100 days of TEAM

[snowbunny]

Day 3

Well, I was hoping to do this every day, but I had a bit of a hiatus, as I've explained elsewhere, so I'm "unpausing" again at day three.

Back on it this morning, and I have been working on two things - a jumping hand target, which is to get the dog loaded into the back end. This starts off by doing it anywhere in front, but bringing the hand round to the side as they get more used to it. They all have very solid hand targets anyway, so it's an easy win for them, but again it's good to work on a bit more precious and thoughtfulness with Shadow, rather than him simply leaping around with abandon.

I'm also working on them targeting my leg with a chin rest. I'm not working towards the dog being "stuck" to me in heel work (luckily, the training stuff I'm doing is American, and they require space between the dog and handler, so you don't get that glued look), but it's good for them to learn to put their heads up. Since I'm proofing my chin rest anyway for husbandry, it also helps with that. The lift of the head is another thing that helps them drive off the back end, which hopefully gives that lovely spring to their step.
For now, we're quite early days, and they all still need the hand cue to put their chin into. Squidge will target my leg without touching my hand, but the hand still needs to be out. I think I might start again with a post-it note as that's easier to fade than a hand.

 

[HAH]

I might start again with a post-it note as that's easier to fade than a hand.

This is sounding really good as an all-round set of skills, I’m really enjoying reading about it. With the leg rest, will you introduce a cue eventually? Or will they know to chinrest on your leg through body language and context?
I’m also loving the jumping hand target; Kipper does this with some exuberance, I hadn’t thought of it as a distinct move but now I recognise it I’ll work on making it more specific.

 

[snowbunny]

With the leg rest, will you introduce a cue eventually? Or will they know to chinrest on your leg through body language and context?

In time, I plan for it to be a start button behaviour. I'll essentially "ask" if they want to do some obedience training by offering my leg. If they put their chin on it, we'll start.

As for the behaviour in its useful form, I will be transitioning it to them being by my side in the heel position, and then me stepping in every direction and having them try to keep it touching. It will help them learn to read my muscle contractions to understand what movement I'm going to make before I make it, and that leads to fluency between dog and handler rather than the handler moving and the dog trying to catch up all the time. So there will never be a verbal cue for the individual behaviour; it will be part of a long chain of behaviours, and the cues are all what I do with my body.

 

[snowbunny]

Day 4

I'm working on them finding a straight "front" (sat close in front of me, lined up nice and square). I have a platform I'm using for this, which is just big enough for them to sit on; they can't stand comfortably on it, and if they're squiffy, a leg hangs off the side. I click for the straight sit, feeding in place for a few pieces, then resetting with a thrown treat. If they're slightly squiffy, I won't click and feed in place, just reset.

I'm using a hand target, too, to get their heads up in this position, and to make them feel comfortable being in close to me.
I'm going to have to think of a new verbal for this, as I already use "front" for sitting in front of me but farther away, so I'll put some thought into that.

 

[Joy]

I'm finding it difficult to get front with my hands by my sides - I have rewarded so heavily for heel position that Molly goes there unless my hands are in front of me ( not stretched out just against my stomach)I suppose this shows it's only on a visual rather than verbal cue. Also if she does a front but isn't quite straight and I don't reward she immediately goes to heel thinking that's what I want.

 

[snowbunny]

Sounds like it's just a case of going back a few stages - reward heavily for "finding front" games, maybe using a pivot disk, then add in her approach towards you by using a platform or channel so she can't be squiffy and reinforce, reinforce, reinforce. Then add in the verbal once she has the behaviour.

 

[snowbunny]

Day 5

Yesterday, I revisited the independent pivot, and using my standard pivot disc rather than the taller beer boxes. This was very successful, with all three dogs pivoting in both directions now. Both Shadow and Willow are far stronger one way than the other, but Luna has extreme confidence in both directions, so I'm working on extending the time between marks. This is pretty easy with her, as she's very tenacious! After that, I need to start fading my zen hand, which I think will be a pretty easy process with her.

I did a little bit of platform work with my front, too, working towards them being comfortable with being in very close. I have some work to do here with Willow, who isn't keen on proximity. Funny, when I stood a little too close for her to get onto the platform, she just put her front feet on it and started pivoting her rear in both directions, so she definitely understands that game now! So I need some small steps to increase her tolerance to my proximity, which I will continue to work on with a chin rest on my body.

 

[snowbunny]

Eeep, I have been doing some training over the weekend, but I've not noted what I've done here.... or on my Trello board, doh!

So here are two days' worth I do remember and I'll pretend the others didn't happen, and tag them on the end, as a punishment for not logging properly.

Day 6

Working on retrieving different objects to hand. This will be used with the scent discrimination later on, as well as a hold and a formal retrieve. I could so all these with dummies, of course, but as generalising to other objects is something I never did with W&S, I thought I'd take this opportunity.

Luna - she's already good at this game and can retrieve pretty much anything, including a €1 coin! So we just revisited several different objects to keep the behaviour topped up. I need to add in duration on the hold - she's already quite good at this and waits for me to take the object from her, but I've not really paid into that as a distinct behaviour, so I need to address that. Once I have that, and have added in distractions to the hold, I want to start asking for behaviours with her still holding - but that's a little down the line

Shadow and Willow - one thing I wish I had was a delivery of a ball, so this is what I focussed on. Using a Chuckit with a cord to start with, as that's less exciting than the plain ball, and bounces less if they drop it.

Shadow will pick up most things, and has a rudimentary delivery, but I want him targeting and pushing into the hand more. I worked on this by offering him the ball and then showing the hand target for him to follow, clicking the follow and then working up to the push into my hand. He got the idea of this well. I've been thinking about "clean loops" a lot recently, so am focussing on splitting down to the smallest part of the chain I want to work on and focussing on that before I add in anything else. As it's the hand target I want with him, I shouldn't be adding in picking it up from the floor, or a run-out at this stage, as that means that the behaviour I'm working on (the delivery) could be muddied. I've definitely "lumped" behaviours too much in the past, and my dogs have let me get away with it to a large extent, but as I'm after precision - and improving my own training skills - in this process, I want to make sure I'm doing everything as technically well as I can. The next step is going to be stimulus control on the delivery so he holds the object until I put my hand out and ask for it.

Willow needs more help to get started with a new game. She doesn't make the cognitive leaps that Shadow does, so needs hand-holding to start off, until she builds a little more confidence. So with her, I just wanted her to interact with the ball. In this case, I did put it on the ground (different dogs need different approaches) because me having it in my hand can be too much pressure for her. So I shaped her looking at it, touching it with her nose, tentatively picking it up, until she had a very solid pick up. Once she understood the game, I was able to pick it up and have her grab it from my hand. The next thing I will do with Willow is work on extending the duration of the hold.

 

[snowbunny]

Day 7

Working on chin targeting my body. This is for both heel work and for a close front finish. It's less pressure for them to target the outside of my leg than the front of my body, so that was the focus point for this session.

I started using a piece of duct tape on my hand, getting a chin rest on that. Moving my hand against my leg and clicking the chin rest. Ensuring that I get the click in early, so I'm not reinforcing movement away from my leg. I then started to transfer the tape to my leg, so it was half on my hand, half on the leg, in such a position that it was more likely they would touch the tape on my leg.

This approach seemed to be working well for them all starting to target the leg instead of looking for a hand, and should be easy to fade.

 

[Stacia]

Re chin targeting your body, does this mean the dogs turn their heads towards the front of your leg and rest on the front of your thigh?

 

[snowbunny]

Re chin targeting your body, does this mean the dogs turn their heads towards the front of your leg and rest on the front of your thigh?

For the thigh, it will be the outside of my thigh (because it will transition into a heel position). Starting with them facing me, but raised, so it's the side-but-underneath of their chin, if that makes sense. For the front, it will be straight up the front of my body.

 

[Stacia]

How can you do a chin rest if you want the dog to be on the outside of your thigh, do you mean the dog chin rests on your hand and not as I though, on your leg?

 

[snowbunny]

So the dog is facing towards me, looking up, and puts his head against the outside of my left thigh. With W&S, they can lift their heads up high and so can get the underside of their chin (albeit the left hand side) against my leg, which I angle forwards a bit. Squidge can’t lift her head up the same, as her neck isn’t as long, so her version is more like testing the side of her head against my thigh.
I’ll try to get some video to show it off

 

[snowbunny]

Man, I've been so bad at documenting this. I've told myself I'm only going to count the days I write something here, so it's going to be a long 100 days at this rate!
So that makes today....

Day 8
I've been focussing on two things most: pivoting and a sustained leg touch. First off, pivoting. All the dogs are quite confident doing this in both directions now, although after a few days' break from it, they needed a refresher. I've started to fade the zen hand with Squidge now, as she's the strongest of them all. Interestingly, she finds the difference between a closed fist containing treats and the same closed fist empty really confusing. She started introducing a jumping behaviour with the empty hand. So I've started fading by having a single treat in that fist but feeding from the other hand and, after a couple of reps, emptying the zen hand. I don't think it'll take her long to figure it out and then I can start moving the hand away altogether.

With the leg touch, I haven't faded the hand completely yet, but all three dogs are targeting their heads to my leg, which is what I'm after. And I've now started to introduce a little bit of movement, me backing up, while they stay glued to my leg (still facing towards me, so they are moving forwards). I only started this today, but all of them are doing quite well with it, and got the idea that they should stay attached while I move. We're only at a couple of inches of movement at this stage.

 

[snowbunny]

Day 9
A good session inside yesterday with staying attached to my leg as I move. Again, we're taking it very slowly, but Squidge especially is doing very well. She is targeting my leg beautifully. My hand is still in play as a cue, but it's higher than her head, and her chin is against my leg (as the dribble marks show). Willow and Shadow are still needing to rest their chins on my fingers, and with Shadow I have the bum swinging around, but that will disappear with more movement.

 

[Stacia]

Would love to see a video of the above. I have yet to solve Rourke's bum swinging out!

 

[snowbunny]

I'll try to get some video later. This is still with the dog facing towards me, so might not be of huge interest to you until I start moving in the same direction

 

[snowbunny]

Day 10

No video, sorry; I'll do it tomorrow, promise (ish), but a good couple of sessions today. I'm also spending a bit of time paying in to stationing behaviour, as this seems to have fallen by the wayside a bit since Ginny's arrival, and it's not fair on the dog that is working to have another come and stick their nose in on the training session.
With Willow, I got to the point of having my hand behind my back while she targeted my leg (no movement), which was great. I think I'll alternate sessions between movement with the hand to help and stationary without the hand. The two seem to complement each other to give the dogs the picture of what we're working on.

 

[snowbunny]

Oh gosh, I've been doing all sorts of things but not logging them here, so I can't count them
So that makes today ...

Day 11

Being Sunday, we've done quite a bit already!

I did a bit more nose targeting of a scent pot like I did the other day:

All of the dogs are doing well at this. Shadow is the one who struggles the most, as he just has to use his feet! So I'm using a very high ROR and keeping in very close, and he seems to be getting it. Squidge has a habit of laying down when I do this, so I've been working on her standing and targeting the pot. Willow is the star of the show, and is having a bit of distance added, which is something that I struggled to add without the feet getting involved before I split it out like this so I could reinforce the nose more cleanly.

The independent pivot I've also taken back a couple of steps. They are all turning a lot more confidently now, but Shadow (ants in his pants) has habit of jumping up, and Willow of lifting one foot. So I've gone back to reinforcing two feet on the platform to start off with. It's really fascinating to see how, by going back to the start and cleaning up these little unwanted behaviours that pop in, how much easier it is for the dog to progress when you start adding the movement in again. It's like if you're painting a cabinet and you try to put the paint on too thick, you get a dribble. You can try and cover it up, but it's always there. If you sand it back down to the point where you get a flat surface, you can paint on the layers a lot more thinly, and keep the finished article nice and clean. I bet I'm not the first to come up with that analogy, but I'm going t take credit for it, because it just popped in to my head and it fits pretty well.

I also did some work this morning on the "tug" practice, having the dog learn that the point is to take the toy out of my hand. All three are doing really well. Willow is the one who struggles most with this, but I'm really pleased with her. She is holding the toy (a folded fabric frisbee) really solidly and is pulling against a tiny bit of resistance. Considering she wouldn't approach the frisbee at one time, having scared herself by standing on a stick as she chased it, this is brilliant.
Squidge is almost ready to have hers put on a verbal cue, as she's pulling nice and hard now. I just want to make it a touch harder and add some duration as part of this formal learning before I add that.
Shadow is between the two. He's able to pull it out of my hand with a fair amount of resistance against it, but he needs more confidence (ie more reps) before we move on.

 

[Stacia]

With the nose touch (and impressed how Squidge just lies there and doesn't interfere) what is the next part you are aiming for as I guess what you are now doing with the pot is just part of a sequence?