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!
I am calling my 15 week puppy at least 10 times a day and he is responding well. When the other dogs (3 of them) are around they come too. Then the puppy would rather interact with them instead of me. Should I keep him away from the other dogs? That is hard to do in our house. It is very open.
the puppy is not very food motivated and the clicker training is going slower than I would like. Making some liver brownies tomorrow, perhaps he will like those better.
He has learned to sit with the clicker. He has so far put one foot on the plate, and one foot in a box. His attention span is not very long amd he wanders off. Should I put him on leash and force him to stay close or should I stop the clicker training and end with a fun game of tug when his attention wanders?
I always keep my dogs together, but I never had this problem, they all think playing with other dogs is cool, but playing with me is even better. I think they partly learn that attitude from other dogs, so maybe, sometimes play/work with your other dogs with the puppy around, so that he can see how important it is for other dogs.
Forcing him to work with you is never a good idea, it needs to be his choice. When my puppy wanders off, I just stop the session (bringing the toy out at that moment would mean rewarding for wandering off), try again later and try to end it before it happens. If he prefers toys over food, just include more playing in between. Le was like this, so I played with her every two clicks to keep her focus AND actually especially in order to let her know that a treat is a good sign -- the toy is coming soon too! Somewhere on a way, she got just as food motivated as toy motivated and she doesn’t care anymore, food or toys, let’s just work! 🙂 Also, what worked well with her was throwing her treats (well, I actually use kibble…) around, chasing them was part of the reward. Also, try to work with him in enviroment that is not too exciting, so if he wanders off, there isn’t too many fun things to do. And, it might be easier to keep his focus in a first place then. Keep reinforcement rate high, sessions short and intense, with lots of playing and don’t worry about teaching that or another trick, you can always catch up later, the most important thing you want to teach him that working with you is fun fun fun. So -- have fun! 🙂
Tried the box exercise & he got all 4 feet in after a few minutes of offering me different combinations 2 front feet, hind legs, 3 , spinning round with his front legs in the box & back legs moving (he learnt hat from the heeling dvd) etc -- at one stage he was offering so many different behaviours that I thought I would never capture & deliver the reward when all 4 legs were in the box. Being his first session, i clicked & reward for all interaction with the box. Is that correct? When he had all 4 in & stayed in, I jackpoted him.
After a play break, i tried the plate -- he is stuck on having just the front paws on it & spinning round with his back feet -- obviously he loved the heeling dVD! Not sure what to do after this……
Sounds great! It goes really fast with dogs who were clicked for using hind feet before, yes! Those who weren’t will take a little longer, but again, don’t worry, give them the time they need, you need to start somewhere! And yes, sure, you first reward any interaction with the box and then slowly select for more&more feet in. Once he knows it’s about 4 feet in, you’re ready for a smaller box!
For a plate touch, he is obviously too advanced, jumping steps and doing his next homework already 🙂 No problem, just focus on other tricks more or, you can also try the paw touches to other objects, your hands etc.
Solved my problem -- Tili did not like the dry kibble, soaked it slightly so the outside was soft and now we are making great progress -- able to get a high frequency of reward as she will take the treat and she goes on trying for more. She is now putting both feet onto the plate when I put the plate down. Will start the box later.
Great! That was an easy solution!
I would like to show you our video from #4. The first session was terrible. Azja was not very hungry 🙂 Next sessions were much better. On the third session she put all legs in quite small box. Yesterday we have started #3. I don’t know if I do it right so I ask for any advices.
That is a very cute border collie! I would vary where I place my food after the click -- sometimes drop it to your left outside of the box, sometimes drop it to your right outside of the box (behind your pup). I try to balance rewarding in position and out of position so that my dog has to move around more -- each time they go to get the reward out of the box gives them a new opportunity to drive back into the box and make that “clickable” decision. I’d probably lower my criteria for a few sessions so that you can have a higher rate of reward. If I have learned one thing from Silvia’s videos it’s that a high ROR really, really helps with learning and attitude development in the early stages of training.
Looks great! You’re doing it all all right yes 🙂 For the box, you can indeed do some more treat throwing, as Mary suggests. I do reward in the position once the dog is offering it, but at this stage, throwing treats will give you more action to click AND chasing treats as such is fun for the puppies.
Thank you for advices! I will post our next video after we do everything. I don’t have any problem with recall. Today on walk we saw three running roes and Azja came to me immediately 🙂 So I am very proud 🙂 Azja does “frog” naturally so I only have to catch that 🙂 I have one more little question: I love the toy which is on a picture. We don’t have that one in Poland. Do you know where I can buy it?
No problems with the recall is probably the most important thing! But then, you need to reward when things go right as you can’t reward when things go wrong 🙂 That’s a nice toy yes as it amortizes the tugging a little -- very important with Bi! 🙂 It’s from Karlie, I’m sure you can find it on net.
Weŕe working on “all four in a box” right now and it is very funny. We tried to teach him this about a month back but he would not really get it even though we used a big box. Now I realiced it was a lack of rear end avareness and when we tried again now he was offering back feet allways first :). He lifts back feet and kicks the box and goes with back feet in the box and scraches with a hind leg on the side of the box 😀 So cute, so funny. Now I do have him getting all four in the box and weŕe progressing towards smaller boxes.
I have some video footage and I going to see if I can edit it a bit and get it here then 🙂
Sounds great! Knowing where hind feet are really helps with this exercise! Looking forward to see the video!
Hi Silvia,
Do you mind if the participants post their videos just to help each others to see how they are going and improving? For example, Agata helped me by her video.
Thank you
Céline
Of course I don’t mind, participants should be posting videos! 🙂
This is our first video -- Where we are starting out. So then I post another video later of when we are ‘done’?
I had a lot of fun with these activities! The frog part is Tibby’s first try. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but she surprised me and just did it. Yesterday Tibby put all 4 feet on the little cake pan and also just her hind feet, but I didn’t catch it on video. She doesn’t have very much rear end awareness. Let me know what you think!
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Hey, that frog is great! You make it look too easy! Great job also with the box and the plate, but do try to help a little bit less with your action and movement. To get more action from her, try throwing treats vs. making her move by your movements as it’s hard to get rid of those, the dog gets too dependent on them.
You can post your next video whenever you want to show a progress, ask a question or you’re stuck somewhere.
Ah that makes sense. I’m sort of a hyper person, so I’ll have to watch my movements. I just get so excited when I’m training Tibby! 🙂
Ok… #5 is not progressing like I wish it were. Can my 7 y.o. bc be too…stiff for that? I don’t even remember her offering the behavior as a pup … Is anyone here with an older dog stalled with #5?
Thanks!
M-E
My two are 3 and 2,5 and we are stalled with #5 too! I’m trying the pillow, but all I am getting them offering all sorts of behaviours like all four paws on, spinning around it, nosing it and flipping the pillow etc, but NOT stretching over it. I have never seen my two stretch like a frog. My two, also do not offer laying on their side (so I’ve never been able to teach them to play dead or to roll over!) So, to make a long story short, I’m having problems with #5 too 😉
And they never lie on one hip, stretching legs to one side? My dogs do that when tired or hot, so it was easy to start there and shape a roll over and play dead position. You can start from a simply weight shift and go from there. Or, you can try to find a bigger pillow or one of those exercise balls, click for front feet on and then NOT click for 4 feet on but for any stretching over (as trying to climb on it, but only if hind feet stay on the ground).
It is very difficult for some adult dogs. La was 7 or 8 when I trained her that and I got it pretty quickly, but with Bu, I almost gave up, then came up with the idea to first try it in play dead position and then went from there, that worked.
OK :o) Gonna keep trying. But we’re in the process of selling the house, so trick training has unfortunately gone down in terms of priority…for now!
I’ll keep trying!
Hvala!
Here is Kinetic starting the top of bowl. I’m have a lot of problems with frog. I keep getting the push forward.
Also, is there supposed to be info on the dashboard? I have none and I just don’t want to miss anything.
Cute! For on the plate trick, you actually just want front feet, though. And for the box trick, you want all 4 🙂 For the frog, you can also try one of the other versions that we were discussing, depends on a dog which version is the best.
The homeworks will be posted every 14 days just as that one, as a new page to a puppy classroom. For additional explanations and discussions, see comments -- nothing on dashboard no.
Oh gee. Ok. So I’ll do the box with four. Whoops;).
I’ll try frog again tonight and post a video.
Thanks!