As you did so good with your first homework, you're getting some more this time 🙂 No worries if you don't manage to do everything in 2 weeks, you can always come back to those tricks. Post wherever you end up, as I said, we learn the most through problems, so you want to post those too! 🙂
1. experiment with different toys and ways to play with your dog. Tape his favourite game.
2. instead of a plate, find something a little higher this time to give them a better feeling of where to keep their front legs, click first for front feet on an object (should be easy, you want the same thing as on a plate) and then observe hind legs and click for ANY movement (even just a weight shift) and then shape from there to more&more steps around the object. The final version of this trick is full circle around, with you static (don't help the dog to circle with your movement!) - I think those that have my heeling video can already do that exercise, though 🙂
3. take the plate and hold it in different positions to see if the dog understands it's the same thing even when you hold it higher, under angle etc. Try when he is standing, sitting and lying down. If you didn't name touching an object with a paw, it's time to do it now! Also, try to change objects for this exercise, sometimes also use a hand as a paw target. Once he can do all that, you're ready for next two tricks we will get out of the paw touch:
- crossing paws: tell the puppy to down (or shape it if he doesn't know it yet), then hold the plate (or, you can use another, smaller and more convenient object, like a plastic lid or a piece of paper) close to left paw and only reward touching it with left paw. Then hold it closer and closer to right paw, still only reward left paw touches, then hold it on right paw and eventually on the other side, jackpoting the touches of left paw on a right paw now in order to eventually get rid of a target.
- sit up: tell the puppy to sit (or shape it if he doesn't know it yet), then put the plate (or just use the hand if he will recognize that as a target) low enough first that he can reach it with a paw, but then every next time, hold it a little higher - not that high that he would stand up, but high enough that the other leg leaves the ground a little bit too. Jackpot.
4. observe your puppy and try to find situations when he would back up - it usually happens when they're moving out of your way - or sometimes when they really want something, but know they can't get it. You can try to sit down on the floor with treats in your hand and click first step back with hind foot. Don't wait for more than one as they usually sit down then. Click&reward the first one and reward by throwing a treat towards the dog. Rewarding at distance will help you add more&more steps and more&more distance from you. At one point, switch to rewarding with a toy, it's easier to throw.
5. 2on2off - find an object big enough for a dog to go on with all 4 feet easily - maybe just put your first 4in object upside down? - Click for 2-3 legs on and then don't click the fourth one, you don't want any duration standing there! Only click again when the dog is leaving the object, try to catch him with 2 front feet on the ground and deliver the treat while he is still in this position. Click&reward several times for a position, then say "go"/"o.k."/"free"/whatever your release word will be and throw a treat away so that he needs to leave the position to get it. Do this enough times that the dog starts to expect the thrown treat after "go", so that then you don't need to throw it in advance, but only after he leaves the position on "go". Do not help with body language that you want him to leave after "go" - if he doesn't know it yet, go back to throwing a treat and progress more slowly.
And I guess this really is enough fun for next 2 weeks! 🙂
Another question on circling around an object: does dog need to face the same direction as his handle does? or as long as the dog does a circle, then it’s good enough at learning stage? As moving to add handler to the pic, then we click and treat when dog faces the same direction as his handler does?
right now im working on the other direction with crash, i ended up clicking and treating his when he’s facing me, is that ok for now?
P.S i saw a video on youtube from one of my friends, she was luring dog to heel position, but she didnt treat the dog right away when a dog in that position rather than treating the dog when releasing the dog. she replied me that she was trying to increase the duration when dog was at the heel position, so my question is that even with duration, we still reward when the dog is at that position,right?
Thank you!!
At the beginning stages, it doesn’t matter which direction the dog is facing, any hind leg movements are o.k. Just don’t move with the dog, keeping him in front position, but be static and let him do the circling. Once you have a full circle, try to click the moment he is facing the same direction as you, but don’t worry about it for now. And yes, for duration, reward in a position.
great, gotcha, Silvia, thanks a lot
we have so much fun 🙂
Angela
Hi guys
Grace and i have been working on the pivoting. I taught her to pivot as a puppy but i helped her far too much w my body position and basically had her follow my body position so she was always facing me or move away from my leg which is the opposite of what we want.
We’ve started all over again. When i kept out of the way she initially found it extremely difficult. We had the same prob as stella where she would take a few steps in each direction to avoid having to turn away from me. So, i started rewarding her only in one direction and this video shows the process we went through. Unfortunately bc i was trying to be at a distance, i couldn’t reach to turn her head in the right direction to reward. This vid will prob be boring for most people but I’ve included the whole process in case anyone else is having the same problems we were having
She eventually took a leap of faith and turned away from me..
How do i now transition to teaching the other direction? Do i just stop rewarding right and only reward steps to left or is that too abrupt? Without a verbal cue should i give her a little hand signal as a clue to which direction i want her to go?
Very good! Thanks for posting it, it’s very good video, you are a great trainer and Grace is just too funny to watch, you can really see her think, what a smart dog! And yes, it’s hard to reach in to reward with such a big dog as you need to be that far away if you want to give them room to pass you. It’s of course not necessary at all, it just shortens the process, but then: what’s the hurry? 🙂
And yes, that’s how I usually do it: first reward both directions to get them moving, then stop rewarding one direction to get full circle, then stop rewarding that direction to get the other full circle and once I have both, I will use a hand cue to tell which direction I want.
Thanks so much Silvia..that’s the best positive reinforcement I’ve ever received! Grace is starting to remind me of michael jackson when she is spinning around pivoting, with her little white gloves on & her ‘dance’ moves. Pretty funny!
Here is Play with the tug. Followed by backing up which was just put on cue and then 2o2o with me moving and no release with out a verbal.
We will post circling on the bowl tomarrow
Valori and Play
Very nice, great job!
We have worked on the paw crossing. Now she offers both paws. sometimes i decide witch one i want her to use.
We have worked on the cirkling and named the direktions, so now she offers both direktions on verbal commands.
hi Gitte,
I love your videos. Your (?) is such a adorable puppy. Alice nedded over a year to become nearly like this.
Frontfeet crossing I did with Alice and Feline since they were small puppies, and I had no problems and no preparation with this exercise. I pointed with a finger where I wanted them to point with their paws, and they did.
Hi Silvia,
I have been too emotional to engage with Niah last week because of
watching streaming live news in Japanese Earthquake disaster. (I am Japanese)
Also I am getting married on Saturday…
but I have been practicing all your home works, I just didn’t feels like recording anything at the moment, and also had no time to edit and put up on you tube.
but Niah is doing excellent … but not me.
Can I please post these exercises video next week?
Sure, no problem! Congratulations on your wedding! And good thoughts for everybody in Japan…
Stella likes all kinds of toys, but her two favorite games are “Soccer” which is best to play with Bronagh and also Thief! Thief! a game she made up where she steals our sox from the laundry or sometimes we hide them for her to find or she pickpockets them hanging from our pockets as we walk and she runs away with them in her mouth to horde them on her bed in the living room… here’s some soccer video (Thief! video soon as well as tricks progress)
and more soccer with Stella… in this one she’s sort of more prey activated…
(its a good workout for me too)
Wow, she sure is having FUN! And yeah, the interactive games where both team members get tired are the best! Very good game idea, thanks for posting it!
She is just too cute holding that leash all the time!
oh yes, the leash—you don’t miss a thing do you!!!
We are making progress with the hind end pivoting or “the elephant trick”!!!!!
So far Stella has clockwise -- mostly. She finally was able to circle right up to my leg, which was very hard at first, but it is still hard for her to continue by me to make a full the circle and I confess I lure her a little with the placement of the reward to turn her head… Is that ok?
I am beginning to add a hand cue over her head sometimes too. Should we add the opposite direction now or continue to make clockwise more confident?
Over the last week we traveled down to Utah to escape the snow. The biggest problem for Nero was learning to go potty on grass. He had never seen it! This video is behind our campsite where Nero enjoyed being Par Course dog. The leash laws were strict in Utah so he had to drag his leash everywhere. I’m really spoiled where I live with hundreds of areas to take a dog off-leash (even if it’s snowy into April)
Not terribly related to class--just pretty.
Nancy Creel
Looks like he had great time!
Here is our video. His fourite play is two ball game but I didn’t have changes to tape it. We have too much snow to play it outside and there is too little light in the agility hall. On the video we are playing when other dogs are watching and hoover is on, so he is not so much in the playing than he normally is.
He does not back up straight so I have trained against a wall. I use a toy as a reward quite often but on this video I’m clicking.
Cool, very good! You can tape the two balls game later and post it then. But he seems to love the tugging too 🙂 The tricks look great. He is so funny when he is backing up and picking his front feet up in the air at the same time, is that another trick you are working on right now or he thinks it’s a part of a back up? How is the circling on an object going?
Furi thinks that picking front foot (or feet) in the air is part of everything 🙂 Guess what is the first trick he did learn. He is the circling
Can’t see it either, it also says it’s private…
Is it workig now?
Yes, thanks, very nice work, definitely ready for the next step!
Hey everyone, here’s my week 2 video… running a little behind in recording but we’ve been working on the tricks a bunch. Mabel’s favorite game is chasing my other dog Loki, but frisbee is a close second!
We’ve only done the leg cross in one direction as she’s been having a bit of trouble but we’re working on separate sessions to try and get the other leg too. We also moved the 2o2o to the couch with a bit of slope since she seemed to get it kind of fast.
Anyway thanks for your 2 minutes and any comments/criticisms.
First off, Mabel is an adorable red merle Aussie, and I’m not objective at all! : )
Do you have 2 commands for turning? Spin and turn? So she was changing direction on her own at the beginning? Just curious. For backing, does she come closer again so she can back more?
I think Piper is jealous. Ha!
It definitely shows you have been working! Very good balance in a sit up, did she knew that one before? She is so funny when she moves a quarter of a circle crossing her paws. It will get easier once you do both legs in the same session, then you can do one and then another, they don’t need to move that much then. The 2on2off, did you also try the other direction -- on and off? Backing up is in a plan too, but it’s good they know it in the other direction too, going on an object and off, stopping in the wanted position. Great job!
She did know sit up before, we’ve been working on adding time to it (she tends to come out of it before I get a chance to click/treat a second time, but she’s starting to get it). The leg-crossing has been frustrating but hilarious, because she kept turning I had to do it next to a table leg or something to stop her but then she thought she was supposed to touch the table leg! She will go on an object and then come off into 2o2o position, I just changed to backing up because she was so uncomfortable with it I knew it would need more practice.
@Bekka -- Your aussie looks adorable too! We have the heeling video so she did learn the turns with different word in each direction (Sin and Ter) (sinter is latin root for left, so the first half was left, second half was right). She does come back forward as habit, unless I quickly tell her to stop/wait/sit/back-up again… she can be hard because she tries so hard to anticipate what I want! It’s a blessing and a curse!
P.S. Silvia I thought you might like to know that Mabel got “in trouble” last week at agility, we did the same set of jumps like 3x, she got it the first time but got it wrong everytime after because she was thinking so much she assumed it should be different… so I got teased for having a dog that thinks too much! And I loved every second of it!
P.P.S thanks for ignoring my silly boyfriend who wanted to make a cameo at the end as pay back for me making him film!
Piper has to do a roll-over before her paw crossing. My fault, I thought I was ignoring the roll-over, then clicking afterwards for the paw crossing that usually happens when she’s upright again. So she understood the whole thing was what I wanted. I trying putting her next to a wall to stop the roll, but she rolls anyway. She’s definitely throwing weirdo things at me to deal with!
Isn’t it cool to discuss problems like that? 🙂 I guess you know you are happy and without problems when you can discuss things like how to get rid of a roll over before crossing the paws…
Does she know roll-over as an actual command? I’m wondering if you could (teach it if she doesn’t know it), but then ask for roll-over, then a paw cross, then just ask for a paw cross and see if that doesn’t help to distguish them as two different things?
Just a thought…!
Oh, that’s too funny! The good thing is that you only run the same course in a competition once, so as long as she does it right the first time, all is all right! 🙂 That was actually a very creative ending of the video, it sure made me laugh! 🙂