We drove to Belfast (over beautiful ice crusted rivers and tidal estuaries, around the Camden Hills, further north along the coast of Maine) to a canine freestyle seminar with Laurel Rabschutz. We could only go on Saturday because on Sunday we had to drive to Boston to visit my father in a hospital, so Saturday was a nice day to forget all our struggles and concentrate on a problem that isn't really a problem at all: how to teach our dogs to "dance."
Freestyle (behaviors and stunts choreographed to music, also known as Canine Dressage) is one of my favorite competitive dog sports, and competitive it is! Though earning a title in a dog sport is actually much more like earning a girl scout badge than earning a university degree, the opportunity to earn titles in a dog sport is fun. A title works as a reinforcement raising the bar in dog training. Freestyle (like agility) offers titles through WCFO (World Canine Freestyle Organization) and MDSA (Musical Dog Sport Association), and other organizations, but many freestylers simply train to perform for schools, community gatherings, nursing homes, camps, hospitals, theatrical productions, etc.
So I had Tigerlily (in standing heat and wearing a diaper) as well as Dandylion. For the first few hours, I rotated between the two dogs and they were super good, cute and fun and responsive (and cute earns points in freestyle!). Laurel led a fun interesting seminar that gave us a chance to go over a bunch of behaviors and work to music around furry "strangers" in a strange (and echo-filled) new room.
But around two-thirty or three in the afternoon my dogs started dragging. Tigerlily flopped like a mop on the floor at my feet, and then I was offered an opportunity to demo (we've been doing freestyle for over a year). So I woke Tigerlily up from her sleep and tossed a ball across the room. She dragged herself across the room to get it. I was like, oh come on. You love balls! Lively up yourself dude!! But Tigerlily just didn't feel very playful, because she was pretty much all played out! Dandylion, who'd been resting for a while in the car, was more energetic and successful. Then I tried to worked them together, and Dandylion kept asking Tigerlily "come on, let's play!" and Tigerlily kept stopping to try to pull off her diaper!
So it was fun, and funny (fortunately, even mistakes in freestyle can be entertaining!) but here's the lesson I learned again! They aren't robots. Just as I do on any dance floor, I've got to ASK them to dance! That old adage "leave em wanting more!" certainly applies to my dogs! I should have refused the opportunity to demo, because however much I wanted to do it, Tigerlily DIDN'T!! She was tuckered out!
When we go to a seminar, we want to squeeze every second out of it, we want to squeeze out every performance opportunity, but it's not reinforcing for the dogs to be pushed to perform when they are fatiqued, that might actually be punishing the behavior...Next time, I'm going to have to listen to my dog's opinion!
