Kamal Fernandez's Obedience Seminar

Hi everyone! I am Mint!

Last weekend I attended a two-day seminar by one of the world's best dog trainers, Kamal Fernandez!!

Do you know Kamal? He is a professional dog trainer based in England. He had been to New Zealand a few times to do seminars before. But, Mum didn't attend them because she thought that we were not up to that level. However, this time she didn't only sign up for the seminar as soon as it was announced but also she even secured a working spot for me!

Do you want to know how we knew him? Well, we learned how to heel nicely through his online courses at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy (FDSA), and that's where we came to know him.

Of course, we had learned how to heel from several instructors before that, such as several instructors at our dog training club as well as a few other instructors who taught us privately. We also learned it through a couple of other courses at FDSA. But, nothing worked better than methods that Kamal taught us. So, Mum and I really looked forward to the seminar!!

In the seminar we learned a lot of foundation skills rather than specific skills for each obedience exercise including heelwork.

Before our first work session, Mum asked Kamal to ask others to make sure to close their food containers so that I wouldn't go to hunt for other dogs' treats. But, Kamal said that her request was unrealistic and instead he showed Mum how to teach me to ignore others' food. It seems I should expect Mum to do that exercise with me a lot :-P 

However, I think it was an unnecessary concern. As long as the training is fun, I won't go anywhere but near Mum! If fact, I had no trouble staying focused on her during the seminar. Mum just needs to remember to prepare larger pieces of treats so that I can find them more easily!! Look! Kamal was saying the same thing!

During the two days the most difficult exercise we did was "Simon says"!! We dogs had to sit wherever our handlers put their hands on. I had no problem when Mum put her hands on her head, shoulders, or hips. But, I sometimes made a mistake and lied down when she put her hands on her knees. When she put her hands on her toes, it was really confusing!!! 

Anyway it was so much fun overall!! Mum, thank you for attending the seminar with me!!

Yes, I can stay!!!! Even with Mum facing away!!

Hello everyone. Mint here.

On Sunday I went to the North Shore Dog Training Club Obedience Championship and competed in the Novice class for the first time! This time I entered the Novice class because I graduated from the Special Beginners class, the lowest obedience class in NZ, two and a half months ago.

One of the reasons I couldn't graduate from the Special Beginners for several years  until recently was that I couldn't stay sitting or lying in the competition environment where there were other strange dogs around me. I practised stays with Mum and Cinnamon countless times on our daily walks, but I couldn't resist my temptation to stand up and walk to Mum in real competitions.

However, I suddenly felt confident and succeeded in my stays in a competition in late May, where I won the class, and in another competition in early July, where I won the class again, and those two wins graduated me from the class.

It seems that Mum had considered the North Shore show on Sunday as a practice run, because in the Novice class I had to do stays with Mum facing away from me, and Mum didn't think that it was possible for me.

Anyhow this was my on and off lead heelwork, recall, and dumbbell retrieve.

Hee hee I missed a left turn because it was right after I had a yawn :-P  Don't say I shouldn't have yawned! You know you can't stop those natural physical reactions!

After this, we did the stays. Mum looked very worried, but in fact I was very lucky that I was at the far end of the ring from the corridor and I had no other dogs on one side, because I was the last dog in the running order of the class. And, I stayed!!

There was a long wait until the results were announced. And, before the prize giving started, Mum and I were called for a run off. At that time, we didn't know what place the run off was for. It might have been the fifth place, in which case I wouldn't get any placing if I lost.

At the prize giving it turned out that I had won the run off and got a 2nd place!

Mum says that it must have been beginners luck. But, whatever it was, I was very happy because Mum looked very happy!!

Never too old to learn new tricks

Hi! It's Cinnamon.

I just learned a new trick. Although I say "New", it is not actually brand new. This is an advanced version of a trick I learned a long time ago.

More than two years ago, I learned to jump on my mum's feet as I wrote about in my post here. But, at that time, because Mum was so worried about my physical conditions, especially my hip dysplasia, she didn't push me much, and she stopped practising the trick once I had learned to jump on her with my front feet on her shins and my back feet on her feet, as you can see in this video.

But, when we found a low post in a park recently, she asked me to jump on it, and I did it easily.

Also, thanks to physical and balance exercises that I have been doing for the last couple of years, I have had no issues with my hips recently.

So, Mum tried asking me to jump on her with all my feet on her feet. And voila!!

Now it has become one of my favourite tricks!!

I am nine years old and still learning new acrobatic tricks!!

Fenzi TEAM Titles

Hi! It's Cinnamon ;-)

Ooops! We didn't post anything for nearly a half year... Yes, Mum has been busy as you may have guessed, so she couldn't help us write posts for our blog.

Well, since my last post about Rally Freestyle Elements (Rally-FrEe), both of us have gained a Rally-FrEe Intermediate Title and a leg toward a Rally-FrEe Masters title. Also, in Musical Freestyle Mint gained his Musical Freestyle Novice title and I gained my Musical Freestyle Veteran Novice title.

Do you think I am talking about titles too much? I agree. To be honest I don't care about them. It's only humans who care about them. After all they don't bring us anything we can eat unlike local dog sports events where we can sometimes get food as prizes :-)

Having said that, I am going to talk about titles again as the title of this post indicates. The difference is that the titling program that I am going to talk about involves FOOD!!

Do you remember that Mint gained his Trick Dog Champion title last year? When he did that through video submissions, he was able to enjoy food rewards during his exercises. So was I when I did exercises for the title I am going to talk about ;-)

Fenzi TEAM Titles is a new program launched recently by Denise Fenzi, the CEO of Fenzi Dog Sports Academy that offers a wide variety of online courses. Mum is a big fan of Denise because she is always cheerful and supportive. Thanks to Fenzi courses, Mum has learned to make our training lots of fun for us as well as for herself, instead of putting us under pressure and stress.

In the Fenzi TEAM Titles program, as the name TEAM (Training Excellence Assessment Modules) indicates, the progress of your training is assessed and tracked, unlike real obedience competitions where only the accuracy of the finished product is judged and compared.

For example, the Level One assessment comprises the following exercises:

1. Engage the dog for 10 seconds without formal cues and show focus in heel position
2. Find “heel” position from 6 ft (2 m) away (three different angles) AND pivot 180° with foot target
3. Find “front” position from 6 ft (2 m) away (three different angles) with foot target/platform
4. Position changes from 5 ft (1.5 m) away with a foot target/platform
5. Go around an object AND back up
6. Send dog to vertical target placed 5 ft (1.5 m) away
7. High jump or bar jump (height or width must be minimum of ⅓ dog’s height)
8. Touch a retrieve object 
9. Identify correct article (out of 3) by scent
10. “Stay” under distraction with handler close by

Also, this program's stance on dog training is symbolised by the "Not Yet" designation that is given to unsuccessful attempts. In general the results of examinations are either "Pass" or "Fail". But, in this program you never fail. Receiving the "Not Yet" designation is like you are advised that you need to learn a little more to achieve the required level of excellence, and the judges always let you know why you were "Not Yet" and how you could improve.

And, the best part of this program is that in the basic levels you are encouraged to use food as external reinforcements and you can do it at home where there are no other dogs around! Yay!! That perfectly suits me!!

It was so much fun to try it out and here is my successful submission for the Level One, after a "not yet" attempt where Mum made a few mistakes.

It looks like fun, doesn't it? Would you like to try it? For more information about the program, visit the Fenzi TEAM Titles website.

Enjoying Rally-FrEe too!

Hi! It's Cinnamon.

After posting about Agility, we haven't been doing Agility much, because a physio who saw Mint recommended that he had a break from the sport.

Well, when Mint saw the physio, he was not lame or anything. But, Mum was very worried about strange movements of his muscles around his body. It is natural for us dogs to wiggle if the side of the body or the tummy is scratched, isn't it? But, in Mint's case, almost anywhere caused a large section of his body to twitch.

After a thorough examination the physio told Mum that Mint had several sore spots, which in fact explained why he didn't want to walk on his hind legs the day before. Also, he had been dropping rails when doing Agility, which was strange, considering that he can jump really high. So, now he has been having a break from Agility, and instead he has been getting Mum's massage and doing some stretching and muscle strengthening exercises every other day, if not every day.

However, we have still been doing Rally Freestyle Elements (Rally-FrEe).

Well, I just realised that we hadn't posted about Rally-FrEe much! OMG! The only post about Rally-FrEe in the past was two years ago! And it was about my failed attempt at demonstrating Rally-FrEe! At that time we had never done the sport, but a half year later Mint and I started competing in video events, as there aren't enough competitors to hold live events in New Zealand.

So far, we have competed in five Rally-FrEe video events and earned our Rally-FrEe Novice titles. In our last event that took place last month we entered the Intermediate class.

Last year there were times we didn't want to do Rally-FrEe at all, because Mum always got stressy when videoing our rounds. But, it seems she has changed her approach, and she looks more relaxed when she does it. If she feels relaxed, we feel relaxed too and can perform better. And in our last event we got qualified with very good scores.

For those who don't know what Rally-FrEe is, here are our video submissions for our last event.

This is my round, which qualified with a 2nd place on 189/200.

This is Mint's round, which qualified with a 1st place on 191/200 points.

When my round was videoed, no one else but the cameraman, our dad, was around. But, when Mint's was videoed, there were so many people around, because Agility class was brought inside as it was raining heavily outside. I was so impressed with how well Mint performed despite so many distractions!

Last Thursday our ribbons arrived!