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!
Here is a video of Boom and a box. He won’t stop in the box, he just walks thru it. I can force a stop by putting food in his face but really wanted him to stop on his own. There is also some leave the treats work.
My border did a lot of the circling too and my pup wanted to bounce in and out at first. I made sure to toss the treat next to their foot in the box- never fed from me until they understood better. Then the box is a fun zone! It sort of looks like you are late on the treat too. Sometimes the dog is being treated as they step out- probably helping them to think that walking through is good?
I didn’t watch the whole thing, but think about when you are clicking. Also, maybe a larger box would be good since he has a long stride and is more likely to get rewarded for being in box if he can’t stride out of it. Or even rewarding when he pauses in box. After my dog figured out going in box meant treats, I stopped rewarding walking in and out type behavior. I waited for his pauses.
As his focus is sometimes hard to keep, I would definitely try to click more. Head in the box is good enough to start, click that, throw a treat away so that you can click again when he is nearing it again. I start rewarding in the box once I have all 4in, until then, I prefer to throw it away and have them come back. If he is just walking through, find a bigger box, so that he will definitely be with all 4in before front feet can go out again (simply because it’s so big) and then you’ll have something to jackpot and then it’s easy to go from there, switching to smaller&smaller boxes once the dog gets the idea.
Ooo didn’t think about rewarding in the box. I will have to start doing that. Spur gets the idea of getting into the box, but she has started sitting in it which I know she won’t be able to do once the box gets smaller, so I’m trying to figure that out as well. I’ll try to get video up later this week. We’ve lost a lot of training time due to AKC Nationals, but we will catch up.
Boom will not learn a “down”. He got “sit” in about a minute but down is a problem.
In this video I am just lucky to get a down and then frog legs!
Wow, that was fast! This is the first time you work on frog legs??? He is doing great!
Frog is quite a challenge. Cache and I have had a lot of frustration while keeping our adventure FUN while we both learn #5. Thanks to previous postings, we have tried pillows and comforters. In our video, I have managed to capture Cache’s left leg movement, hoping she will outstretch her leg or even both legs!
I don’t know why my video has so much static noise…if I manage to post it!
Take it easy, no need to stress over stupid froggy legs!!! 🙂 It’s very hard with some dogs, so it’s good to try different things, explore a little bit and see what works best. This could work, take it easy, see where it takes you and most importantly: enjoy the journey! It’s really no hurry with that trick, I included it in a first lesson only to catch those puppies we have in a class still very young as it’s so much easier with young puppies.
Silvia, The larger box is a good idea. Actually all the suggestions were great. I will work on all of them.
Dianne
Finally posting my video. I have the heeling and tricks videos, so we have been doing some of the prep work over the past few months. (She’s turning one year old this week)
1. Recalls -- she’s good. I’ve been very careful to not call her if I can’t reward her or if I think she won’t come. So the recall still has power and I plan to maintain it.
2. The perch work -- she’s pretty good, my current criteria is to click for movement of her back legs. She kind of relies on my position to prompt her to move them, so I’m working on really praising her for moving on her own. Also, she doesn’t like to move away from me, so I’m playing around with my position so that she realizes she can move and not matter where I am she will get rewarded. We still have some work to do here!
3. She’s very good at leaving food, so I didn’t include any of that.
4. She’s now good at getting all four feet in two different (but about the same sized) boxes. Our next step is to find some smaller boxes to play with.
5. She doesn’t do a natural frog position, so we are gradually working on it. We are still in the early stages.
(The video is a little bit long -- so I speeded up some of the clips -- it’s funny, but you can still see what we are doing. It just seems like I have a super fast dog!)
Looks good! For the perch work, give her time, don’t make her move by your movement, but wait and click what you can get without your movement -- you are getting quite some steps even with you being static, so I would just work from there. Can she also do one paw touch, we’ll need that too? Frog, I can’t see well from that angle, but I do think I see some froggy legs 🙂
Hi, Silvia.
I know this is not part of our homework, but I wanted to ask…
Da Vinci likes to “vault” off of us -- bounces up and pushes off of our stomach/ chest.
Callie likes to “bounce” straight up…sometimes over my head or sometimes to give kisses.
We have been trying to discourage these behaviors, but now I am wondering if we can turn them into tricks since both dogs are so determined NOT to give them up. Will we be doing any tricks in this class that these behaviors may work in our favor?
Thanks,
Kristin
No, we won’t be doing much jumping tricks as we have some very young puppies. You could, of course, name those behaviours and use them as tricks or even for rewarding -- and of course ask them not to do it if not asked. But if they like to do it that much, you could then let them jump up as a reward anytime when you don’t have any toys/treats around, it is a very handy form of a reward and a great way to put the dog in working mode before the run, so I would definitely go for it.
Here is my version…
Wow, great job! That’s a VERY small bowl already! And what a nice frog! Did you get all that in that week or you started some of it before the class started? That way or another: very impressive! 🙂
I just read your post about the plate. I also thought it was 4 feet on the plate. You only want the 2 front feet on it or one front foot and throw the food. So do you want them stepping onto and off it? or stay on it with 2 front feet. as they step off do you want their back feet stepping on it or over it. What is this leading up to?
I also read your comment about the disks. My Pilates For Pooches DVD uses the air cushions. fitdogs.net
I told her to throw the food in order to prevent hind feet coming up too as the dog has been clicked for that before. Otherwise, you can reward in a position too. What we’re looking for is a simple paw touch -- just like a nose touch, but with a paw 🙂 We’ll be using it for perch work, sit up, crossing paws etc.
Here is Frog Session 1 -- I had some trouble getting her to stretch both hinds at once. Any recommendations?
Looks great! She mostly can’t stretch her left foot as she is lying on her left hip, so I would just keep clicking the right leg and jackpot when she stretches more forward, goes into the straight down position and then we can already see her left leg coming out too -- just jackpot those occasions, like at 0:55 of your video for example.
I hope those who have the same problem see your video, it shows very well how to progress from “lying on one hip, stretching one leg only” phase: look for moments as at 0:55 and then it’s easy to go from there.
He has learned this since we got the homework. I’ve approached frog a number of ways, and it is still hard for him, but he is getting that I want him to stretch out his hind legs, and now with a roll under his hips, he can do it. Without the roll, he flops to his side and then will give me only one leg. He likes getting into the bowl!
Wow, he is a fast learner! It’s perfectly o.k. to use a roll. To eventually get rid of it, you can reward one leg stretch too and look for moments you can see at 0:55 of “Rblackmer” video of her Terv puppy, she has a similar problem.