November 17, 2017 – Learning Puzzle Prequel

The Brain Games project continues!

So apparently I missed this part originally, but I went back to fix that. These are basic ‘getting to know your dog’ exercises.

Left or Right Pawed-threw a ball or cookie and watched which foot was taken off with first for numerous repetitions.

Chest Hair Curl – does the swirl on their chest curl counterclockwise or clockwise?

Yawn Copy – does the dog yawn back?

There was also a test to see which eye your dog prefers to work off of, but it involved desensitizing a blindfold and sending the dog over a jump, among other exercises. That would be a long term project for Sei and Perrin, so we skipped it.

These traits were then compared to some service dog studies.

Perrin:

Left or Right Pawed? Left? Ambidextrous? There was a slight preference for left, but it was not very strong. Not sure if the difference is statistically significant.

Chest Hair Curl? Clockwise

Yawn Copy? No

Sei:

Left or Right Pawed? Right

Chest Hair Curl? Counter-Clockwise

Yawn Copy? No

With the yawning, I have tried this quite a lot over the last few months. Neither Perrin nor Sei yawn if I yawn, but I often yawn if one of them yawn.

The other two characteristics are kind of interesting, compared to the service dog studies. They found that there was a correlation between right-pawed dogs and twice the success rate in service dog programs, while dogs with a counter-clockwise chest whorl were also twice as successful in service dog programs. Clockwise whorls were more likely to be anxious. The idea behind those was that right pawed dogs are bolder and inquisitive, while another study suggested that right pawed dogs had an easier time understanding language while left pawed dogs are more fearful and reactive. Perrin can be a bit dog reactive, and he isn’t terribly verbal, however he is certainly bold and inquisitive. Sei on the other hand is much more cautious and prone to anxiety. I wouldn’t go so far as to say fearful or reactive, but he is definitely less bold and confident than Perrin is. Sei is however, much more verbal than Perrin, even at Sei’s young age. These differences do seem typical long Sei’s and Perrin’s breed characteristics though. Sei is a more observant, sensitive, thoughtful herding breed, while Perrin is a bolder, confident sport breed mix.

I’m not sure how useful comparing any individual dog to those studies is, however. I don’t actually know where to find the original studies, so don’t know how they were done, or on what dogs they were done on. I would guess that this study was looking at the differences in left vs right pawed dogs and the whorl direction in dogs of the same breed/type (to my knowledge the most common service dog breeds are labs and goldens, both sporting breeds). I would bet that the differences between dogs of different breeds are much larger than the differences between dogs who are left/right pawed or with different whorl directions.

 

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November 16, 2017- Learning Puzzle 11

We have been working on lots of things lately, but nothing worth commenting too much on. I am still slowly but surely plugging away at the brain games as I get the chance. Some are more elaborate to set up, or need many many repetitions to complete. This one however was very easy.

I sat the dog in front of me, giving eye contact, then turned and looked at a doorway and acted surprised, then recorded what the dog did.

Here is Perrin and Sei:

 

Turns out the answer was: not a whole lot! Perrin did look in the same direction briefly both times but then quit, and Sei preferred jumping on me. I plan to try this again with Sei using a doorway where something interesting occasionally happens, and see if he has the same reaction.

ETA: I tested this a few more times with Sei in various places in the house, and this is pretty representative of his reactions.

November 6, 2017- Training Log

Yesterday I spent a good portion of the day coming up with 8 week outlines to work with to use Perrin and Sei as case study dogs for my canine fitness trainer course.

Sei’s:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1O1eyhDNjAw9UcFgOdwpx8HBGduO1bpXyJcp4Ci0mIjA/edit?usp=sharing

Its not quite done yet. I need to come up with the verbiage to fill in the specific goals section for a ‘general conditioning’ intention.

Perrin’s:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YYC6RrRBS9awi3DlyjKA-JuzO4FK_JloFUpolE1N440/edit?usp=sharing

Today we did our prescribed exercises for the day and did the necessary recording, as well as take baseline photos.

Sei played in the laneway today! Sei’s play is awesome in the back yard (the floors in the house are really too slippery to be safe for much play), but I have known for a while that I really need to get out of that space and start building those skills in new environments.

From past experience in new environments, and having watched how Sei’s toy/play drive developed in a familiar environment as he aged, I knew that when entering a new environment the following would likely happen:

• I would have personal play/chase me play first. This seems to be the last type of play Sei loses the ability to do in new and or distracting environments.
• I would have chasing a toy. The next easiest type of play for Sei. He will chase a floppy tug toy, and lightly grab it, but with no strong hold or tug. A ball or a frisbee rolled on the ground would be chased and pounced on, but not picked up or carried around.
• In really comfortable environments, Sei will intensely go after a tug/ball/frisbee following me and his toy around with strong focus, often jumping up, barking at me.

Each of those categories have ranges as well, from having to be convinced that the type of play in question would be a fun thing to do, to laser focused on that play and playing intensely.

For on-leash trips out, I had only taken a tug before, mainly for user-friendliness reasons. Right now, tug ranks above balls, but below frisbees. When out in the suburbs, he will chase them and bite at them, but he hasn’t done any good tugging yet (class settings is a different story).  Today I took a disc out to the laneway to see how that went.

At first, Sei was more interested in sniffing than me, but I got him chasing me around fairly quickly. Then I got him chasing the disc in my hand, then doing tiny catches so he had to move to catch it. And he really got into it! He did some spins and sits for catches, and by the time I had to run to get my bus, he was super in the game! We were only out there for 3 minutes! Whoohoo!

November 5th, 2017- Learning Puzzle 5

We finally finished the two cup game today! I did take video, but it takes forever to edit, and there isn’t much value in watching that many repetitions. Today we did the:

• Pointing at cup with stick
• Tilting head at correct cup
• Looking with just the eyes

Game	Sei	Perrin
Tilting Head	4/5	5/5
Pointing with Stick	5/5	5/5
Looking with Eyes	4/5	1/5

They both did really well on the point with the stick and the head tilt. I was kind of surprised on the head tilt, that seemed more subtle than the elbow point that the struggled with. The only difference between them in this whole thing was the looking with the eyes. Perrin didn’t really understand that, while Sei definitely did understand. Interesting!

From their overall result on all variations of the game, I would think that it is safe to say that both of them are certainly paying attention and understanding my human gestures in this context.

November 4, 2017 – Training Log

Today Sei and I worked on some more basic shaping things. The start of leg weaves, go arounds, going into his crate. Outside we worked on some disc as we had a brief reprieve from the rain. We worked on Sei going around the back of me to set up for another disc throw, and he did great! My roller throws need to get a lot better though. Unfortunately it will be the last day for a while. Even today the yard was a bit too slick and we are going to get even more rain

Perrin and I worked on some heeling basics. He was SO enthusiastic today, I wish I had it on video.

Neither of the dog’s sessions were planned, and for that reason, not much concrete progress was made, but we all had fun and some energy was burned. I do need to get better at planning before I train though.

I need to just pick a couple of small things and work on them. Trying to come up with a whole training plan is overwhelming and feels really restrictive (even though I can just change it at any time). I’m thinking small steps will breed better habits.

November 3, 2017 Training Log

No video today.

Today when I got home for class I got a bag of hot dogs, a clicker and went to the basement to do some training. We relocated the wire crate to the basement, so its easier to work with Perrin because Sei now isn’t able to do his best to destroy the soft crate.

Perrin and Sei both worked on backing up. For Sei, this was mostly just rear foot targeting. Perrin’s current back up is not continuous and he won’t go very far so I am reteaching it with the platform. It was originally taught with body pressure. Sei also worked on shaping going into his crate, and a bit of unstable front platform fitness work.

November 2, 2017- Training Log

Today Sei and I did our first shaping session on ‘back up’. I needed to get my shit together and not mix training methods in a single session, and keep an eye on the time so I don’t run a single session too long, but Sei did really well! He really understood what we were shaping, impressively well for a first session! Going forward, I will be teaching the rear foot target properly, and staying close to the mat, only putting very small increments of distance between Sei and the mat at a time. This will encourage a confident and continuous back up, as well as a straight one through muscle memory. What I did here (some horrible mix of targeting and free shaping) resulted in a noodly back up that is a bit hesitant (mostly a result of my bad timing, clicking when he wasn’t moving because I was getting greedy for distance, and also because he isn’t sure how much backing up is what I want).

I will be honest that there was a bit of an ulterior motive to doing this the ‘quick and dirty’ way rather than the right way today. Back up was the last trick we needed for Sei’s intermediate and advanced trick dog title, and I wanted to get an acceptable rep on video. Which we did! And our video was accepted! (I was able to submit both together because so many of the tricks overlapped). Sei is now Avid’s Say Geronimo ATD. I can also now submit this for his AKC title as well.

I am not super satisfied with this title. We did meet the requirements of the title, but I don’t feel that any of the tricks were ‘advanced’ for me to teach or Sei to learn. The only trick that that took more than a session or two to teach were the distance work and the peanut roll. The trick lists can be a bit wonky on difficulty, so I took advantage of that in order to get Sei’s advance title before the AKC grandfathering ends. It saves me money, but I wonder if I should have waited until I had taught tricks that I am more proud of, because I kind of feel like we didn’t meet the spirit of the title.

November 1, 2017- Learning Puzzle 5

We are continuing on with puzzle 5 from the  Brain Games- Puzzles for Canines   course (see previous post for details).

Game	Sei	Perrin
Facing	5/5	4/5
Tapping the Cup	5/5	5/5
Pointing with Foot	5/6	5/5

Both dogs really understood all of these gestures, consistently choosing the correct mug. Only 4 more to go to complete this game, but they are hard ones!

October 31, 2017- Learning Puzzle 5

We are still flooded out of the backyard, so I am continuing to skip the puzzles that need an outdoor space. Today’s puzzle from the  Brain Games- Puzzles for Canines   course is meant to test the degree to which the dog follows different kinds of human gestures.

The set up:

I am using two identical mugs to hide treats under, so I can execute the following scenarios.

1. The pretest- this will be completed only once.With the dog in a sit stay in front of me, I pretend to put a cookie under both cups. I only put a cookie under one of them. Look at your feet and release the dog. Record what the dog does.
2. Tap the container with a cookie under it  and release the dog.
3. Point at the correct container. The rest is the same.
4. Point with elbow. The rest is the same.
5. Point with foot. The rest is the same.
6. Point with a stick. The rest is the same.
7. Face body towards it. The rest is the same.
8. Tilt head towards it. The rest is the same.
9. Look at the right one with the eyes only.
10. Put on sunglasses and repeat the last test.

Each test (except the first) is repeated at least 5 times and the results recorded. These take a really long time given how many reps there are. Especially as Sei’s sit stay isn’t really proofed to this level yet and we are working that concurrently, so his turns take twice as long as Perrin’s. Today we got the pretest done, along with pointing with arm and elbow. Here are the results:

Pretest

Sei and Perrin both went right to the correct cup.

The Rest

Here are the rest of the results from today in chart form:

Game	Sei	Perrin
Pointing with Hand	8/9	6/6
Pointing with Elbow	1/6	3/8

On the first go with the pointed hand, Sei was hand targeting for a bit until he understood the game, but he was consistent on the understanding that the hand side is the paying side. Perrin also understood the pointing well.

Neither Sei nor Perrin really understood the elbow pointing. Not sure if it was something I was doing wrong or if they are both just similar that way.

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