School time for our puppies! Here is your first to-do list. The first task might sound a little silly for those with adult dogs, but in fact, it's never silly to make a recall even better!
1. call your dog at least 10 times a day to do something fun together: to play, to go out, to get a treat, something to chew on or a new exciting toy
2. put a plate (or another object, but I like to start with a plate as puppies can't chew on those too easily) on a floor and shape a puppy to touch it with a front paw: you can first click for head movement in the right direction, then one/two/three steps, then stepping over it or close to it and finally for stepping on it
3. sit on a floor and put a fist full of treats or dog's favourite toy right in front of their nose, wait till they stop sniffing and click for anything they try other than getting directly to the food/toy or staring at it. It's very important the dog understands staring at food/toy doesn't get him anywhere as it will later on allow you to work with food/toys in your hand without distracting the dog's focus from the job at hand.
4. find a box or a drawer that is as long as your dog and not too high and shape a dog to put 1-2-3-4 legs into it. Then try with smaller&smaller objects, final goal is the dog can stand in a small bowl.
5. observe your puppy and see if he sometimes stretches his legs out when in down position, puppies often do that when relaxed or playing. Name it (I call it "frog":) and reward. It's a nice stretching exercise and very easy to get it on cue if the dog does it naturally (some dogs do it as adults too, but mine didn't and it was much harder to train it as with puppy Le who was doing that naturally). If not, put a dog in a down position and reward from the floor and so far ahead that the dog needs to stretch out to get it - but not so far that he would crawl ahead. Watch the hind legs and click for moving them back OR out, but NOT for crawling step forward.
Looking forward to see your videos!
Ha! That’s hilarious that i thought you were talking about a cat!!
Grace was born 17.6.09 so sounds like they’re roughly the same age
🙂
Alice was born 5.3.09, she becomes two at the end of the week 🙂
Happy almost-birthday! 🙂
Hi Silvia and classmates,here our first results
I had little problem with filming and handling at the same time,I definitely need more hands:)
So I decided to tape steadiness in the bowl,the frog vid is filmed from abov:(
Steffen, sometimes an extra hand would come in handy. However for video taping you’ll need is a tripod. There is no way around it. You might try to put your camcorder somewhere like on a table. Or have a friend taping you.
Wow, what a big dog in what a small bowl! 🙂 Since he can still sit in it, he could obviously do even smaller bowl, that’s your new homework. Great job so far, loved the frog, does he do that naturally sometimes or you got it just by rewarding more&more of a stretch?
Ok,I will take a smaller bowl:)I got the frog just by rewarding of a stretch because he doesn´t do it naturally
Hi does this ‘Froggie’ look better than the 1st photo i posted? I will have to work on being able to take the hand away, but 1st the position then the weaning of the hand. cool
Yeap, that’s already the final version of a frog! 🙂
Wow everyone is doing great! I’m really enjoying all of this!
We’re just getting started with the “frog trick” …….
I haven’t thought this would be such a GREAT trick!
I have no idea if we are doing it well but this is such a challenge!
I’m trying to click “only” when she is moving her HIND leg/paw while she is laying down. (every tiny little move). (She realy tends to do something with her front legs/paws or head and I try to ignore that and try not to click when she is moving other things at the same time.)
We are having so much fun…. and she is getting so tired by this trick because this is a difficult one and I am not helping her.
I hope I’m doing it well this way.
I would almost say that it is unfortunate when we’re finished with this trick. 😉 LOL!!
My computer is having a hard time with the video’s so these will follow soon!
Jonina & Jin
Don’t worry, you are getting new tricks to teach soon! And as I said, you’re getting some more next time, you’re too fast for having just 5 things to do! 🙂 Looking forward to see your frog!
Here is a video of Zushi’s first session of the frog trick. It’s more crawling than frog.
What a gorgeous bouncy baby! The rolling over is hilarious! Really made me laugh 🙂
She is too funny with her roll overs! 🙂 For a frog, you click too late, she is often already getting up or crawling forward. You want to click her for keeping down and reaching forward a little. She does it a little bit, but then sure is very quick with moving her feet forward -- meaning that you need to be even faster, clicking before she does it. For now, all you need is for her to stay in down position, while reaching forward just a little bit.
Somehow I’ve taught Piper to dive onto the plate with her feet, and drag it backwards as she scoots backwards. That was not my plan!
Also, when we are just rewarding for any movement to earn the click/treat, it should be different movements correct? Not just the same thing offered over and over? Piper gets frustrated if I don’t reward her choice of offering and I know I need to increase my rewards to keep her trying, but I’m having trouble balancing that with rewarding her for only a couple things. Suggestions?
“Any action goes” is the first game I play with the new dog. I click any action, definitely also repeating the same one, it’s just to make them see they can make me click&treat with their actions. If you play this with the dog who already knows clicker, he actually should be repeating the same thing you just clicked. If he is offering something else that you want, then you shouldn’t be clicking it, but wait for the first thing that goes a little bit in the right direction and the then work from there. You need to watch very closely for the smallest thought in the right direction, seeing little things will help you be able to click&treat a lot, but it’s definitely the hardest part of the process. To make a repertoire of tricks bigger, the easier is to try tricks with objects, the presence of object will direct their thought a little bit and give them other ideas as just repeating the tricks they already know.
Makes sense. My dog with the least clicker work offers more variety more quickly. I need to be more patient and more quick with the clicks!
One thing I’ve discovered, even tho’ I’m just auditing and not posting videos, I’ve made some and it’s helping me realize where my timing really is! Hadn’t ever thought of videoing clicker trick work!
Hello everyone!
Niea and I are having lots of fun with the to do list. She is very good at the plate trick and we have been using “How to teach ‘leave it’- without intimidation” by Kikopup on youtube for leaving treats.
We are challenged with the 4in a box because she has never used her back legs individually before. We started our first session with a basket that was too small so she would offer 2on and then I got her to walk through 2 small baskets to click for 2 front paws in and any back feet entering and exiting.
I got a bigger basket the next day and did the same exercise with just the 1 basket. Today she offered 4in a couple times and I jackpotted every 4in with a tasty hotdog bit.
Niea naturally will offer the frog because of her long body but I will be shaping it on a mat to increase duration, length of stretch and eventually adding the cue.
The middle video you can see me clicking a lot and there is no action going on in the front end but I was clicking for her raising her back legs which were trying to get over the first basket rim.
Well, she sure will be using her back legs A LOT in next weeks to come 🙂 Very nice job with all the tricks so far. Frog is definitely much easier to shape with dogs who do it naturally, for dogs who don’t, it’s sometimes hard to understand they actually can move their legs that way.
Hi,so today we did our homework and took a smaller bowl where just all 4 paws fit inside:)
Wow, what a great balance! I guess it really doesn’t get much smaller than that! 🙂