Ein's Retrieve Training

Since the rally-o trial, Ein and I have been hard at work on his retrieve!  We have been practicing every night.  We left off the last time with some open mouth action on the bar of the dumbbell, but no teeth on.  Throughout this week we stalled out pretty badly and I was feeling at a bit of a loss as to how to get Ein to understand I wanted him to bite the bar.

I enjoy my three very different dogs, and a lot of that is because of how differently they think.  I learn so much!  Perri was so difficult and tentative and ...excruciating with retrieve training, but she was very precise with everything she offered, and so thoughtful and good at offering different behaviors when we are shaping if other behaviors aren't "paying".  Molly is like a bull in a china shop, but there was little to no shaping process for the bite.  Molly grabbed onto that dumbbell in our first session with no hesitation.  (A calm hold is her challenge.)   Ein on the other hand is again different!   Ein really excited, he is happy and he wants to do good and get his treat and make me just as happy as he is.  He is mouthing the bar, tonguing it, nibbling it or just "nomming" it and then panting at me with joy.  Is that what you wanted?  It's too much!  And no bites in there to even try to mark.  And he is happy to offer the same exact mouthing behaviors again and again, though they do not pay off!, and then pace around in frustration and nose touch my arm.  It is how he brainstorms!

I love his enthusiasm!  I tried to use his treasured nylabones to help him generalize what I want (teeth!).   He looks at me like, "No!  I don't want to enjoy my bone right now, I would like to earn treats.   You're so silly, but it's okay."

Furthermore, Ein has always been very afraid of the clicker.  The first time I ever clicked around Ein he hid behind the toilet for hours!  I have to use a verbal marker for Ein and this is much harder for me.  I am not consistent in the noise I make, and my timing is not nearly as precise as it is for the clicker.  Every now and then I try the clicker with Ein and his reaction is almost always the same: cringing and avoidance.   Last night I gave it another try with our softest clicker and to my delight, Ein did not react negatively to the clicker!  All those times watching me work with Perri and Molly must have finally desensitized him to that terrifying click.

So with the clicker I was able to be a little more precise.  If the bar would even clack on his teeth as he opened his mouth over it I marked that.  He quickly started nibbling the end and that has progressed to some nice bites with the back teeth.  It felt like a major victory!   We were stalled out at this point months ago when I was teaching him his retrieve just for fun, but now I am absolutely determined to get this trained.   And Ein just loves it!  

A little clip of us working together tonight.  I love to video my training sessions.  I see here that I am pushing the DB into Ein's space more than I would like.  I am still struggling with my click timing, but I am getting used to how fast Ein is.  He's not sure what to do so he just does a bunch of stuff.   It's hard for me to get used to his style and split out what I want, but he is offering more bites so I know we are getting there.  I also don't like how high I give him his treats, no reason for him to have to reach up that high for them.

I love this.  I feel like me and my boy are pointed towards another fun little journey together!

Tricks for Bored Pitbulls

Molly's agility class was cancelled tonight for a club meeting - not that she would have been able to attend anyway with the condition that her toenail is in.

This sucks.

Molly is starting to brim over with very irritating energy.  Her week typically consists of agility class, agility trials, sleeping, hiking and 1000mph fetch.  The past week has consisted of licking her foot, sleeping, licking her foot some more, sleeping some more, annoying Ein, licking her foot...you get the idea.  I never make enough time to play trick training so tonight I decided to just play around and work Molly's brain, since that is always a good way to whittle her Annoying Factor down a few notches.

We just played "You put this object into this container.", I have been wanting to get started on that with Molly for a while.  The video is Molly's second session of the evening.  We worked on it, then I did some house cleaning to give her a Thinking Break, and then we came back to it.  Molly loves anything involving the earning of food, her tail did not stop wagging!  She tried to pick the bowl up quite a bit...nope!  Try again, Molly!

"Leave It", and Shaping

Without going into the history of my life, I really just began using "shaping" to teach my dogs things within the last year.  Prior to that I felt overwhelmed by it and a mental block when it came to learning.  I used the famous excuse, "But I can't hold the leash and the clicker and the treats all at once!"  And the thought of learning all the famous trainers and reading their books, oh my!

My childhood dogs wore "choke chains" as every day collars.  Eight years ago, I trained Ein to do most everything by physically manipulating him (pushing his but down for sit, pulling his forelegs out for down, collar pops for heel.)  I did not know better, I grew up in the country and we just Did Things This Way.

But over the past few years I have been aware that there is a better way than the caveman way.  That didn't stop me from putting Perri through an obedience class last year at a club that trained the "old way". (a club that we ended up joining, and leaving.  A story for another time.)  I refused to do the leash pops or put the prong collar on.  If "Leave It" was brought up we were instructed to give the dog a correction when she sniffed at something.  I was not willing to do a correction, but I did do a physical pull away from the object of interest with the leash.

"Leave It" followed by pulling Perri from what she wanted to sniff.  Leave It by waving my own treat under her nose and luring her back to me, praising her and giving her the treat.  It didn't work.  At all.  And just last autumn, I am at a nursing home asking my poodle to "Leave It" as she lurches towards a pill that was dropped by an elderly patient.  If I had not physically pulled her away, she would have eaten the pill - "Leave It" had no meaning to her.  That is unsafe, and it had to change.  Enter Leslie McDevvitt's book, Control Unleashed. (A book that I had read but was still turning over in my head.)

Throw the food on the ground, cover it with your foot and when the dog looks back at you...CLICK!  (And they will look back.  When your foot is over that food, they will eventually do something resembling shifting their attention back on this puzzling human who will not allow them to have that morsel on the ground.  And that is the clickable moment that can be built upon.)  In fact, that is what I love the most about shaping.  Figuring out that microsecond where the dog does some behavior resembling what I am looking for.  From there is all blossoms.  Once one of my dogs figures out the right track it is amazing for me to watch and click and laugh with them as they continue to offer behaviors and try to get that click.

Worked like a charm.  After struggling for months with the caveman methods, Perri learned the foundations of a good Leave It in a few days with this method.  I do this wherever I go.  Agility shows, Petsmart, walks through town, our wonderful new dog training club.  I throw food on the ground, put my foot over it and when Perri shows the tiniest bit of head movement back towards me, she gets a click and treat.  It did not take long to build this up to Perri glancing at the food and then back at me for her reward.  Amazing.  She has learned that, upon seeing something she wants on the ground, if she looks at me she will get something - guaranteed.

So yesterday during the CGCA test when Perri glanced at that pile of food on the floor, paused and then reoriented back onto me and wagged her tail...for us it was like getting a Utility Dog obedience title.  I struggled with Leave It because I was being an idiot.  I was still shrugging off my old ways, I was still clinging to something that used to be safe and produce decent results.  "Leave It" is the most glaring example that for me, shaping is the best way to go.  I am scatter brained and shaping allows me to communicate so clearly to my dog, without hurting her in anyway.  And if we confuse each other, it's okay.  And I love that.

I have fallen hard into love with clicker training and shaping and there is no going back now.  I feel foolish that I am in my infancy learning these methods.  I am just now reading Bones Would Rain from the Sky by Suzanne Clothier and I am absolutely gutted by that book.  I am choking back tears and I am jolted and I feel like right now, this moment in my life where I am at with my wonderful dogs, is the perfect time to be reading this book.  Yet I still wish I had read it before.  I have known about that book for a long time, yet only now am I reading it.  I don't know why it has taken me this long to come to my senses, but I am glad that I have.  And once again I am flooded with gratefulness for all of the resources available to me for training my dogs.  I am grateful for my sweet, forgiving and silly dogs - they are my teachers above any book or class, and I couldn't do any of this without them.

Unrelated Sniffing Photo!

Confidence Growing...

I think that I have recovered from my obedience funk.  I'm still not sure what the right thing is to do regarding Perri's Open class.  We will see how things go in the next few weeks and then either continue or talk to the instructor about what is right for Perri.

We have a Rally show this Sunday for Perri and I am really looking forwards to it!  She needs one more leg for her Rally Novice title and if she gets that she can move up and we will see how she does in Rally Advanced.  I have never desired to get a RAE title with Ein, but that is a goal that I think would be good for Perri.  AKC Rally is easier in rules and sign requirements than WC Rally in my opinion, but the show environment is far more distracting and stress inducing.  And that is where we fall apart in Obedience. Working towards her RA and RE and, later on, her RAE will give us endless opportunities to work in environments that are hard for Perri to work in, all the while doing shorter heeling lengths and fun behaviors in between - and I can verbally support her with all the praise that I like.  Something to think about...

I have continued Perri's object pick up shaping with much success.  Last night after nearly two weeks I wanted to work with the dumbbell again.  But first we did a little warm up with her braided tug toy that I got for Christmas.  I laid it out the same as I would the dumbbell and rewarded her the same.  Great!  She was wiling to work and work with the dumbbell, but I put it away before she wanted to stop.

We did some other things, like jumping through the hula hoop (this is a great warm up or training break up for Perri if she gets overwhelmed!) and I revisited where we left off with Silvia Trkman's method for teaching heeling.  Well, where we really are is that when I rotate to the left, Perri is to keep moving with me and stay in heel position.  We started this in...May?  June?  Back then, Perri could only do this for literal minutes at a time or less.  It stressed her out and shut her down so much.  When we started on the perch she would enjoy it for a small amount of time and then go away to sniff.  I was frustrated.  We made slow progress off of the perch and onto a piece of paper and then weaned away the paper.  I say "revisit" but I have never really stopped.  It's just that I have continued our "minutes at a time" training sessions on that, since that was all that Perri could handle for months on end.  We do our "spins" and she gets clicks and we keep it happy and short.

But last night I wanted to starting working towards a pivot and some backwards heeling with her.  We need to start doing more than spinning in a circle!  If Perri sits when we are pivoting, that has been it.  If I try to raise criteria and wait for her to think to move back into heel position, she shuts down.   So where am I going with this?  Last night we just worked and worked on it.  And she didn't give up!  She didn't run off and sniff too much but when she did we played with the dumbbell or the hoop and then we moved right back to our work.  Perri always moves her head into her turn when she moves with me so I thought that if she did that in the slightest while sitting I would click it.  That was the key!  After I clicked the first head turn she did it more and more and I have a dog now who is beginning to understand that moving out of a sit and back to my leg will get her treats!   It wasn't even this little break through that was the most exciting.  It was that this was an obvious moment for me where I could clearly see: Perri's confidence is growing.  Yes we were at home.  Yes we were in the little office.  But even a few months ago, Perri absolutely could not do any of this in even the "safest" area of the house without shutting down after a minute or two.

I took a little video towards the end of our training.  It's not perfect and I missed some click opportunities due to being in that "I am working on this thing and only this thing" mentality - I know better than that!  When she swings back to my leg and is too far forward and self corrected, I wish so much that I had clicked that.  What a good girl!  She forgives me.  Always!  I am still a so new to clicker training and I have so much room for improvement.   I am also not yet pivoting, obviously.  More exaggerated movements while she gets the idea of what type of movement I am looking for.

Monday Progress Note?

Autumn is my favorite, favorite time of year.   Molly and I had over an hour of time to kill before agility class tonight, so we went for a walk on the newish trail near the training center. (and, found a geocache!)

Her behavior was absolutely terrible.  Leash pulling and reactive, my favorite!  I have Molly to the point where she will focus on me if I ask her to, or will stop leash pulling when I stop walking, but her manners leave much to be desired.   Ah well.  She's a work in progress.

We still had a very nice walk together!

Big Leaf.

Agility class was fun.  I think that I am starting to relax a little bit and trust Molly (in classes at least.)  We did some long lead outs and she held her start line stay really well.   She handled some tricky-ish jump sequences really well.  She did not blow contacts.   I totally forgot to do a cross when I was supposed to and messed us up.  She forgave me.

And really cool moment, Molly did a 12-weave sequence fast and without popping out.  CUE THE PROUD.  I paced with her and kept an eye on her out of the corner in my eye.  Tried to stay a little ahead of her but not race away and she stuck in.   That didn't work the second time but oh well.   Once again, we are learning to dance with one another.  Molly has a hard pace to learn.

We had a good time!  And we are back to trialing this weekend and I am very excited about that!

At home Perri and I worked on her weave poles and retrieve shaping.   I let Ein hang out with us while we did so and it seemed to bolster her confidence.   Perri did very nice weave poles tonight, but she still seems to think the dumbbell might electrocute her if she bites it.   We will get there.  My good friend told me that animals learn at their own pace and are oblivious to my goals.  True.  Perri can only work at her own speed and I may as well learn to have fun along the way.  Confidence building is our friend.

We also played around with some single jump exercises since Perri was a bit nervous about jumps again in last week's class and she did well with that also.  Poodle was in a good mood tonight, and so was I!

And Ein got rewarded for being a buddy to Perri, I have started playing 101 Things to do with a Box with him because he just loves to work.   He thinks its great!   I'm having a tough time finding a large enough box that he can step into with those stubby legs but we are just playing around and having fun.  Oh how his tail nubby wags!  I love this guy.  I am as ever amazed at how his confidence has grown during the last year.