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! 🙂
Hi,as my little one is a little bit sick we just didn´t get it to tape our homework just in time..but all went very well.When he is in 2on2off I cvan through food and he stays in position,but I can´t yet through a toy..
Greets Steffen
Is he o.k. now? What was wrong? You can tape it and post it when he is o.k., it’s no problem. That’s already a very good stay if you can throw food around. To make him successful with a toy too, introduce it gradually, first just gently position it on the floor and see if he can wait for the release to get it. Then you start dropping it on the floor from higher and higher and once he is o.k. with that, you start to actually throw it. The key is to make it more&more difficult gradually enough for him to be successful most of the time, meaning in at least 80%. Have fun!
with Felix it was hard at first because he always wanted to hear the “click”, so he was always moving. Now he understood, it is wiser, suddenly we are moving faster.
we learned “down” with difficulty, it has too short legs, it was not interested! but there it is, and he’s happy to do so, we can work exercise 3. it hits the target with a paw.
for the toy, Felix is not a great player, he began tugger, I hope there will be more plaisir. he likes to feel, follow the smell, choose the right object, but it is not top rewards.
Exercise 2: he finally turns in one direction. at first, he walked on the spot!
Exercise 4: he back up in no more 1m.
Exercise 5: 2on/2off is good, but it is not released yet on the word “free”, it still needs to see the candy being launched.
I hope to Save my video on youtube soon, but for this Intant it’s imposible, youtube bugg.
élizabeth
Hm, it’s not very typical for a Terrier to not play. I think he would like the chasing game, try to put something (a piece of real fur or a plastic bag or something like this) on a string, move it quickly around, try to make it behave like a rabbit and see if he will chase that. I think he will love it, you just need to find something to make him interested, once he understands the game, I’m sure he will love it. Walking on one spot is a start, circling in one direction is already great, now start working the other direction too. For a back up, do you reward by throwing a treat? I’m not sure why short legs would make down harder? Try to capture when he lies down on his own and see if he can repeat it, just do 10, 20 downs in a row, click already for lowering his body, putting weight back, elbows a little closer to the ground… -- anything that goes it the right direction.
hi,
Here comes our report about our homework:
backwards works great with Alice, and a little worse with Feline. Alice runs a few meters backwards, and when she reaches a wall, or sth other to climb, she tries to end with a handstand. Feline moves only a few steps backwards, and I couldn’t get a longer distance.
Targetting works with both dogs. Feline gets a little crazy; she tries to do the targetting very fast, scratches my hands with her paws, and barks as a mad. Alice is more concentrated, and therefore better.
Pivotting works with both dogs in both directions very good. I use a handsignal for left or right, and they move in the accordingly direction.
The situp I trained with both dogs since they were puppies, and they are quite good. I started holding sth with the front paws, while begging.
2o2o works with Feline very good, but the release command does not work. She stands and doesn’t move for the release command. I must use body language to release her. Alice thinks to much, I believe. She thinks I want sth like handstand, when I want her to go backwards on a step or sth like that. She tries to do a free handstand, and when she stays, she is only standing on one paw, the other in the air.
The favourite game of Feline is tugging. Alice loves to run after a ball, and to get it before the others do. She can be very fast, and I hope she will show that anytime in agilityparcours.
Frogposition works very well with Feline. She does it now sometimes of herself, when she is lying. Alice does it only with one leg. She cants her hip and stretches the leg. When her hips are straight, she can’t stretch. But we will still train it
Sounds great! Try not to release with body language, though: throw a treat instead, together with a “go” -- would she release for that? If not, try to minimalize the body language gradually. Eventually, you want her NOT to release with body language, but only on verbal. For Alice, try to put the two bahaviours on two different verbal cues, so that she knows those are two different things, handstand and keeping hind feet on something. The rest sounds as it’s going really well!
Hi Silvia,
Here is our 2nd homework video.
Sorry for posting a bit late.
This video missing crossing paw exsercise and I am struggling with it.
He is finally starting to cross on the air but not on top of his other leg.
His other leg always move and it is still very messy.
I will post short crossing paw video later.
sit up also needs to build more durations, but he seems enjoying just touching target objet for now;)
Pivoting for both side was really good when he was a little puppy but I didn’t do this excersice for 2 month and then he is not good at left pivoting now, so I am trying to get left pivoting on this video.
Thank you silvia!
Wow, he grew a lot since your last video! Great job with the tricks! Sit up is hard at that age, you need to build balance and strength gradually, so no hurry with that trick!
Hi Emi, Love your video. Could you tell me why you reward with his head away from you while doing the two on two off exercise. Years ago I did this for agility 2/2 with one of my dogs, but am having an elder moment and can’t remember why.
Nancy and Nero
I believe she is rewarding away from her so the dog doesn’t stare at her I have done this in the past Valori
Hi Nancy.
my feeding position is not so good here in this video and looks a bit confusing him. As Valori said, I am trying to teach him to be independent from me, once got 2o2o position, then feeding low and off to the side.
I believe I should be feeding in both side to make balance and not make him to look towards me. Emi & Niah
Is it correct silvia? Would you agree what I said??
Yes, for agility 2on2off it’s important the dog doesn’t look at the handler and only focuses on his job. Basically, on contacts and weaves, the dog should ignore your body language and only focus on his job. When still teaching the position and the release, I usually reward by dropping a treat between front feet. Then I reduce rewarding in the position and at the end only reward the release (eventually with a jump or a tunnel).
Thanks everyone for your replies and discussion here. Very interesting and fun to follow up.
Nancy
Thank you Silvia for great tip, that is great to know how you reward! Rewarding low and off to the side is a bit awkward sometimes..
I will try to rewarding by drop a treat in between his front feet! 🙂
Why shouldn’t he look at you?
hi all i am also now confused as to where we must feed as i have fed staight in front with her head facing straight forward.
Oh, if you’re not using it for agility, then it doesn’t matter 🙂
Here’s our last video for lesson # 2. Sorry for posting so late.
Actually I don’t have 2o2o on this video, but I’ll post that one soon.
I don’t know why, but on this video the audio doesn’t match with it. There’s just a slight delay, but every once in a while you can see my finger clicking and it doesn’t match.
Anyway, I think we’ve done pretty much all the exercises in this lesson. For paw crossing you can see in the last session of this video that she now thinks that she has to touch the target with the nose together with paw crossing. I’m trying to get rid of it. As for the other paw, we’re still far from the final result… She likes to offer her right paw. I’ll post our left paw attempts on lesson 3.
Thanks everyone.
Laura & Shape
Great job! And how is her play progressing?
Thanks. We got our new toy, and she seems to like it. She is starting to chase tennis balls also. I’ll show you in my next video together with 2o2o.
We catching up on some homework of class 2… again, we’re stumped about what the cue should be for this crossing her paws trick
Wow, that’s great for the first session!
It took us a little while in the middle there to figure out that when she shifted her weight to the other hip she could no longer easily target with her left paw… Next time we will try different kinds and sizes of targets
Hi everyone!
We are back from Holidays. We are a little bit behind so we are still working on lesson two.
The following video is about backing up and the frog! sorry I couldnt cut the video in two and post the frog in lesson 1 but I will upload a picture there.
Later today, I will post the video for pivoting left side, (work in progress for right side) and we are struggling for crossing paws even although he is targeting very well…
Great job! His focus improved dramatically, very cool!
:),
As I promissed here are the last two videos (this was taped this morning at 7 o’clock as you can see I am not an early bird….!)
Darwin doesn’t seem to mind the early hour! 🙂 You are a very dedicated trainer, my dogs never heard a click before 10 o’clock in their life! 🙂 His pivoting is GREAT, I loved how he just keeps circling!
This is the second one! I have fierce problems with the cross paws. He gests very hyper when I place the target on the ground! any suggestion?
Wow, he sure is offering behaviours now! And that duck works great! The paw target is going well too, it is more difficult with smaller dogs that have less space between one and another leg, so just keep working the way you are working now, it seems to go in the right direction to me!
Finally here is our video for lesson two. You know that we had some problems with clicking and she would fall asleep or just go away and start biting on something. We had like a really low lowpoint and nothing seemed to work, it wasn’t just the training but with everything else. I couldn’t get contact with her, even if I sat like a meter away from her and holding my hand out with her favorite treat and at the same time make funny noises, she could just stare at me and then go away. Sometimes she wouldn’t even look at me. Our walks was a total mess too, she would be so stressed and not take treats and it was nearly impossible to get her contact, she didn’t really sniff around much to explore, not doing number 1 or 2 either. But then a couple of days ago she did a 180 and she is so happy all the time now!:D We can go for a walk and she offers contact all the time, and when she is not doing that she is sniffing around or looking for something to play with, and when she finds something she comes to me so we can play!
Our training has taken a giant step forward and the other day when I was eating in the sofa and she sat next to me she started offering behaviors on her own! She even tried some new stuff with her paws and of course she got a massive reward:D We are still behind on the assignments but now she learns new stuff in one session. I didn’t cut so much in the video so you can see for yourself that she can go for a really long time now and not just once is she laying down or walking away! I’m so happy and she is so much fun to work with!!
The first one when we’re playing is it just me and no toys, I haven’t found a toy or a treat yet she could kill for. We are trying different things but the best thing she like so far is to kind of wressle and at the same time tug on my arm. Which I like too (well, not so much the tugging part, it looks like I’m cutting myself on the arms and hands^^), she gets like really hardcore and the first one to give up is always me:D
The second one is of our second session and you can see she is trying different things and I think she has come really far compared to our first video:)
The third one we did have quite some problems with. I tried putting a toy on the floor and as soon as I stopped her from getting it she just got all confused and laid down. I noticed her paws were getting really sweaty so I decided to just shape it in from scratch and started to click every time she got back up from the floor and then click for just standing. I clicked really often and she got standing up really quickly. She remembered that I would click when she was moving her hind legs in the other assignment so she tried that and after that it was a piece of cake for her to back!
The fourth one was kind of easy for her I think since she doesn’t like to be still^^ Even the first time she got up on the book with her paws she moved her hind legs sideways so all I had to do was just to click. She doesn’t like doing a whole turn though, she likes to look at me and when she is standing with her back to me she can’t do that.
We started clicking for paws on higher objects just today so we don’t have that on the video but she was really good and tried different things at first but then she got the idea. Now she is resting but when she is awake we will continue and I’m so excited, she is finally turning out to be the dog that I’ve always dreamt of!:D
Indeed, a very great progress! She seems she got it now! Beginnings are always hard, I know that with every new puppy, I always feel like I will need a whole year to teach her one trick. But giving them the time they need is very important -- the more you try to rush things, the longer it will take to get somewhere. It’s very important to not worry to teach that or another trick and put any kind of pressure as it only creates conflict. It’s important to give them time and progress when they’re ready. Looks like yours is ready NOW. She definitely looks very active, happy and smart pup! Great job! Don’t worry about the tricks, you will catch up in no time now, she is doing really great for just the first/second session. And she is too funny with her growling attacks, Le was exactly the same, but it got too painful at one point, so she only gets to do it on very special occasions now 🙂 Try to transfer her love for tugging on your sleeves to toys, she sure looks to like that brush! 🙂
We are very late! Mason had a very bad dose of kennel cough over the course of this homework, he is much better now and we are lucky the others never got it.
Here is a link to our work…we have more paw crossing to work on and the pivot…I am clicking for him facing away from me and it helps but more work needed 🙂
It seems something strange went on with the sound? I will have to try repost as the sound is out of time to the video, I think!
He sure loves to play! Nice back up and 2on2off too, paw crosses are going well too, maybe focus on pivoting now as we will need that also for the next task.
on #5 in lesson 2
Stella watches my hand holding the treats as I stand next to her the whole time she is in 2o2o… and after I release her too… won’t take her eyes off it
So its still a hand cue, the hand throwing the treat… she won’t go forward or leave me until my hand moves to toss the treat
suggestions?
Try to vary your position, so that she can’t cue from it so much. For example, try to be ahead of her. Say “go” and have her come get a treat from your hand. Also, did you work on stays with distractions already? Will she stay if you drop a treat? If yes, have her wait after the drop, then say “go” and let her get it. You need to vary situations (when, where, how and if at all you throw a treat, where you are, what you’re doing etc.) all the time, so that the only thing that stays the same when releasing her is a “go” -- don’t let her cue from anything else by varying everything else all the time.