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!
Seems i can only add videos twice or not at all. Very odd! Sorry Silvia for making a mess with all my attempts. Is it possible for me to delete a post if i do it wrong?
Wow, what a duration! I love how she just stands there with no problem, in a perfect balance, once she steps in that tiny box with all 4 feet, it’s too funny.
Hello!
Here are two more short videos of the four-paws-in-a-bowl-trick. It’s been going pretty well, but I still need to work more with adding duration. The more worked up she is, the harder it gets to get her to hold still.
I’ve also got videos of the other tricks, but I’ll upload them tomorrow, since the computer is really slow right now…
As for the frog-trick.. Nyx does it every now and then on her own when laying down to rest, so I try to say the word for it every time she does, don’t have a video of it though.
And yeah, I have no idea why I’ve recorded so close. It would be more fun to watch if you could see the entire dog at least 🙂
It’s a PyrShep thing… Why stand still when you can move! 🙂
Hehe, yeah I guess you’re right. I’m really not used to a dog with sooo much energy, but it’s a lot of fun 🙂
Can you put my name down on the list for foundation agility and running contacts too please.
Hope to have a helper to video over the weekend 🙂 I’m really enjoying your videos!
When does the agility foundation class start? Shape is almost 4 months now, do you think we can make it?
Niea had a eureka moment last night and will now reliably offer 4in with 2 of my bigger boxes! She got so excited that she stopped our training session so she could run a few laps around the apartment. It was too cute with her big corgi smile!
Victory laps! Too cute. : ) Piper thinks the box trick is now 2 in, then bounce rear feet in and bounce out. I clicked for her back feet coming in, but she was also pushing off to bounce out of the box. So now it’s 2-in, pause, bounce in all 4 and bounce out. I’m going to try a box with lower sides tonight and see if that helps.
Wow, very cool! Will be nice to see a Corgi in a bowl! 🙂
Here’s the video of two paws on a plate. As you can se she has a tendency to do the four paws in a bowl-trick from time to time.
As for the “trick” with refusing food, Nyx looks me in the eyes every time (I guess it’s because she knows that’s how she’ll get the “okay”-cue from me when she’s served food or when I train stay with her). Is this “okay” or do you want the dog to just look away and not at you?
Hi Kaisa,
just some constructive criticism…
Is it the video or are your clicks delayed?
Your dog is adorable and very fast!
I had to catch up to my dog, too. By the time I clicked what i wanted he was already doing something else.
Jen and Buddy
I thought that too at first, but I think she writes that she’s working on duration, so now I think the click is for holding position a certain amount of time. That’s my guess anyway. 🙂
Oh, ok, I guess I just do it differently then. 🙂
For duration I click multiple times. First, when he does it, and then a couple more clicks for holding it.
Recall tip for everyone: If your dog doesn’t come close enough to your body, throw a treat through your legs. I’ve tried this to get a better “front sit” and it works pretty well.
Have fun training!
Jen and Buddy
Hi Jennifer, constructive criticism is always welcome!:)
Bekka guessed right. I try to click when she holds her paws still on the plate (and also when her back legs aren’t too close to it since she had a tendency to want to do the four paws in a bowl-trick), and that’s why I click pretty late. I’ve never thought of adding duration the way you do, Jennifer, but it sounds smart. I like to click as many times as possible to keep the dog enthusiastic, and that’s what you do if you do it your way. But Nyx mostly loses her position when I click (it’s like the click means drop everything and go get that treat for her), so I don’t think it would work very good for us though. But then again, it’s probably just to teach her that the click doesn’t mean “drop your position”.
This was interesting, how does everybody else do when they’re adding duration?
Me, I start with delaying the click a little bit -- but as soon as they can hold it long enough for me to be able to deliver the treat to them while they are still in a position, I will click&reward in a position and then again and again several times in the same position. That tells them I don’t want action, but duration and makes it very easy to add lots of duration very quickly, much quicker as with just delaying the click (that usually makes them wonder if maybe, they should be trying something else). I reward out of position for action and in a position for duration. You do need to be very quick with the delivery of the reward if you want to do that with dogs like Nyx. In my experience, PyrSheps are great at offering action, but much harder to add duration as BCs.
Thanks, that’s good advice. Next step will definitely be to do that. I suppose you can use your voice and treat instead of click and treat just as well? Like I said, she usually loses her position when I click, but when I use my voice calmly, she tends to stay in position, probably since I do that when training stay with her.
Sure, a voice is o.k. too!
Very nice! Those active little legs sure make me laugh every time! 🙂 And yes, sure, looking up at you (instead of food) is great!
Thank you! Hehe, yeah, me too 🙂 It makes it a lot harder to time the click, but it’s totally worth that, since it’s way more fun!
Okay, great, good to know!
My golden retriever Toby has problem of putting 4 paws in a box, he only put 2 in there LOL im planning to try a bigger box with him first to let him get the idea that we are doing 4 paws in a box not perch training 🙂 hope that it works 🙂
My pug crash has no problem of putting 4 paws in a box and 2 paws on the plate, im working on the “frog” now.
If you don’t find big enough box, you can use Brittany’s idea and just put two boxes together, so that he can have front feet in one and hind in another -- works equally well for a start and at one point, you don’t need such big box anyway.
wow, great idea, thanks a lot. I will definitely try it. Toby needs a lot of rear end awareness training, he is not good at using his hind feet. I will let you know how 2 boxes work out on Toby.
Angela
I agree! The 2 baskets was the easiest way for my girl to find out she had back legs. If Toby avoids the boxes with his back paws try using the wall and another barrier while tossing the treats to the opposite side.
Also if the sides of the box are very tall you might want to try using one with shorter sides. I had to do this first before I gave Niea a larger one.
Today’s training session was ended with a great improvement! She was stuck at a 38cm box and now she will crunch her body to 33cm! Tomorrow I will try a 30cm box that I have and then I think I will try using 28cm and smaller bowls instead of baskets.
Frog has not really been worked on much but she offers it frequently in the morning when she sleeps upside down.
We have had a couple of very short training sessions the last days. And had great improvement.
In this video i do not use the clicker i only feed her.
That box is getting seriously small! I think she can do even smaller, though! 🙂
Here comes our bad quality video.
the leave the treats alone trick is quite easy for him (he is really strange pyrshep).
With frog I need to push him a little bit down (on video it seems quite hard push but is not), otherwise he is crowling forwards or backwards. He is not doing the trick naturally.
Great, it looks great! Why do you say he is difficult to train? He sure looks really focused and willing to work on this video! Any difficulties with those tricks? You trained all that in those 10 days or he knew some before? Loved the frog!
Thanks for comments. We have been training the 4 in trick before.
We had problems in training when he was younger. Mainly because he is focusing too much on one thing 🙂 Lili offers 1000 of things at the same time, so I had a kind of cultur shock. He is quite independent puppy and was more interested in our other dogs than me and my treats and toys. E.g. he didn’t want to play with me. During last month the progress has been really encouraging.
I also have to work long days so I do not have so much time I would like to be with him. So actually calling him at least 10 times per day to do something fun is the most difficult one 🙁
I have to work a lot of long days too. 🙁 I’ve tried to do the call-for-fun part 5 times, and it’s still making Piper very happy. 10 would be better, but not always possible. Just make it fun and happy and your pup will appreciate the effort I bet!
Nice to know that I’m not the only one with too little time. During the walks I call Furi several times to have treats, to play, do tricks or to give kisses. Probably I get the 10 calls during one walk but I would like to call him for 10 walks a so.
Days we get our long walk time I can get 10 in too. Long work days or bad weather when we’re stuck inside I have to go fewer. I make sure to have her favorite toys and treats in most rooms, and we play hide and seek too, she likes that. My other dogs get jealous though so I try to work everyone and Piper doesn’t get her 10 calls. Her last call of the day is usually up onto the bed to cuddle. She thinks that’s the greatest thing ever, especially if it makes my older dogs jealous. She’s a brat.
I also think that we often forget how it was when our previous dogs were puppies, before they knew the concepts of learning. With Le, one the first things I shaped was circling the object with hind feet and it took FOR EVER, it felt like we will need three years for three tricks 🙂 But then, it was just getting easier&easier with every next trick. She also, interestingly, didn’t like food, but then I did what I wrote to Laura and all of the sudden, she changed her mind and went crazy for food too.
And I think the reason he is interested in your other dogs is because he spends so much time with just them when you’re working, that’s where those of us with unusual jobs definitely have an advantage. The good thing is, however, that they do learn from other dogs, it’s always funny to see how excited my puppies are about agility way before they do any of it, just because they learn the excitement from other dogs. So try to let him see how interested Lilli and Bode are in working with you, that can speed up the process too. But from the video, I can definitely tell you are on a good way already! 🙂
As a puppy Lili was as grazy offering things as she still is. When you are writing about La, it sounds like you’re writing about Lili. Bode was and is like white collar officer. He moves like in slow motion film.
I think too, that we are going in right direction. I try to keep us on that way 🙂
Her is a video of our “frog” trick. I got the trick with the hand from the video above. I do not push her down hard, but just leading her down.
I think she is getting it soon. Next time i will use my clicker, so i can mark the correct movement of the back legs.
Great! Almost there already! Quite a progress since the first video! Really impressive progress!