Wow, it's your 5th lesson already! I hope you had great holidays and you are all ready for your new list:
1. heeling: make the "glued to the leg" exercise more like heeling: still do different kind of turns, but also some normal forward walking in different speeds (slow, normal, fast) to teach them to adjust and keep the right position in every situation
2. figure 8 backward: tell the dog to go into heel position and start spinning as we were doing on the target, then very suddenly stop and step back with the other leg (if the dog is at left side - with right leg), you can also make a gesture with a left hand to try to get them to keep circling below the heeling position, eventually all the way around your leg, so that they come backwards between your legs back into front position. If the dog insists on staying in heel position, you can help with the hand a little bit, lure his head out (left for 90 degrees if the dog is on left side) and say back to have them back up in your direction. Step back with the other leg enough to have them back up between your legs. Reward and tell them to heel on the other side (right) and repeat the process. As soon as you get some smoothness with that, stop rewarding for coming in between, always first tell them to come to the other leg and reward at your side in order to avoid having them back up too far - they need to stay very close to your legs all the time.
You can see the steps at 2:51 of this video:
3. skateboarding: try to find a skateboard (kids department) and reward for making it move with front feet. Don't reward 4on, but 2 or 3, the criteria is they make a skateboard move.
4. cik&cap: find a table leg, dog-food container, traffic cone or similar and shape the dog to go around it - first just a step, then two or three circles, both directions (ideally, reward both right from the start if you are getting it - if not, start with just one, but then on one session, don't reward that direction anymore but wait for the other)
5. fade the object for side legs: if the dog is already heaving both legs up at the same time, click&reward that before he even touches the object, so that he understands the idea is picking them up, not touching something. At the same time, try changing objects as much as possible. Going to vertical objects shouldn't be too difficult, then go to "empty" objects like a chair that looks like an object, but doesn't really offer much support, so at this point, the dog is already free-standing, the object is just there for mental support. Next step in a table leg and then you don't need an object anymore. For a free handstand, you go through the same process, only that it takes longer as it's physically more demanding - you can start working on it, but do not rush it, especially not with young puppies!
6. don't forget on recalls and playing, stays with distractions (you can combine it all in a really fun game), try the hug on a plastic bottle or something similar that is light enough for the dog to hold it and have them hold it independently, add more steps to backing up from you, tape the 4in the bowl trick again so that I can see to what size you managed to get: the smaller the better!
And most importantly: have fun!
Hi Silvia,
Well, I can’t believe how much easier cik&cap is to train the second time around! 🙂 Remember all the trouble I had training this to Elsa? She never wanted to make the turn away from me & kept switching directions. Then I tried your “rapid fire” method of clicking for every step with her head down all the way around & it worked like a charm! So here’s Zephyr’s cik&cap. 2nd session for “cap” & first session for “cik”. I left this unedited so it’s a bit long… 🙂
I do have a bit of a problem with the verbal cue. When Zephyr was younger I let him watch me work with Elsa doing cik&cap jump sequences. Not a good idea 🙁 Elsa’s quickness sent him over the top with excitement so I stopped letting him watch. But he hasn’t forgotten & gets frantic with excitement & barks when he hears “seek” or “zap” like you see in this video when I said it once. Not sure what to do…I really would like to use the same verbal cues (it’s taken me forever to remember them :)) but maybe it’s not possible? Wow, these BCs don’t forget a thing! 🙂
Thanks!
Oh, that’s crazy! Hard to believe he still starts to bark on zap even when you’re calmly working on a new trick. Definitely great generalization skills!!! 🙂 What if you try to say it, really calmly, while tossing him treats around the object? It would sure be good if you could use the same cues, it’s not easy to switch from one to another when running both dogs… So definitely worth trying, but huh, he sure reacts to it immediately, even in completely different setting… You could try if he is fine with tic&tap and then use that for Elsa too, I think she wouldn’t mind a mild change like that (I changed from cik to cap and then to tap without a problem). But not sure if that’s different enough for Zephyr? Great job with circling as such!
Thanks, Silvia! I’ll try your suggestions and hope for the best! 🙂
Silvia—I think your idea of saying the cues calmly while tossing treats around the stack of paint cans is working!!! Zephyr sort of squealed at first but because his head was down & there were more treats to gobble down, he didn’t have time to bark. 🙂 After a couple times around like this I could say “seek” or “zap” with a hand signal & he did complete circles, then multiple circles. And I think because he was a little charged up hearing the cues (but not over the top crazy) his circles were tight & fast! His body was curved around & making contact with the paint cans the whole way around! YAY, I’m so excited…I did not want to have to remember different cues! 🙂
Thank you so much!!!!
Great! Very cool it doesn’t send him over the top anymore -- but just enough for extra speed! Doesn’t get any better as that! 🙂
oops…meant to say…”almost” making contact with the paint cans… 🙂
Some footage from yesterdays training session. Bisous first time meeting a skateboard -- it amazes me that this little dog doesn’t seem to fear anything, she just jumped on 🙂 My grown up Tibetian is much more careful -- she examines new stuff closely before jumping or stepping on.
Cik&Cap is still very basic, but she moves around the cone closely, so we will just go on a little with throwing treats.
What we don’t manage until now: She cannot hold things with one paw -- I taught the same trick to Szia and she understood the concept right away, I just asked for the “criss-cross” cues from paw crossing and she knew it is about holding whatever I put in between her paws. Strange! And as she always offered I sit up, I just continued to put it right to her chest -- she gets better with it, the last try was the best one. I guess the excercise from lesson 6 to grab something with the muzzle and then fix it with the paw will not be possible if I don’t find any other way to make her understand…
Right side heeling also needs some more precision, she is sometimes further away from the leg than on left side.
OMG…I’m still smiling after watching your video! 🙂 Bisous is just too cute doing all her tricks! Great job!!!
Great job with the skateboard, she sure seems to love it! Some really cool side legs already and a really nice, long, fast and straight back up -- perfect!!! Beautiful heeling and great focus too! For a handstand, try to reward with a lower head (on the floor ideally) and closer to the wall. Getting there with cik&cap and a hug! And yes, you need a good independent hug before trying to have them pick it up to hug. What a cool backward 8! Try to always reward at your side, so that she learns to stay close to the legs all the time. And you can also try smaller steps next, so that she needs to turn more&more on her own.
Hi Silvia,
Oh I’m behind classes… I had time to work on Cik/Cap today for the first time, and also begin working on “hug object”. For Cik/Cap I used “aim for it” or “click for action/treat for position”. Petey turns right if I point with my left hand, and turns left if I point with my right hand (you can’t see my arms in the video unfortunately).
Any feedback please! Just a reminder I am not an agility person so in particular if I am doing anything that’ll hurt me later with cik/cap please let me know!
Doh! I just watched some other students videos. I didn’t read carefully enough to notice the dog should go around and around multiple times not just once. Oops!!
Great hugs! -- Especially those with one paw. With two paws, he doesn’t go around it enough just yet, so work some more on that, but you can already try independent hold with one leg, with a small plastic bottle for example. I think he could do that! And yes, for cik&cap, we’re for now working on teaching them to stay close to the object the whole time, doing several circles around, ideally bending their back around it and learning that tight is good -- so reward close for that exercise. Should be easy now that he understands going around it one time. There is also another cik&cap exercise we do in Foundation class that looks similar to what you’re doing now, I call it wrap&go -- but even there, you still want them to do a full circle and reward in the direction from where he came from, doing full 360 turn, not just 180.
Our skateboard work. As you can see, Trumpet likes to swings his butt, lol.
and Tat:
Great! Trumpet is so funny, he looks so deliberate. Tat still seems surprised with the movement -- but no fear! Try to reward with a lower head, I normally toss a treat on a skateboard. It gives you more of a bow position and they can push it better that way as when standing straight up.
Here’s our session with the skateboard. Everything outside is still pretty icy so we don’t have a very good place to practice this but I wanted to get some advice on how this looks so far, & if I should be doing anything differently.
Thanks!
Looks great to me! Really confident and great style, going into a bow some and all. Try to reward in a way to promote this position that he offers naturally: so lower and more back, not forward and up.
Silvia, I hope you don’t mind if I post this. Since I don’t need any advice with it but only want to show off, I thought it might be okay. 🙂 All of this video was shot on one day, Byrdie’s first day on a skateboard. I didn’t even mean for him to get on it, I only bought a skateboard because he goes berserk when someone goes by on one and I thought I could try to desensitize him. But the minute I put it on the ground, he jumped up on it and we were off and running.
And he still goes berserk when someone goes by on a skateboard. 🙂
Great video!!
So cool!!! Byrdie sure is a natural skateboarder! 🙂
Very cool! He looks so pretty on his skateboard! And yeah, it unfortunately doesn’t help with their attitude to real skateboarders… For that, I think YOU need to ride that skateboard!
I know, that’s what I had originally planned to do, but he just jumped right up on it as soon as it hit the ground and rode it across the garage, so we changed our plan. Byrdie always has a better idea for what we should do. 🙂