Dog-est August – Training Log – August 20, 2018

Perrin

Today we worked on our pivot for TEAM. I didn’t have his regular platform, so I had to get creative. This is one of the TEAM exercises that we struggle with the most. Perrin is often delayed in his pivot: I move, then he moves a second later. So today I focused on going back and moving less, and rewarding for a smaller amount of motion. I had some hiccups in inconsistent criteria and pushing the limits a bit, but his pivots at the end of the session were much much better than the ones at the beginning!

Sei

I also decided to try some pivots with Sei. He has never any type of pivoting work before, and while he has done front foot targeting, he is scared of metallic noises. I figured that he was going to be quite uncertain about that pot, so I was just planning on shaping a step up onto the pot. In true Sei form, he decided to prove me wrong. He showed no concern at all about the pot, so I thought I would try a little pocket hand, but he found that offensive. When I just let him try for himself, he just started pivoting like a champ. I have no explanation for this, other than he must have learned from watching Perrin. (Also noted: Don’t pet him while working! He doesn’t like that!)

We also worked a little bit on finding front, and finding heel with Perrin’s platform. It is a little long for Sei, but not terrible width wise. We have been shaping the ‘get onto the platform’ behaviour for a few days, and today I decided to try adding in my body positioning. It went pretty well! (Another advantage to a tailed Aussie: you have a built-in ‘straight’ indicator, haha!).  I will have to decide whether I want stands or sits. Perrin definitely works better with stands (sits are a lot of work for him and sap his enthusiasm really quickly), but I think sits may work better for Sei. He does them naturally in fronts, but not in heels. I don’t want an auto sit for Rally Free, but you can give extra cues there to indicate a stand. I’m not sure if I have to use the same position for both front and heel (I know that you have to be consistant within the same exercise), I will have to double check the rules. I have some flexibility here, because TEAM allows for either to make it adaptable to different obedience organizations/types around the world, Perrin is not allowed to compete in obedience here, and I have no plans on doing so with Sei.

We also did some agility/disc training/playing for fun.

Chance

More muzzle work! We are still trouble shooting the looking up part. We had some limited success today pairing the chin rest from before with PB, which can be more precisely delivered. He really doesn’t want to tilt his head up though, and I think I am going to watch him in life for a while and see if it is something he does naturally or not.

Dex

Dex crashed the muzzle work party, so he got to try too. There was PB, so he was happy. CC the straps was easy when paired with ear scritches!

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Dog-est August – Training Log – August 9, 2018

Sei

Turns out that Sei is a tunnel fanatic first thing in the morning before it has gotten hot out! So we did that first thing.

Sei went to his first farmers market! Well not really, we went to the parking lot and soccer field next to the farmers market. So there was an empty parking lot, and a soccer field between my car and the market. The field and the second parking lot was empty and we had as much space as we needed. The location in the photo is the closest we ventured. Highlights included eating PB and hot dog bits reliably, doing a few nose touches and slow cookies after some acclimation, 300ft of llw back to the car, a little bit of play with a stick that we found, and some name game. Only two short lived grumbles over a toddler running around and screaming in the distance, and a guy staring at him from 100ft away.

We also started taking some video for Sei’s parkour. We have to wait until November/December to submit the videos, so we have lots of time. Here is a solid ‘around’.

Perrin

We did lots of parkour! I would like to get his intermediate title, but I am not so sure about the 45 degree tic-tac. We could definitely get his 4 on specialty though! So, we did some of that and we also did his back up onto an object for an intermediate title. I don’t know if I will use any of these particular 4-ons, because there was a new rule brought in where you can’t reuse a particular obstacle with different dogs, so I have to choose very carefully between Perrin and Sei. Especially with the fact that Perrin can easily do public obstacles, where as Sei cannot. I need to prioritize the farm obstacles for Sei.

Chance

More muzzle work!

Dex

Dex and I just played again. Threw some spins in and generally made sure he had a good time.

Dog-est August – Training Log – August 8, 2018

Today was a day off for everyone, except Sei! We did some incredibly disorganized tunnel and wrap work while out on walks. The wraps are not going well, and it is largely because of my toy mechanics. It was much better with the ball than the disc, I suspect because the prep to throw a ball is way less than for a disc, so Sei has fewer body cues to go off of. I also tend to move too fast trying to add distance or additional wraps. Got to get that figured out. The tunnel stuff went really well! I worked on setting Sei in a sit and walking away a few steps, then sending to the tunnel. Because they were there, we did a few unplanned no-bar jump/tunnel sequences as well, which Sei did beautifully at.

Dog-est August – Training Log – August 7, 2018

No video for today. I needed a break! Taking, editing, and uploading the video for 4 dogs on rural internet takes hours, and I would rather be training or playing with the dogs. We didn’t do much training time-wise. It was super hot out, so all the dogs spent way more time playing with me in the pond.

Sei

Nosework and more tunnels! I started curving the tunnel for the first time, and the very early testings of whether Sei is catching the verbal ‘tunnel’ yet. I did that by setting him up in positions other than ‘middle’, facing away from the tunnel, or off at different distances. The nosework went well, he is making slow, steady improvement despite my ad-hock approach to training it. I will be honest, I really don’t like doing nosework. So I can’t get too hung up in the clean training of it or it gets so not-fun that I will never do it. If we just bumble around, it is more fun for me and the dogs don’t seem to mind as long as they are paid appropriately and I don’t let them get frustrated.

Perrin

I tested Perrin’s new platform for fronts and heel position, and did some more nosework in preparation for the scent discrimination exercise. Perrin will need some remedial work on getting his back feet onto the platform. He has no problem with his front feet, but the platform is just a touch narrower than his natural rear foot stance, so he has to think about it. He also wants to be quite far away from me on the fronts, so we will have to work on that too. His scent work is also coming along slowly but surely.

Chance

A tiny bit of nosework and some disc. He is a dog who uses his sniffer a lot, and so I figured he wouldn’t have too much trouble picking up on nosework, and that is definitely the case!

Dex

Dex and I just played today. A little tug, a little ball. His happiness is contagious.

Dog-est August – Training Log – August 5, 2018

Sei

I had my Team stuff out, so I worked on the stay with distraction with Sei. Not well thought out, but Sei really isn’t any worse for wear. We also did some tunnel work, but it isn’t on video.

Perrin

Perrin and I did a Pre-Team run though, and it went really well! I did one, and only one, and Perrin nailed every single exercise. This is an incredibly nice morale boost! Team came out about 2 years ago, and Perrin and I had already started on pretty much every exercise in it, but I have never had the motivation to actually go through, take stock, work on the things that needed work, and then try stringing it together. It is a lot of exercises to get right, not only for the dog, but there are a lot of things that I can do as a handler to ruin a run too. Perrin also struggles with fronts, and that is where we got stalled out last time we tried.

Not having Perrin’s platforms while we are at the farm forced me to work on the other exercises, and we are way closer than I thought we were! That is 6 of 10 exercises that we are pretty solid on! There are definitely some handler errors here that would NQ us (not holding the sit long enough, for example), but those are relatively easy to fix.

Chance

More muzzle work. I played around with other positions for doing up the straps. Chance didn’t like that much, so that is information that we need more work on both having the muzzle in different positions, and on CC touching the straps.

Dex

More fun with balls!

Dog-est August – Training Log – August 4, 2018

Sei

No video for Sei today, but after one rather spectacular freestyle disc mishap (for me, luckily, he is fine!), we just worked on distance throws for disc. Here is hoping this big nasty forehead lump goes down before I have to leave the house tomorrow.

Perrin

Continuing on with TEAM, we planned to work on position changes, and backing up. I don’t have Perrin’s normal platform here, so I am using Sei’s mat. Perrin has had a back up behaviour, but I have broken it (seeing a trend here?), so we have been reworking it with a foot target. It turns out that both went really well! So we played around with all the other skills we have practiced this time around (wait with distraction, jump, around, vertical target), and they all seem pretty solid too! Perrin’s verbals aren’t the best still, and discriminating between ‘around’ and ‘go touch’ when both objects were in the same direction was hard. However for a real run through I could pretty easily set up my space so that I have them going in opposite directions. That actually makes 6 behaviours, which is what we need for PreTeam! They may be the least difficult behaviours for us, but hey, that is still 6 more than before!

Maybe one of these days I will try to film a pre-team qualifying run through! Looks like I also may have to get me some wintergreen oil and some scent tins, and rustle up a platform/foot target. We may get further than I thought.

Chance

Today was a disc sort of day! Chance very much wants the disc, and does not want to share. I also found out that he is not terribly interested in rollers. He is so great at tracking and catching though!

Dex

Dex liked his tug so much yesterday that I decided I would see how he likes balls today. Turns out that the answer is quite a lot! No interest in discs though!

Dog-est August – Training Log – August 3, 2018

Sei

We tried two sessions of tunnels, but it was too hot the first time. This evening’s session was fantastic! It looks really unremarkable on video (especially because I am out of the frame for half of it, oops!) but so many little things came together here:

Good Planning: I am working my way through the Silvia Trkman foundations DVD, with some of the ShapeUp course work thrown in where it makes sense. Right now in both courses, collar restraints are used for the beginnings of tunnel sends. Sei is rather uncomfortable with collar grabs, so I decided to use ‘middle’ to set him up for the tunnel instead. I tested this once or twice yesterday and Sei had trouble with the middle, so today I decided to use food to reward the middle in addition to the ball to reward the tunnel.

Marker Systems/Reinforcer Choice: Sei was able to flawlessly work for both food and toys here. No conflict!

Toy Skills: Sei was able to work for a toy, and bring it back! We are only able to do this with discs or a tennis ball right now, tugs are still a work in progress, but if we didn’t have that skill it would make this exercise really hard!

Good Judgement: I was able to make some progress on adding distance, but added it at the right rate so that Sei continued to be successful. I stopped the session while Sei was still ready to continue (not too tired or mentally done) and didn’t fall prey to the ‘just one more’ syndrome.

Perrin

Today Perrin and I tested where we are at with the send over jump exercise from TEAM1. I was working on a straight send, and it turns out that I don’t have to. In TEAM1 you are allowed to run with the dog (and Perrin does a jump just fine if I run with him), and in TEAM2, you can choose to stand with the dog, at the side of the jump, or on the other side of the jump. Perrin will work his fluffy tail off over a jump I am standing on the opposite side of. So, I was making this much harder than it needed to be! But look at Perrin work for a toy instead of food!

(Also, look at Sei staying with the treat n train while I TUG with Perrin! Holy crap! Good dog!)

Chance

The muzzle training continues. Chance is doing really well. I messed up a bit today when Chance had the muzzle on. I wanted to move from sitting to standing in order to change the picture slightly, but Dex got in my way and Chance did paw at the muzzle once. I will have to start putting Dex away during Chance’s turn.

Dex

Turns out that Dex likes tugs, who knew! We played and lured some spins today. Happy boy.

Dog-est August – Training Log – August 1, 2018

Whoohoo! My tunnel came today!

Sei

Today Sei and I did a few different things. We did a bit of shaping practice, wraps, play, and explored the new tunnel! I am going to skip the video of the shaping practice, just because it is long and not terribly useful for me to review later. We didn’t work on shaping anything in particular, just practiced offering a variety of behaviours without frustration. It went pretty well!

The wraps are coming along. Nothing terribly notable here, other than the fact that there is a dead squirrel on the lawn behind where we are working. Sei is eagerly working for (and bringing back!) a boring old tennis ball, running past it several times on his way back. Sei thinks dead things are the best treat ever. This made a big impression on me regarding Sei’s inability to work with me in new places. It really cements my suspicion that it is based in concern/uncertainty in the environment rather than distraction. There is never a bigger distraction than a dead squirrel, and when we leave the house, I have WAY better things to offer than a single tennis ball. It was also really windy out, my tripod even blew over at one point!

I took some baseline videos of play, both in the house and outside, for our FDSA Bogeyman course. Sei does play with me when I am on the ground, which is a big step forwards! He used to only play with me if I were running/chasing. There are a few things I would like to refine for use in making Sei more comfortable in new places: 1. This sort of play doesn’t work well on leash, and 2. the biting!. I don’t mind some mouthing, but this is a little too much for me.

Finally, I introduced Sei to the tunnel. I didn’t really go out with a plan, I just wanted to see how Sei felt about it. The last time he saw a tunnel, he was terrified of it. Turns out he is fine with it now! I didn’t make the smartest training choices here because of my lack of a plan, but Sei isn’t scared of it, so we are on track to start with an organized approach tomorrow!

Perrin

We didn’t work on TEAM today, rather doing some shaping and tunnels. I love shaping with Perrin. He is so enthusiastic. This is us working on two sessions of roll over:

Perrin also loves tunnels. Not so much straight ones (they are boring), but even they are better than no tunnels. He is happy to run tunnels just for the joy of it. I tried throwing a ball for him, but he thought that was stupid. Apparently my ‘tunnel bags’ double as water bowls.

Chance

Chance did great with the muzzle today! He was extremely enthusiastic about the whole thing! He was shoving his face into the muzzle so hard that I could barely keep his head where I needed it to manipulate the straps. I got the strap done up loosely today and Chance tolerated it extremely well. He was a bit obsessed with a tiny scrap of hot dog that I dropped on the ground, but that mostly kept him unconcerned about the muzzle on his face.

Dex

Today I tested out to see if Dex knew a down verbal. He doesn’t really, but someone has worked on some sort of hand signal with him before, because he knew that to some extent. So I started the beginnings of adding a verbal to it.

Dog-est August – Training Log – July 31, 2018

Sei

Last night I tried shaping Sei to go around a bucket, and it did not go well. It is a behaviour that I have always struggled to shape, and I don’t quite know why. It is on the list of the ‘very first things to shape’ when people are learning. I have shaped much trickier behaviours easily (with Perrin) but this one has always eluded me.

Sei started the session by repeatedly laying down. Not sure whether it was a ‘I don’t want to do this because it is too hot/too boring/not worth it’ or an offered behaviour. A lot of the shaping we have done recently involves downs, so the latter wouldn’t be surprising. I upped my rate of reinforcement and C/T anything that was not laying down. Any motion, and (tried, my aim isn’t great) to use strategically placed reinforcement. We did get a couple of times around the bucket, but it quickly fell apart. I also felt like he was just chasing the cookie rather than thinking about it (so I was basically luring rather than shaping). Soon Sei was not coming around the front of the bucket, but rather swinging back and forth around the back side. I switched to Perrin (a more experienced shaper who is less easily frustrated and is slower moving. ie easier and more forgiving for me!) and he ended up doing exactly the same thing. So the problem is most certainly me and how I am approaching this! I just haven’t figured out what it is yet. My sessions were also too long, the little kibbles I was using kept getting lost in the carpet, and I didn’t quit when I was getting frustrated. Bad choices all the way around!

Today was no better. I just frustrated both of us. I couldn’t make it happen with Perrin either, not even after he was confidently doing wraps in both directions in a separate exercise. I think it has to do with treat placement, my reinforcement not coming in the right spot to set them up for success for the next rep, and reinforcement coming in the wrong place so that they go around the other way.

I tentatively tried with a toy again, but wasn’t sure if I should because I wasn’t sure if I would keep my frustration from Sei if I frustrated him. It actually went pretty well! I think I can get away without shaping this to get to the behaviour we need, but I would still like to figure out what is going wrong with the shaping. I should do more free shaping with Sei one way or the other.

Perrin

Today we worked on go around and vertical target. We did try shaping on the go around, it but as mentioned above, that didn’t go well. I re-set up the exercise to see what Perrin remembered, and it turned out that I was right about my suspicion that it was everything but the verbal. We worked on adding the verbal and fading the lure. He struggles more from a sit than a stand.

Perrin used to have a vertical target behaviour, but I broke it! I was using the target stick that came with the treat n train, and somewhere along the way Perrin decided that it was for retrieving rather than touching. I spent some time trying to reteach it from the beginning, but Perrin was so fixated on putting the silly thing in his mouth that we didn’t get very far (also a problem Perrin has in nosework, but he is allowed to retrieve the scent for TEAM, so we are good there). For TEAM, the vertical target can be practically anything, so I figured the easiest way forward would be to reteach the vertical target behaviour with something non-retrievable.

I used a post it note, and worked on shaping it today. He caught on so fast. I love shaping with Perrin! He is just so happy and fun.

Chance

Another couple rounds of muzzle work, and here is one of them. I took the sessions outside today to work in a different spot. Dex was not into being left out!

Dex

Just and touches and engagement for Dex. Did I ever mention how happy and adorable this dog is? He even offered what looks like the beginnings of sit pretty. Thats neat and all, but cooler is the fact that he offered anything at all! He is catching on to this stuff really fast!

Dog-est August – Training Log – July 30, 2018

After swimming in the pond and frolicking in the bean field, the boys all got a turn at some skills today.

Sei

We worked on lured wraps today. I was waiting on the video to download (yay rural internet!), so Sei and I worked on lured wraps from the ShapeUp course notes I have from before. I think they went pretty well overall! Luring with a toy is not something we can normally do because of some combination of how I taught Sei previous toy skills, and Sei’s dislike of being in my space bubble. (I have contemplated reteaching them, but I haven’t worked through how to make it context specific to certain toys, as the system we have now works excellently for disc). These went really well though because of the space created by the tree/wing. Sei definitely liked the fur toy rather than the holee roller. Just got to make that more durable. The Silvia Trkman video has the wraps shaped; I will try that tomorrow. I’m not very good at shaping wraps, so we will see how it goes.

Perrin

Perrin and I worked on two TEAM behaviours today, stay with distraction, and wrap an object. Our stay looks solid, but the wrap will need to be put on cue again. He seems to remember the behaviour but not the verbal, which is pretty standard for Perrin. I love how excited he is about some of those wraps.

Chance

We did three rounds of muzzle work, with the advancement of touching the strap. Going well!

Dex

I tried nose touches today, and Dex did great! He is just so happy, its adorable.