100 days of TEAM

[snowbunny]

Day 15

I've started trying to get Squidge to pick up her feet a bit more in the backwards walking by using a dowel behind her when stepping. It does sort of work, but it's a bit of a faff, because it keeps moving. It would be better if I could fix it somehow. Something to think on. It was a pretty crappy session. I must have been doing something wrong, because all three Labs struggled a bit, so I kept it short. I need to et my video out again so I can try to diagnose issues.

I've done some work on a moving target, too. This is for heelwork, so again not really TEAM. I want them to be able to move at a trot, with their heads up, and that takes some practice. Squidge has a wonderful natural trot, but the other two tend to pace naturally. A pace is when both legs on the same side move at the same time. That is both left legs move forwards together, and both right legs move forwards together. In a trot, the diagonal legs move forwards together. Aesthetically, the trot is a lot less bouncy and looks more graceful, with a more level topline.

I'm using a telescopic target stick so I can do this away from heel position to start off with - firstly because I want to shape the behaviour without muddying my final position, but also because it's far easier for me to see what's going on. Shadow is finding it hard not to jump up to the target, so I'm doing a lot of just nose touching with four feet on the floor, and moving the target just a few inches from side to side. Squidge's build means she can't lift her head anywhere near as high as the others, and she tends to default to backing up so she can look more forwards, so I need to keep that in mind. Eventually, I expect the head will come up more from loading the back end more.
Willow is a total superstar at this game. Still early days, but she is moving a few steps at a time, with her nose up and glued to the target.
Interestingly, I also tried this with a two-finger target. It's not as easy to see what gait the dog is in (but we're still at the walking stage, so I've not started selecting for the trot yet), but they found it a lot more natural, so I'll alternate between the two methods and try to get them both as strong as each other.

I have a long weekend off work for Easter, so hoping to get some good practice sessions in.

 

[snowbunny]

Day 16
(OK, I'm cheating, but I had another quite big session this evening, so I'm taking back one of the days where I did something but didn't actually record it )

I had a session on scent articles. Starting off by re-visiting a good strong nose target on the pot, and adding movement. I generalised by having them come towards it from different angles, and by changing my body position. It was interesting that having my hand in the air didn't make any discernible difference, but having it on the wall did - they kept drifting towards the hand when it was leaning on the wall. How peculiar.

Today I introduced a second, clean, pot. It's identical to the first, except it doesn't have any food in it, and I've not scented it with my hands. I set the session up so they were guaranteed to touch the correct pot to start off with, then moved which direction I was giving the reinforcement so that they were approaching from different directions, progressively towards making it so they had to go past the decoy in order to touch the correct pot. The correct pot stayed in the same place during this. In the next session (after a recap), I started to move both pots' positions, in view to start with, and then while they were facing away, eating the previous treat.

They all did really well. I'm not 100% that they're using scent at the moment, but that's OK, it will come as I include more generalisation.

 

[snowbunny]

Day 17

We did some more leg targeting while walking backwards this morning. I'm at the stage where they are all targeting my leg nicely, but I'm struggling to walk backwards with that leg without them coming off. I conceded defeat and tried out a lure for a couple of paces. My hand is flat against my leg, above the level of their heads, which is my cue to offer this behaviour at this stage. All I did was put a piece of food in that hand. Even though they're not touching the hand, it helped to anchor them to my leg so I could get my clicks in and cement the behaviour. It'll be really easy then to remove the food and I don't have any worries about the hand needing to be faded (and me unintentionally gesticulating with it in some funky way), as the hand against my stomach will eventually be the cue for walking at heel.
I would get some video, but I've unfortunately misplaced my GoPro cable!

 

[snowbunny]

Day 18
Good session of training today. I worked on sustaining the nose target against my leg while I move. I'm increasing distance now. Both Willow and Squidge are pretty glued to my leg; Shadow is still working it out a little bit, but that's not unusual for my little "doer".

Similarly with following the target stick. Willow is following it beautifully for several paces at a time. Squidge is doing a couple of paces - the movement has really helped her not to try jumping for it; we've done a LOT of jumping targets to work on her back end strength. Shadow, again, just tends to throw himself about as a bundle of energy, so lots of clicking for four feet on the floor (and loads of mis-timed clicks when I catch him just as he's starting to jump ) and slight movements towards the target. I did try to include some movement and he gets it after a couple of paces, but I really don't want to be cementing a pattern of "couple of paces jumping, couple of paces not", so I need to spend a bit more time on his foundation.

Finally, we did some backing up, which went far better today than in yesterday's session. I realised my timing wasn't great; I was bending down to place the treat at the same time I was clicking, which was making it very unclear to the dog. So I've started introducing a breath between the click and moving to give the treat, and that almost immediately seemed to clear up the confusion. I so wish I'd spent time on these mechanics when I was starting out! I have some games to play for my own movement patterns, which I'll try to fit in this weekend to get myself sharpened up.

 

[snowbunny]

Day 19

Oooh, we've had a full-on day today!

Things we have worked on:
Backing up.
Finding front.
Finding heel.
Leg targeting.
Following a moving target.

Here are a couple of videos of the target following. I don't have one for Squidge because the place I used for her was, quite frankly, crap; she was struggling in longish scrubby grass, and it was just pants for her. So I moved to a better place for W&S, and they both did well.

Here's Shadow:

So I had to do a fair bit of clicking for keeping his feet on the floor to start with, as he's SO excited by the target stick and MUST JUMP UP AND HIT IT! You'll see he's like Tigger, so full of bounce. With the others, I'd probably work more on stillness before moving on, but that is really hard and frustrating for him, so you'll see that I start him moving WAY before he's perfected the feet on the floor! But, it seems to work pretty well as a tactic. I've massively edited the video into a couple of clips, but I found that if I was really quick every time we started moving again and got the click in as I was bringing the target stick down, it minimised the jumping up.
At this point with him, the sole focus is on him following the target for a few steps, not looking away. If he looks away, I should stop moving my feet - I'm a bit crap at this . In the next few session, I hope to get this really cemented, so he is able to follow it for longer and longer without looking away (or jumping up). At that point, I will start to ask him to raise his head a little more; it's too low at this stage. BUT, he is trotting! Trotting!! If you go to 1:52 and slow it down (click on the cog and change the speed to 0.5) then you'll see how his diagonal legs are moving together. Yay! So I need to keep this up and, once the rest of the picture is together, make sure I am selecting for that.

Willow's picture is slightly different (apologies for the dark video, I meant to lighten it before uploading, but forgot, and it takes forever to upload here, so I'm not doing it again )

So, the first difference here is in her head carriage -much more what I'm after. It's one of the things that this exercise is for; it's a skill that they have to learn, to move whilst looking up. I think many people teaching a more formal heel just assume that the dog can doo it, but as I was in this session, I was thinking how weird it would feel to me to walk with my head in the air, and I could empathise about them needing to learn it separately.
The second difference is that she is mainly pacing rather than trotting. She does trot a bit (at 0:40, for example), but her default gait is the pace - see 1:01 on slow to clearly see how her legs are moving differently; both left legs together, then both right legs together. It's not a major worry at this stage, and once she is more confident in the task of following the target, I will be able to up the speed a little bit, which should help her break into a trot. I can then selectively click for that, before bringing the speed back down again so she still trots at the slower speed.

Not to leave out the Squidgebit, here she is playing with the leg target:

This was in a new place for her, so we took it easy and it's certainly not faultless on either side, but you can see that she is getting the general idea; to stay attached to my leg as I walk backwards. It's a little funky as to how both of us are moving, but the fluidity will come. Apologies for her muddy bum - she had found a lovely puddle to wallow in. It appears we are having a typical UK bank holiday here in Spain, while you lot have stolen our good weather

 

[Stacia]

Interesting to see you each dog is different, thank you, I enjoyed watching it.

With Squidge at the end, is the point that you have her head on your leg and you will eventually orientate her so that she is walking at heel with head on your leg?

 

[snowbunny]

In time, yes (sort of). For now, these are all individual components of what makes up "heel", so we're working on them separately so as not to muddy criteria

The finished product won't have her actually touching my leg, but she needs to be aware of how to move with my leg, and that's the purpose of having her sticking to it at the moment. As we work through this, she will be learn to read my slight muscle movements that pre-empt any bigger movement I make (sideways, forwards, backwards etc), which means she will be able to seamlessly move as I do

 

[Stacia]

I am fascinated by the muscle movement, dogs are very aware. I will watch her progress with interest.

 

[snowbunny]

Day 20

I did some more leg targeting this evening; very sweet, really, Squidge came up to me when I was working and stuck her chin on my leg and pressed down, so we had a session and she was brilliant. I'm getting amore natural step back now, and she's sticking really well. The lure is no longer there, it just helped to click her understanding. The other two are also making strides, Willow especially. Shadow is still a bit "hot", as always

I also had a session with scent discrimination; we're up to three pots now. I alternated between just the target pot and asking for a very solid nose push, and having multiple pots with reduced criteria on the target. I want to get some utility dumbbells, but I'm struggling to find them in Europe. I'll probably ask J to make some for me; it'll be a lot cheaper, anyhow!

 

[snowbunny]

Day 21

Oh, I've been quiet on here, but still working away! I've been slightly distracted from TEAM by the new Rally Online course that I have to have videoed by Friday if I want to get it entered. There are a few moves in there that we've not done before, so I've had to hack the training of them in to get them done in time. It's not very pretty, but hey ho, we can revisit it later on and rebuild it from the ground up!

The main things I've been working on are:
With Willow, going from a heel to a sit and a down at my side. She has never had the strongest down, and tends to hover; obviously something I built in with bad timing at the beginning. Because I almost never ask for a down, I've never bothered to fix it - until now. Well, I have it so that she will lay down flat most of the time, but she consistently won't on the first attempt. So we have a day and a bit to sort that out

Another thing we've been working on is the "finish right", where the dog moves from a front position, around your right side and finishes up in heel on the left. Again, this is something I've never taught, so I quickly lured it and used placeboards to sharpen it up. It's nowhere near polished, but it'll hopefully do for the competition.

The bonus move on this course is a "call front, sidestep", where you call the dog into front position, then take a full step either left or right, and the dog follows you and sits front again. Again, something I've never done with my lot, so we've practiced a bit with placeboards. Hmmm.

I'm not expecting great scores from my entries this time round, and I certainly don't have enough time to enter level 2 as well.

 

[snowbunny]

Man, I'm so bad at updating this thread. So that makes us only on

Day 22

We have been working a lot, and have pretty solid chin rests while I walk backwards now. All three dogs have got it, but Squidge is a superstar at it. They have all also clicked with the independent pivot; I reviewed some of the homework threads for the FDSA course and got some pointers. My big thing with Shadow was where he would get to about 2 o'clock and then "windscreen wiper" back the wrong way before starting again the correct way. This was fixed by just clicking him in place (as soon as he'd taken the last treat), and delivering the next treat so that as he moved his head back, it would shift his weight in the correct direction. Literally a couple of repeated clicks in place, and he started to move in the correct direction again. So I have that to work on a little bit more before I can say they will be fluent in both directions.

We've started taking tug on the road, and generalising it to more places. I have been able to use tug as a reinforcer for Shadow a couple of times, which is brilliant. I'm adding stimulus control to it now, where I present the toy and then either give my "tug" cue, or something different (sit, floor, spin etc).
Squidge is great at tugging, but isn't massively enthusiastic yet, so I need to keep working on the fluency. Only a couple of reps for her, and I need to mix up the article a bit more. She likes to tug with furry things better than she does the frisbee.
Willow is doing really well and enjoying the game, but it's slow progress to add any significant resistance to the toy. But, still, she's playing when out in the woods as well as she does at home, so generalisation is going OK.

A new thing we've added is lateral movement - walking sideways. I'm using two mats, side by side, and working on them targeting one then the other, with the dog walking sideways between them, rather than front followed by back. We only started yesterday, but all three dogs are showing skills of moving their feet together to truly side-step, rather than just shuffling. They all find it easier in one direction than the other, just as they do with pivoting - not surprising, as it's a very similar skill, with focus on rear end awareness.
As well as rear end awareness being important for long-term physical health, this is an important piece of heelwork, where the dog is supposed to stick to your leg whichever direction you move in. If the dog doesn't know how to move sideways, they won't be able to move fluidly with you if you take a step away from them.

 

[snowbunny]

Day 23

More pivoting skills, and we had a lovely session. Today was about taking our independent pivot on a disc and transforming it into a pivot (still on a disc) into heel position. So we started off pivoting both ways, and then I started to move my foot in closer to the pivot. First off, with my toe pointing square-on to the disc so that the dog bumped me with their hip (click and toss for reset) and, once they had the hang of that, moving so my ankle was alongside the disc, so they pivoted and bumped me with their shoulder (click and toss for reset). I'm doing this in both directions because, although I only "need" the pivot into my left side, I don't want to cause physical imbalances in them.

They all did really well and got the hang of it almost immediately. Very pleased with progress - I just wish I had a working video camera so I could share their progress

 

[snowbunny]

Day 24

Today I have done some work on my mechanics. It's so easy when you have the dog in a heel position to twist your shoulders to look at them, and that will knock them straight out of position (anyone who has done any agility will know how important the shoulders are for directing the dog). So I've been doing some exercises to train myself to feed the dog with good mechanics without twisting my shoulders. Also starting to train myself to stop with my feet together when I want the dog to sit, and with my feet apart when I want them to stay in a stand. I haven't started training the dogs these things yet, because I need to get what I'm doing sorted first. The dogs think it's great, because they're getting fed for not doing anything

 

[snowbunny]

Day 25

As ever, I've been working most days, but not recording it here!

Walking backwards with leg contact is good for all the dogs now. I still have to fade my hand a bit with Willow especially, so I'm going to work on doing that while I'm sitting to start off with and transfer it to a standing position.

They have all cracked the independent pivots - Hannah Branigan discussed this more in an FDSA podcast I caught the other day, explaining that if we can get the dog used to pivoting right around in a circle without us giving any cues, it means (among other things) that we don't end up in that situation where the dog stops short and we pat our leg or re-cue verbally, or turn our shoulders, or one of the multitude of other things that us monkeys would do to get the behaviour. In the competition ring, you are only allowed to give a single cue, so we need to ensure that the dog can come right into position on the first cue. If we get into a habit of adding another one, that becomes a part of the behaviour and so becomes very difficult to get rid of.
So, we have independent pivoting in both directions on the platform, where they are able to do full 360 degrees, past my leg. From here, I have (with a couple of other steps between) brought my leg into the heel position against the perch, so the dog pivots until their shoulder hits my leg, which earns them the click and a treat, which I am delivering off the platform in order to set up for the next rep. At the moment, this treat delivery is being done between the 9 o'clock and 12 o'clock positions, but I will add in all loci on the "clock" in time so that they can find that heel position from anywhere.
In separate sessions (so as not to change multiple criteria), I am also fading out the "zen hand" above their heads. That is obviously a very big part of the picture at this point, so needs fading. That's being done "cold turkey" so I don't bring in anything funky, and I am putting my hand in all sorts of other places (on either shoulder, behind my back etc) and clicking for the beginning stages of the pivot again - so feet up, tiny steps etc. I think they'll get this pretty quickly - the more practice they get in having cues faded, the easier it becomes for them.

I've also been working on the kick-back stand and fold-back down. We're quite early days on both of these, but they have a high success rate in the sessions. A kick-back stand is where a dog pops up from a sit into a stand position without moving the front feet. I'm doing this with a front foot perch and starting to include a rear foot target, in order to get them standing strong.
The fold-back down is where the dog goes from standing to laying down without moving any of their feet, maintaining a flat back. Willow can do this like a pro on her mat, but doesn't like to do it on a hard floor. Shadow is tending to bow first, then bring his back end down afterwards, so I need to have a think on that. I think it's just going to be a matter of clicking for the rear end moving. It's better than the other way round, where they go into a sit before the down, because that's where you get a lot of movement of the feet, which is the one thing I really don't want.

What else? They're all moving nicely following my fingers as a target, although I've not done any with the target stick recently, so will have to get that out again. And a bit of work on hand targeting/chin rest to my front, running up to me in that position, to start working on our "fronts". I see that Hannah Branigan has a self study course on fronts and finishes for $50 so I might find that slipping into my shopping cart at some point!

 

[Stacia]

Wow! Sounds as if you and the dogs are working well together. I wish I could do something with Rourke but impossible with the tendonitis. I admire you working 3 dogs, it must take some time out of your day, but so enjoyable and rewarding.

 

[snowbunny]

it must take some time out of your day, but so enjoyable and rewarding.

I tend to fit it in around other stuff and do very short sessions, with the odd longer one. It does take a lot more time than with just one, though!

I forgot to mention that yesterday I put some time into working on Willow's settle while the others are working. Because she's loving the training so much more now, she can get off her mat and start interfering, which isn't fair on the working dog. So I did a lot of "go to mat" behaviours and reinforcing her tipping her hip to the side, rather than having her in the sphinx position, which is far more "ready to go". She did well, and by making it a training session in and of itself, she seemed to enjoy it. The tail didn't stop wagging, anyway! As we progressed, I started adding in very short working sessions for the others, so ten treats and then switching dogs, with lots of reinforcement for the dogs who have not been called forwards to stay in their settle.
I need to pay in a lot more on this, to get the mat as the best place to be, but I am confident I'll get it back; she's always had good honouring skills until recently, so it's just a case of revisiting it. It's just one of those things that when I'm eager to train other things, it's hard to prioritise, but in actual fact, by restricting myself to ten treats for each mini session with each dog while I'm adding the duration, it's making those sessions count more, and the settle be more valuable, too, as they're not having to hold it for too long before they get reinforced by having their go. So it's win-win.

 

[Selina27]

ten treats and then switching dogs, with lots of reinforcement for the dogs who have not been called forwards to stay in their settle.

How do you manage to train one dog and reinforce the others for waiting at the same time?

she's always had good honouring skills

What does this mean?

 

[snowbunny]

How do you manage to train one dog and reinforce the others for waiting at the same time?

I've done a fair amount of this over the years. To start off with, when W&S were tiny, I used a crate to keep one away while I was working with the other, then went to having the crate door open, and then just using a bed. When you have the behaviour of being put on a boundary, or in a position (sit, down, etc) then working on adding distraction and duration to that, and only moving off on their release cue.
When I had Luna starting to work on this, I paid into their raised beds a lot, and would have them all there in a row, then I could walk down the line, giving each one a treat. That meant that Luna saw me moving away from her, and feeding the others, and that it would still be her turn to get food shortly. Then distractions - some juggling a bit of food, or dancing around, or playing with a ball etc. Reinforce down the line. More for the dog who is least familiar with the process, as they need a higher ROR.

Then working on releases, so practicing adding "duff" cues. When I have them all out together, they get released individually on their name, or all together on "OK". Making it easier for the inexperienced dog again, so when Luna was learning, I would stand by her bed to call Shadow off of his, so I could feed Luna in place. And gradually build up the distance, duration, and level of distraction. Now, I can throw a Chuckit ball around while they all stay on their beds, and then release one of them to get it when I throw it away from me.

To start off, the session with the working dog is really really short (it might simple be calling off the bed, reinforcing, then sending them back to the bed, then all the dogs get a treat. But, in time, the opportunity to work becomes the biggest reinforcer for staying put, and you don't need the treats anymore.

What does this mean?

Just that they don't involve themselves in another dog's work. For example, if a dog has been sent out to a retrieve, they don't interfere with that, even if they're not under orders themselves.

 

[snowbunny]

Where are we?

Day 26

I’ve been working on fold-back downs with the Labs, and all are doing well when they understand “the game”, but outside of that, will lay down in any manner if asked. I need to assign a new cue, but I’ve not decided what it will be. Maybe “fold” would be good.
We’ve been proofing it out and about, and that’s coming on. They find it hard when they’re at my side rather than in front of me, as the looking up at me tends to make them hover, so that’s a work in progress. I was s bit worried about Shadow going down front first (into a bow) before lowering his rear, but apparently that’s ok, as I’ve been told by people who know better than I!

Another thing I’ve been playing with is rear- foot targeting but with the fog coming towards me over the target. This is to load the back end more, and working towards being able to drop into a down while moving forwards. I’ve previously taught rear foot targeting with backing up to the target, but as I’ve been led to understand, this causes a loading of the front legs, which is not something I want to focus on at the moment.

The back leg loading is doing great stuff for Shadow: a couple of times, he has offered a beautiful prancing lifted trot in a close heel position while we’ve been out walking. It’s a lovely thing to watch.

This evening, I went and did a teeny bit of practice for rally, just using five random signs and a jar filled with chunks of cured ham as my reinforcer. I would do one or more of the signs, then run to the jar for a chunk of ham. They loved it, especially Willow, who was all wag.

I must take an hour tomorrow and write up my training plans for the three of them.

In other news, I’ve started on a sit/stay behaviour with Ginny. This is prompted by wanting to take photos of her; as soon as I move away from her, she’s up and following me. She can’t believe her luck at the moment, actually getting paid for doing nothing! She’s loving it!

 

[snowbunny]

Day 27

It's been a while since I did any pivoting with the hounds, so I revisited that this evening. I started off with a few steps of independent pivoting on the platform, then went into a pivot into heel, with me standing to the side of the disc. All the dogs remembered this really well, and I was able to fade the hand within a couple of reps, putting it into my"formal heel" position on my stomach.

From there, I went into proofing this around the clock, so getting the pivot into heel position, clicking for the shoulder touching my leg, then reinforcing in place for head position, followed by a lure off the platform. To start off with, this was to the back, so they simply had to step back on, but we worked around the clock a little, so they started stepping back onto the disc and then pivoting all the way round until we had shoulder/leg contact again.

I was really pleased how well they all remembered the pivoting, and performed it with confidence. Shadow was less hoppy than he previously has been, so the work I've done reinforcing stillness with two feet on seems to be paying off.

Yesterday, I asked J to pull another five random rally signs from my pack, and ended up with one from level 2, which is a sit-down-walk around. I've never really done anything in the way of proofing the down against movement, because it's not a position I've really needed before, so we're starting off with the real basics - weight shift to one side, reinforce... I'll keep doing a couple of minutes a day, and hopefully we'll get there pretty quickly. I found it far harder with the lead on than off; they're so used to following me when they're wearing the leads, I think, that it's unheard of for them to stay in place while I walk around when they're wearing it.