Music lessons applied to dog training

[Joy]

Some of you know that I learn clarinet and take practising fairly seriously. For a long time I have been identifying bars or phrases that I'm finding difficult and practising them in isolation until fluent. However I had still been finding that when I tried to play the whole piece again the tricky bits would still trip me up. Recently I've learnt that I need to reintegrate the tricky bits gradually - perhaps just a bar before and after, or even one or two notes either side of the tricky bit.

With Rajah I have for some time been training 'stand from sit at a distance' and he really seemed confident with this today - responded correctly and immediately. So I set out a short Rally course, about 8 signs, with this exercise as the last one. He did the course very well but when we got to the last exercise he just looked at me blankly. I cued again but still no response, so we ran to the treat pot anyway and he had his 'end-of-round' special treats while I had a think. And I realised that I had just expected him to be able to do the exercise as part of a larger 'piece' without any in-between stages. For starters when practising this exercise I have always worn a treat bag and marked and treated as soon as he responded.

So the first step was to do the exercise in isolation but without the treat bag. I marked and we ran to the treat bag. Then without treats on me I did just one exercise (a down which Rajah likes and is good at) and then straight onto the stand from sit etc, then run to treats. This worked well. Next week I'll do this again and then build upon more exercises before it.

I suppose it is another form of generalisation, but whereas I have made a point of training in different locations and with people and dogs as distractions, I hadn't thought of the need to gradually integrate a tricky exercise. Having had the very similar experience with my music I felt sympathy towards Rajah.

So this is a bit of a geeky post but I think this principle could be applied to any training - in humans or dogs.

 

[Stacia]

Some of you know that I learn clarinet and take practising fairly seriously. For a long time I have been identifying bars or phrases that I'm finding difficult and practising them in isolation until fluent. However I had still been finding that when I tried to play the whole piece again the tricky bits would still trip me up. Recently I've learnt that I need to reintegrate the tricky bits gradually - perhaps just a bar before and after, or even one or two notes either side of the tricky bit.

With Rajah I have for some time been training 'stand from sit at a distance' and he really seemed confident with this today - responded correctly and immediately. So I set out a short Rally course, about 8 signs, with this exercise as the last one. He did the course very well but when we got to the last exercise he just looked at me blankly. I cued again but still no response, so we ran to the treat pot anyway and he had his 'end-of-round' special treats while I had a think. And I realised that I had just expected him to be able to do the exercise as part of a larger 'piece' without any in-between stages. For starters when practising this exercise I have always worn a treat bag and marked and treated as soon as he responded.

So the first step was to do the exercise in isolation but without the treat bag. I marked and we ran to the treat bag. Then without treats on me I did just one exercise (a down which Rajah likes and is good at) and then straight onto the stand from sit etc, then run to treats. This worked well. Next week I'll do this again and then build upon more exercises before it.

I suppose it is another form of generalisation, but whereas I have made a point of training in different locations and with people and dogs as distractions, I hadn't thought of the need to gradually integrate a tricky exercise. Having had the very similar experience with my music I felt sympathy towards Rajah.

So this is a bit of a geeky post but I think this principle could be applied to any training - in humans or dogs.

That is a very interesting observation, thinking outside the box, so many new things we can use in training, fascinating.

 

[HAH]

Some of you know that I learn clarinet and take practising fairly seriously. For a long time I have been identifying bars or phrases that I'm finding difficult and practising them in isolation until fluent. However I had still been finding that when I tried to play the whole piece again the tricky bits would still trip me up. Recently I've learnt that I need to reintegrate the tricky bits gradually - perhaps just a bar before and after, or even one or two notes either side of the tricky bit.

With Rajah I have for some time been training 'stand from sit at a distance' and he really seemed confident with this today - responded correctly and immediately. So I set out a short Rally course, about 8 signs, with this exercise as the last one. He did the course very well but when we got to the last exercise he just looked at me blankly. I cued again but still no response, so we ran to the treat pot anyway and he had his 'end-of-round' special treats while I had a think. And I realised that I had just expected him to be able to do the exercise as part of a larger 'piece' without any in-between stages. For starters when practising this exercise I have always worn a treat bag and marked and treated as soon as he responded.

So the first step was to do the exercise in isolation but without the treat bag. I marked and we ran to the treat bag. Then without treats on me I did just one exercise (a down which Rajah likes and is good at) and then straight onto the stand from sit etc, then run to treats. This worked well. Next week I'll do this again and then build upon more exercises before it.

I suppose it is another form of generalisation, but whereas I have made a point of training in different locations and with people and dogs as distractions, I hadn't thought of the need to gradually integrate a tricky exercise. Having had the very similar experience with my music I felt sympathy towards Rajah.

So this is a bit of a geeky post but I think this principle could be applied to any training - in humans or dogs.

I think this is brilliant, what a helpfully laid out example @Joy ! It makes me think of an Instagram post I read the other day from a trainer who has a new baby and was reflecting similarly on her baby learning new skills in context and in stages, similar to her dog - you make the point so clearly with your music, it felt very familiar to me.

 

[Selina27]

Really interesting to read your post Joy, I love the whole learning and training thing, I find it endlessly fascinating.
In the Hoopers class I find the young girl who teaches it is very good at helping us and our dogs put together the individual stages together to enable them to do the full course with their reward at the end.