Oh hey the long ass post that I thought Tumblr ate actually got saved to my drafts! This was written last Saturday after the practice CGN, this week's training has been going very well so far. Actual Canine Good Neighbour Test is this upcoming Saturday morning.
Description of the CGN exercises, how we did, and how I'm working to clean them up before the test.
TLDR, Rory did super good! She struggled to lock in at the beginning (fix: practice + more time to acclimate) and to be touched with the brush (fix: pratice + different brush). Loose leash walking is our biggest wildcard.
0. Preparation, Morning Of
I'm a big believer in meeting all needs before asking for hard behaviours and that behaving in public is hard behaviours. This morning we did half-breakfast with a short conditioning session then about 5km of rollerblade canicross followed by about 20 mins of free running in the bird dog park as a cooldown. The quantity of activity was perfect but I wouldn't do rollercanix before a test or trial again. I thought it would be a fun collaboration but I think she'll do better with a more independent hands-off activity before locking in for obedience.
(look at that smooth transition from canter to trot im obessed with her)
Exercises 1-3, Friendly Stranger, Pets, Grooming
The judge walks up, we shake hands, she asks to pet my dog, my dog should politely accept pets without being pushy or shy. Often combined with Exercise 3, accept grooming, judge touches my dog with a grooming utensil I provide.
Rory did oookaaaay, she did really good ignoring the judge until invited, she gave a half-hearted hop but didn't actually jump, and she politely accepted pets. The judge checked her ears, teeth, and paws which she wasn't a fan of but totally let happen. I'll ask for a stay next time, she was wigglier than I'd like. She shied away from being brushed, which I'm now realizing I've never had anyone practice brushing her before, but that's easy to fix in a week. I'm gonna switch brushes too, I brought the curry comb (rubber brush) but it doesn't have a handle and I think she'll do better with a little more distance.
Exercises 4-5 Loose Leash Walking, LLW Through a Crowd
We all knew this was gonna be a wildcard. It was a wildcard. She had trouble locking in and was not walking good to start and I seriously considered pulling my test reg, but she eventually understood and was excellent for the rest of the test. I think I can speed up the locking in process by arriving earlier and letting her look around for a bit, and also by practicing getting out of the car and immediately locking in. I'll do some parking lot training sessions this week. This is going to be the wildcard next week, I would not be shocked if this fails us (though I'm hoping we get the groove before then!)
Exercises 6-7 Sit/Down/Stay/Come
Absolutely perfect beast, flawless. Will do some intermittent practice this week but these are where I want them.
Exercise 8 Praise/Interaction
I hype up my dog for 30 seconds without a treat or toy, she should enthusiastically interact and calm down when asked.
Rory did good, I don't usually hype her up in public (fostering calm collected behaviour) so she was confused but she did give some play bows and calmed down immediately when asked. I'll practice this when I do my parking lot training but I'm fine with where it's at.
Exercises 9-10 Reaction to Dog, Reaction to Distractions
I walk my dog towards another person with a dog, we stop and shake hands, the dogs ignore each other. I walk my dog and she handles weird distractions.
I was nervous for the dog one but Rory did great! The dog I was walking towards was this leonberger who was taking her sweet time and just vibing so she really set us up for success. Our success on this one at the test is going to be heavily dependent on the vibe of the other dog. Rory's not hard to manage with cues but I'd really like her to choose to ignore. Distractions were skateboards, hula hoops, a giggle ball, and a stroller, and Rory did perfect except for a tiny 👀 to check if there was a lickable baby in the stroller. No notes, we'll practice general engagement this week.
Exercise 11 Supervised Isolation
I leave my dog with a stranger for 2 mins and go somewhere out of sight. The stranger can't touch or pet her and she has to be chill through my leave and upon my return.
Flawless, perfect animal. We'll keep practicing our stays but she's steady-steady. I don't even think she knew someone was holding the leash, she just laid there and looked at birds until I came back. I'll do intermittent practice but the test is outdoors on grass so I think she's gonna like it.
Exercise 12 Walk through a Door or Gate
I walk my dog up to a door or gate, ask her to sit, we both go through calmly.
Yeah this was a disaster, we didn't have a gate or door so it was just markers on the ground in a park and when I said "okay let's go" she fucken went 😂 this was our first exercise before we were locked in and was just a blip. I redid the exercise a couple times and she nailed it, she has pretty good door manners in general.
Feeling pretty good for next weekend! I've got some things to work on but I think we can give it an honest effort 🤞
The group putting on the Canine Good Neighbour Test next weekend did a practice CGN today! I wrote a long ass post and Tumblr ate it, I'm not writing it out again. She did great, we have a couple of wildcards, I have a plan to work on them this week, I have my fingers crossed that Rory will get to learn about new title = burger 👀
Also we did rollerblade canicross before the test, it was really fun and good to get the edge off but not the right pre-obedience activity for her. I think she'll do better with a more hands-off pre-test activity like a swamp run.
(check that smooth transition from canter to trot, I'm obessed with her)
This nursery marsh (as I've been thinking of it) was home to a ton of american coots, eared grebes, gadwalls, and ruddy ducks who were all raising their young of different ages. I was able to watch all the different life stages in one place, it was so so cool.
Bird species are in the Alt Text. See if you can guess the species or family before clicking 👀
This marsh was bursting full of life. Coots, grebes, and ducks were using it as a nursery to raise young birds of all ages. I could've easily spent the day here if I wasn't trying to get home. Many more photos to come.
That bottom picture was an attempt towards my longstanding photography goal ("show the vastness of the landscape"), chatting about it and another version of the same shot below the cut.
Last post I made describing my goal and plan, also links to photos I've taken that kinda have the vibe I want
I have two camera setups, a landscape/portrait setup with a Sony a7Rii and a wildlife/big zoom setup with a secondhand Canon Mark 7D. It is a luxury, both my setups have huge pros and cons, feel free to ask if you wanna know more.
First photo, main post, taken with the Sony + 70-200mm lens zoomed to 200mm, f 8.0. I think it achieved my goal decently! The Sony is really good for preserving shadows and I like the extra depth in the landscape using the shorter zoom. I think if I had backed up further ("cropped" less tightly to the dog while still preserving my 200mm zoom) I could've gotten closer to the wow factor I wanted. The 8.0 probably could've been dropped, I got a lot of grass and gravel in my field of focus, but I don't want to lose much more detail in my background. I'll play around to find the right number, I'm thinking a couple stops down might work.
Second photo, below, taken with the Canon (crop sensor) + 150-600mm, zoomed to 400ish mm, f 8.0. This one didn't give the vibe I wanted. Don't get me wrong, it's a fine photo. My lens compression worked great but it lost too much detail and the vastness.
Things I'm gonna try next
- Try using the big Canon zoom again at a much higher f stop, see if I can preserve more background detail and still get the heavy lens compression from the big zoom. It's not a very sharp lens to begin with so I've gotta play around. The big zoom + crop sensor is actually really limiting, I have to be way far away to get a good view of the background landscape. Probably going to abandon this setup for this goal.
- As always, keep my eyes peeled for good spots (elevated, big vast landscape, quiet enough that I can walk really far away from Rory), and carry my camera on more adventures.
I am really happy that it looks like I'll be able to achieve my goal with my sony and 70-200mm, which is my preferred setup to carry on hikes and the reason I have that camera. I've got a couple more trips planned this summer that might provide the right opportunity so I'll report back when I make more progress!
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