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!
Hi mates and Silvia,
Here we go again with a new video for the plate trick and the first steps for the frog (he doesn’t do it naturally).
Later today I will upload the box trick and the recall video.
Silvia, We have been working hard during last week to improve the click/treat , are we going in the right direction now or do you think that I need to change something else?
He is more focus than before, Last night he even brought the box in his mouth and dropped it in front of me asking for more….I was in stitches 🙂
Wow, that’s definitely MUCH better! 🙂
Well done Emillan!! Looks like you guys have had a great week together. He looks like he is really enjoying himself -- i love his little tail wiggles & your clicker timing is now v impressive 🙂
Thank you very much Camilla,
Yes we have been training hard but the work has paid off!!! He enjoys the training but I cannot make it very long yet after a couple of minutes he wants to come back to play….
Couple of minutes is a very good start! Try to play then, do something really short&easy and then give him a break.
I am so enjoying this course and all the vidoes, it is great to see all the progress with so many different types of dogs. well done to all for all the wonderful work. I have also been doing your Tip and Tuk ( my words, easier for me) and just love it as well as the heeling. happy training to all.
Just a quick one of Niah’s progress in Frog and building duration in 4in box trick.
Since he never do frog naturally, I moved from carpet floor to vinyl slippery floor to capture his hind leg movement.
I am trying to be careful to not to click another behavior that he is offering..
But I am not sure if he will understanding my click means in this way !
it might be too confusing..?!
I will keep trying for few more days, wait and see what happens!
I don’t need to send in my video of Nero on the Frog right now, cause this is exactly where we’re at! I’m trying to click thought and we’re slowly adding more hind stretch. Nancy
>Nancy; I just did another session with Niah in this morning. He is keep moving out his hind legs, but not yet stretching. I am interested in Nero’s progress! Emi
Hi Emi, I remembered that I had this old yoga ball and decided to see if I could shape the “frog” on it. I’m trying to click for both hinds on the floor. He offered a zillion behaviors, but quickly got to this stage which is it for today. This morning we had exactly what you show in your video. It seems the mattress in the video below could serve the same purpose.
Yes, it’s sometimes hard for the dog to understand you’re clicking hind feet as they’re not as aware of them as of their front feet. It does get easier and faster with every next tricks, though. To me, it looks like you’re on a very good way!
Thank you Nancy and Silvia!
I will keep trying to capture his hind feet movement.
Actually, he was moving hind feet much more obviously this morning 😉
Love all the vid’s and notes. We worked on criteria one first, good fun, we got to number to and Mason (phalene) doesn’t like the feel of the plate 🙂 So I changed to a piece of wood, a book and now back to building confidence with the plate. So I have not moved on to the next criteria just yet.
I will post my video when we have a little more sucess which I think won’t be too long. We have a another few weeks to post our video of lesson one right!
We are progressing nicely now, he holds one paw on plate for three seconds so far, we just have to work on lifting the second paw up 🙂
You could of course also do this trick with a book, no problem. I usually use a plate as puppies like to chew and carry around things you put on the floor 🙂 But it’s still good for Mason to experience different surfaces, it’s interesting he doesn’t like the plate, is it really the material or the fast that it moves (in case you didn’t put it upside down)?
On our homework lessons, should we be going in order all the time? I understand how Lesson 1 exercises build on each other. I have jumped around the list sometimes, and try to do recall/fun each day, but don’t get the others worked on every day. Just curious. : ) I’m playing with many dogs too tho’, so some know things already, and some don’t.
No, of course not, the order is not important at all. In the second lesson, we’ll be building up from those tricks, so you do want to do lesson 1 before lesson 2, but the tricks on each list are in no particular order.
Also, are we going to need props in class? A cone? A pole? Anything? Trying to gather things in my free time so I know where things are if/when we need them!
We sure won’t be needing anything that would be hard to find, even on a short notice 🙂
You’ve never seen my house. Everything is hard to find right now! Except my clicker of course. : )
We have worked on the 4 in a box before, but she offers the “hide” mostly now. “hide” is hide your head in something, and hold it still. So she tries to hide her nose in the box 😉
I think she is trying other things because you sometimes wait too long…. You should be clicking for picking up hind leg already, not necessarily waiting for her to actually step in -- especially if she is somewhat confused which trick you’re working on. Try to click for smaller steps -- the more you reward, the better. Once she knows what to do with the box, switch to a smaller one.
We have worked on this before 😉
Nice touch! 🙂
Our second session of “Frog”.
I changed the training place to a mattres, because i thougt that it would give more chances to succeed.
Well, she sure has great focus, she doesn’t give up at all! That’s an interesting idea, I never tried it that way. Looks good! Try clicking for keeping hind feet on the floor and stretching over the mattress, that should work!
Hi everyone!
here is our first video clip -- the box.
We are having so much fun with this training 🙂 and enjoy watching all the clips !
Great job so far, time for a smaller box now! How old is the little puppy that wants to join in? 🙂
we are now working on a smaller box …. not so easy anymore 😉
the little puppy is 9 weeks, he arrived here yesterday … we started training today. The plate first … on the way to the plate I shaped the most gorgeous head turn you can get 😉 (have it on video even… LOL)
can you tell we are having a blast over here ??
So will the puppy be the star of your next video? 🙂 Head turn is a nice trick too! Always good to get additional gratis trick! 🙂
I am doing all the tricks and training with Chevy too (and others of my pawgang as well) … so if I may, I will post his video 🙂
And, before there are no spots left… count us in on being aboard the foundation class 🙂