Rottweilers. Computers. Cameras. World Domination. Not necessarily in that order.
I seem to be missing a whole month here. I don’t think I had much going on that would be exciting to anyone but me anyway. I never did post the missing stuff from April since sometimes, timeliness does matter.
Since I was last here, Axe got his TT, I switched from BlackBerry to Android, and other even less-exciting things happened.
But I’m writing this with WordPress for Android just to stay within my zone!
Yesterday we finally received Freya’s certificate from the ATTS temperament test we did back in May. She is now officially Sciroco’s Freya vom Viersen CGC TT!
The Letter of Certification emphasizes that a dog who passes this test is likely of sound temperament, but that the test is not a warranty of sound temperament. This seems sort of obvious, so I wonder if people have attempted to misrepresent the certification as being more than what it is. That would be sad, but not particularly surprising. Sort of like the people who try to claim that their therapy-certified dog (usually not a working therapy dog) are service dogs so they can get them into places that are normally off-limits to dogs, which is so wrong and makes it harder for those with a legitimate need to get their service animals admitted without question.
Finally, a word about the scoring. Responses for each subpart of the test are scored from 0-10, with the desired response being in the Average range of 4-6 where the dog shows either a positive response or a mildly negative response followed by quick recovery.
You can learn more about ATTS and the TT at the ATTS website:
http://www.atts.org/
(NaBloPoMo | July ’09: 19 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 176 of 274)
With 53 dogs entered in today’s ATTS temperament test held by the Northeastern Illinois Bouvier des Flandres Club, it was quite a long day. Eleven of the 12 dogs in our group (seven of the eight Rottweilers) passed. Unfortunately, it was my Axe who failed.
There are 10 subtests in the TT, and Axe passed nine of them easily. His downfall was the friendly stranger. Axe is not a particularly friendly dog. He’s very affectionate to his favorite people, but he just tolerates other people. He is also overly possessive of me, which is why I wasn’t handling him myself. He still wanted nothing to do with the friendly stranger and made it abundantly clear by growling at her, which failed him. Had he remained silent, he may have passed with a low score on that subtest.
I don’t like to anthropomorphize animal behavior, but since I don’t like strangers coming up to me in an overly friendly way either, and I have difficulty remaining silent under most circumstances, I think I understand what Axe was thinking.
Axe’s half-brother, half-sister and mother all passed, and Axe can try again at another test after five months have passed. Following the test, our group talked about the results and agreed that Axe would have probably fared better with the friendly stranger who did the subtest for the females. The friendly stranger who did the subtest for the males was more tentative with the Rottweilers, as compared to the other one. Hesitation or fear is something that Axe is obnoxiously quick to pick up and exploit, unfortunately even when it’s not in his best advantage. Like today.
Freya passed with good scores on all of the subtests. Freya is innately much friendlier than Axel, but there are a few people and dogs that she has taken a dislike to, for no apparent reason that I could see at the time. Fortunately, the neutral stranger and friendly stranger did not fall in this category. I knew she would be fine for the rest of the subtests, as there was nothing there that she had not been exposed to and dealt with. As soon as the certificate arrives in the mail, she will officially be Sciroco’s Freya vom Viersen CGC, TT. And yes, we’re still going to be working on that RN and beyond in rally obedience. Freya’s breeder Donna was there to see Aslan (who she co-owns) and Freya, and happily, both of them passed.
Very proud of all of the dogs in our little group! Eleven new TTs was a good day’s result. Thanks to Axel’s “grandpa” Gary for being a great handler as always.
(NaBloPoMo | May ‘09: 9 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 105 of 274)
Freya and Axel are entered in a temperament test to be given this coming Saturday by the American Temperament Test Society.
All of our dear departed Rottweilers passed this temperament test. This test evaluates a dog’s reaction as it walks with its handler through a course where they will encounter neutral, friendly and and threatening people, visual and auditory stimuli, and unusual surfaces under foot. The handler may not command the dog, or in fact talk to the dog at all, during the test as it is a test of the dog’s temperament, not its training.
You are not supposed to actually train for this test, but the dog should be socialized to the things it will encounter in the test. People, sounds and sights similar to those in the test scenarios are part of most everyone’s daily life. Hopefully, the gunshots and the weirdly-dressed stranger are not a big part of your daily life!
Many dogs fail the subtests for unusual footing: the dogs must walk over a 15-foot length of clear plastic sheeting, and the 12-foot length of an unfolded wire exercise pen. My dogs don’t have any problem with walking on plastic, as they do so every time they get into my vehicle.
Wire or metal footing is something they hadn’t had to deal with, though. Ever since hearing of a number of isolated but deadly incidents in several large cities, including Chicago, where dogs were electrocuted by stray voltage running through metal plates or grates in the sidewalk, there is no way I would have let my dogs walk on a sidewalk grate.
So they were understandably somewhat suspicious when I dragged out the exercise pen to make sure they were exposed to the wire footing at least a few times before test day. Neither one wanted to walk over it at first. It is amazing how quickly some food or a favorite toy can coax a reluctant dog to follow you across the unfamiliar surface. Once they go across a few times and realize that nothing bad happens, and in fact something good (again, that food or toy) might happen, it’s not a big deal any more.
I feel pretty good about their chances of passing. Let’s hope they do!
(NaBloPoMo | May ‘09: 4 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 100 of 274)
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I’d like to set some training goals and try to earn some titles with Freya. We just completed an eight-week intermediate/advanced obedience class yesterday, and we’ll begin another eight-week session right away. The obedience club that we used to train at, and that we are still members of, is having a Rally Obedience trial in nine weeks. This is the trial date we’ll be shooting for, and I’ll have to make the final decision as to whether we are ready or not over Memorial Day weekend.
I did participate in a few conventional Obedience trials with my dear departed Heidi. We failed miserably, except in the sense of providing comic relief for any spectators who happened to see us. Rally Obedience is similar to conventional Obedience in that the same or similar exercises are performed. In conventional Obedience, the handler can give commands with or without an accompanying hand signal to the dog only once, and cannot give verbal or other encouragement. In Rally Obedience, multiple commands, praise and other verbal encouragement, and extra hand signals or clapping are allowed as long as you do not physically guide or correct the dog. Heidi was Queen of the Double/Triple/Quadruple Command and we might have done okay if Rally Obedience had been around back then.
The Novice level of conventional Obedience has some exercises that are performed off-leash while the Novice level of Rally Obedience is done all on-leash. Freya has an unfortunate tendency to be the “fun police” if any other dogs in the immediate vicinity are getting loud or hyper or for some breeds, just breathing. We have made a good deal of progress on that particular training issue during the last class, but I will still feel much better about life in general if Freya is totally on-leash in her first competition situation.
That’s the background on our plans so far. We’ll also be doing an ATTS Temperament Test early next month. That is a certification, not a working title, so there’s not much preparation involved.
I’ll be keeping Freya’s training diary either here or at one of my other online places, and I hope you don’t mind following along with our story, hopefully to have a happy ending in June!