My goal for Zachary is to catch him up to where Henry is. This will be a problem only if I see his weight creeping back up again.

Finally, new for this year, I've added a box for what I should be doing (the "Mom" part.) There isn't anything there that I don't already try to do, but I thought it's good to spell it out (and I was trying to fill
that spot on the page.)

(As always, click to see larger)