Oops, guess who's late with the weekly blog again? I'm doing this to mostly keep myself on track and I can already see where I've gone way, way off. I'm all for flexible training plans, but I want to use a weekly blog to recap, analyse and plan ahead for the following week.
I think I'm going to relegate the vital 'settle' until our foster dog has gone home. This is the behaviour that I think will make the most positive impact. He gets himself stressed at class when he's not being used to demo things, so it'll useful for him to be able to learn to chill out. Until then, I'm just going to use management. If I have to bring him with me, I'll set up a crate in the car for when he's not being used. It's already become a bit of a habit, so I need to break that where possible and not bring him to class again until he has a history of being able to settle in less distracting environments.
The reason I want to do it when Bonita has found her forever home is because I will be able to do it more in other parts of the house. She's quite a greedy pup, and I think knowing he had potential competition for treats would make it harder for him to relax. I'm going to do it after a walk, keeping his lead on (putting it on just for the settle will excite him and make it harder) and working on it while I'm watching tv or reading a book. I intend to do a plan for that and work on it every day at least once, maybe more. He's very good at relaxing (he's snoring right now) but what he's not good at is chilling out in the presence of potential rewards. I'm putting the foundations in now, when he's snoozing on the bed with me while I work, I'll pop a tasty treat between his paws when he's relaxed and not expecting it. I keep a packet of Bob & Lush venison livers on the laptop (the things I do for my dog!) so we can practice this very easily during the day.
The good news for his training, is that his new food arrived. Bob & Lush duck kibble is something he'll actually work for, hurrah! That's going to make recall training much easier. Stage one will be putting his daily food in my treat bag at the beginning of the day, and then randomly blowing the whistle and giving him a handful. This is going to eventually end up with a consequence for ignoring the whistle (he'll lose some of his food) but for that to be fair he needs a solid understanding of what's expected of him.
I often think people are unfair when they teach a recall with positive reinforcement. It's not enough to just teach the dog the idea 'come here and get a reward', because sometimes the dog will think 'oh I've got a reward thanks, I'll be there in a bit'. The dog isn't being disobedient, any more so than I am when I say 'no thanks, I've just had a cup of tea', they haven't been taught the rules properly. You either need to practice relentlessly so it's an automatic response. The dog's hurtling back towards you before he's even thought about what's happening! You can also add in recall from distractions, where you manage the distraction so once the dog has been called it becomes unavailable, or you can teach the dog that you might just have something wonderful, and if he doesn't come right now he'll lose it forever. It just isn't fair to introduce consequences without the underpinning foundation of 'I have something yummy, the quicker you get here the better it's going to be'. Once the dog knows that, then you can start adding 'oh and by the way, that means every time instantly'.
The other thing I want to work on, hence the title of the blog, is his stimulus control. Pig is a dog who, for 8 years understood all cues (sit, down, paw, beg) to mean the same thing: guess what I want, and there's a treat in it for you if you work it out. Actually teaching him 'no you don't have to work it out, just listen to the word I use' is quite tricky. He just figured those weird human noises are largely irrelevant.
Fellow humans, if you find yourself repeating cues, you need to question what your dog understands. If you say sit and your dog lies down, or you say sit and your dog stands staring at you for a few seconds before sitting, then your dog is guessing. Sometimes he'll get it right, sometimes he won't. It's our job to teach them what we want them to do, not their job to figure it out like a murder mystery novel.
So, that's the plan for next week: foundations for a solid recall, and stimulus control on sit, down and paws up.
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
Saturday, 23 March 2013
What a week
This week has been emotional, for me though rather than Pigdog.
I won't go into the details, but Pig's training has been a little hindered by it.
I have however, had an idea. One of the ways I might try to teach him to be ok giving things up, is teaching a retrieve with objects that aren't toys. My theory is, if I get him picking things up and bringing them to be for the reward rather than the value of the item, it will make the giving up far, far more reinforcing than the holding onto. I'm going to try it, I'll let you know how that goes.
One thing we've made progress with, is 'on your mat'. He's reliably going to his mat, lying down, and staying there amidst distractions. I've got to the point where I can drop hot dog in front of him, and he won't move.
The end result is 'lie on your mat and relax until released'. However, he's not relaxed at all! He will lie there and stay still, but he's ready to break at any second. I purposefully don't reward on the release cue, I want it to be something he's almost disappointed to hear, so many good things happen when he's on the mat! I toyed with only rewarding when he's chilled on it, but that seems to excite him more because he's getting frustrated waiting for his reward.
I may have to really work on the settle separately. He's generally a pretty chilled dog until food comes out or we go somewhere new. I think I might try keeping food on me more often. I bought some little tuppaware tubs so it's fairly easy to carry something high value around with me, and capture and reward calm behaviour.
I could also use less high value rewards for the mat exercise, but I want it to be super reinforcing to lie on that mat and have good things happen.
I think I'll teach 'do not obsess about what food I have' as a separate thing along with the settle. They're pretty good life lessons rather than specific behaviours. I may even treat myself to a swanky treat bag that I can easily attach to me during the day, that'll make it easier to reward impromptu good behaviour.
The goal for this week, is to find the perfect reward. I would LOVE it if he would work for his normal kibble, but he's just not bothered. I think I may experiement with different kibbles and see if I can find one he really likes. I would like him to earn all his dinner through training, at the moment he earns tasty sweets through training, but then isn't hungry to eat any of his dinner. Not an ideal situation.
Happy to hear any recommendations for a tasty and healthy kibble!
I won't go into the details, but Pig's training has been a little hindered by it.
I have however, had an idea. One of the ways I might try to teach him to be ok giving things up, is teaching a retrieve with objects that aren't toys. My theory is, if I get him picking things up and bringing them to be for the reward rather than the value of the item, it will make the giving up far, far more reinforcing than the holding onto. I'm going to try it, I'll let you know how that goes.
One thing we've made progress with, is 'on your mat'. He's reliably going to his mat, lying down, and staying there amidst distractions. I've got to the point where I can drop hot dog in front of him, and he won't move.
The end result is 'lie on your mat and relax until released'. However, he's not relaxed at all! He will lie there and stay still, but he's ready to break at any second. I purposefully don't reward on the release cue, I want it to be something he's almost disappointed to hear, so many good things happen when he's on the mat! I toyed with only rewarding when he's chilled on it, but that seems to excite him more because he's getting frustrated waiting for his reward.
I may have to really work on the settle separately. He's generally a pretty chilled dog until food comes out or we go somewhere new. I think I might try keeping food on me more often. I bought some little tuppaware tubs so it's fairly easy to carry something high value around with me, and capture and reward calm behaviour.
I could also use less high value rewards for the mat exercise, but I want it to be super reinforcing to lie on that mat and have good things happen.
I think I'll teach 'do not obsess about what food I have' as a separate thing along with the settle. They're pretty good life lessons rather than specific behaviours. I may even treat myself to a swanky treat bag that I can easily attach to me during the day, that'll make it easier to reward impromptu good behaviour.
The goal for this week, is to find the perfect reward. I would LOVE it if he would work for his normal kibble, but he's just not bothered. I think I may experiement with different kibbles and see if I can find one he really likes. I would like him to earn all his dinner through training, at the moment he earns tasty sweets through training, but then isn't hungry to eat any of his dinner. Not an ideal situation.
Happy to hear any recommendations for a tasty and healthy kibble!
Monday, 18 March 2013
Click and treat
The click is for me, for remembering my weekly update. YAY ME!
(update: it is now Monday and I still haven't hit publish, bad Jo.)
So, we've done a lot of giving up toys, and making huge strides forward.
In the house, or at the Mutz Hut, he will give his toys up quite easily. He's even discovered a new toy, a tiny squeaky duck, which he thinks is the greatest thing ever. He's reluctant to bring that to me and put it in my hand, but once he does he lets go much easier than I thought he would! Whenever he drops it naturally or forgets about it, I make a point of picking it up and giving it to him. It both makes him less obsessed with it, and also teaches him that I'm safe around his toys.
We're still struggling on walks which I'm finding really frustrating. There is definitely progress but its incredibly slow. It makes me want to move onto something else, but I think getting this sorted, and being able to play ball with him and use a tuggy toy as a reward will make everything else SO much easier.
There has been much newness in the house of Pig. A beautiful fluffy princess by the name of Bonita. Bonita is a stray from Romania. She's very stressed, which is understandable given what she's been through!
We've done some clicker training, mostly sit, down and leave, and she's quick to learn but slow to generalise and proof. She's quite wary of dogs so Pig is ignoring her mostly, and letting her find her paws.
All in all she's a lovely, sweet girl. It does mean Pig's direct training has been slowed down, but hey, living with another dog is a form of training too, right?
(update: it is now Monday and I still haven't hit publish, bad Jo.)
So, we've done a lot of giving up toys, and making huge strides forward.
In the house, or at the Mutz Hut, he will give his toys up quite easily. He's even discovered a new toy, a tiny squeaky duck, which he thinks is the greatest thing ever. He's reluctant to bring that to me and put it in my hand, but once he does he lets go much easier than I thought he would! Whenever he drops it naturally or forgets about it, I make a point of picking it up and giving it to him. It both makes him less obsessed with it, and also teaches him that I'm safe around his toys.
We're still struggling on walks which I'm finding really frustrating. There is definitely progress but its incredibly slow. It makes me want to move onto something else, but I think getting this sorted, and being able to play ball with him and use a tuggy toy as a reward will make everything else SO much easier.
There has been much newness in the house of Pig. A beautiful fluffy princess by the name of Bonita. Bonita is a stray from Romania. She's very stressed, which is understandable given what she's been through!
We've done some clicker training, mostly sit, down and leave, and she's quick to learn but slow to generalise and proof. She's quite wary of dogs so Pig is ignoring her mostly, and letting her find her paws.
All in all she's a lovely, sweet girl. It does mean Pig's direct training has been slowed down, but hey, living with another dog is a form of training too, right?
Saturday, 9 March 2013
Ups and downs
Today has been a mixed day for Pig.
We started off at the vet. He really didn't like it and we were there a while discussing his epilepsy. He got gradually more and more stressed, and when he eventually had his needle he was not happy about it! The kennel cough vaccination came straight after, so he wasn't a happy bunny and made some 'I'm going to kill you' noises at the vet. His open mouth and teeth were right next to the vet's arm, but apparently he didn't catch him. From that, I can only conclude it was just a severe warning. As a pug cross he wouldn't have done major damage but he's still quicker than any human so if he'd wanted to bite, he would have. I've now got a new behaviour to throw into the mix, desensitising to having that area touched. It'll be lots of touching+treat repetitions, gradually getting firmer until it can be a grab+treat. I'm not going to use a clicker for this, he's relatively new to clicker training and was frightened of it at first, I don't want to risk tainting the clicker if I accidentally go too fast with the desensitisation.
It took a while to be able to use a clicker with Pig, because he hated the noise and ran away. Thanks to the brilliant tip from Kikopup on YouTube (check out her awesome videos if you haven't already) it was much easier to muffle with a bit of blu tac, and since then it's been all systems go.
Today we did a bit of free shaping 'on your mat' and he was very good at it. Dare I say a genius? No, definitely not a genius, but good.
Then we went out and did more ball training.
If anyone wants to know how to train a dog to be possessive of toys, Pigbee's previous owners could teach you. First, you take a dog who likes toys. Then you don't walk him (ever), and pay him little attention. Then, any sign of him wanting to keep his toys, take ALL of them away from him for a week. No wonder the poor guy was keen to keep hold of them!
At first he would growl and leap on a toy if he thought you wanted it. On a walk, even the usual tricks (two balls, swapping for treats) wouldn't work. The behaviour of guarding toys had been very strongly proofed! The behaviour of letting the human have the toys had been very severely punished. Incidentally, this was very specific guarding. Dogs around his toys? No issue. People? You're gonna have a problem.
I bought him cheap fluffy toys he could tear apart, and left the toy skin around for him to play with as long as he wanted. I got him a squeaky toy that was tough to squeak (easy squeaky toys were hell because he'd just stand there and squeak incessantly. Does your dog destroy squeaky dogs in seconds? LUCKY YOU!)
So, today I went armed with my clicker and some hotdog, and I practiced in the park. He was much better, he'd return with the ball, and drop it for a click. Then I was reaching towards it, and clicking and treating, and repeating that getting closer and closer. Then I picked up his ball, clicked and put it down again. I did that a few times, threw the ball and then repeated the process. I don't like to throw the ball right away as a reward, because I think to some dogs that can be mildly aversive. They run after the toy not because they're having an awesome time, but because they're stressed about losing it.
I am still deciding on a proper training plan, because there are some things I'm not comfortable with.
Right now, I'm clicking for me leaning towards the ball, regardless of his reaction. Sometimes he moves his head down, ready to grab it if I make a move. My dilemma is, do I go for classical or operant conditioning? Classical conditioning means that it doesn't matter what he's doing when I reach, the Conditioned Emotional Response is what matters. Operant conditioning means that I should be focusing on his behaviour above all else.
I think the plan of action is to just make it easy. I'll get three toys of varying appeal. Grade C toy would be a boring rubber ring or frisbee. Grade B is a tennis ball, and Grade A would be his squeaky squirrel. I'll practice in the house, getting him 100% in the house and garden working up to the Grade A toy, then go outside starting with Grade C.
My favourite thing that happened today, was a couple walking their jack russells. One of the Jack Russells, Charlie (I know his name is Charlie because his owner was screaming it at him as he came hurtling over) wanted to interact with Pig, but Pig just wanted to play with his toy and completely blanked him. Poor Charlie! His female owner saw I had a clicker and treat bag, loudly shrieked to her husband "she's training him! She's using a clicker!" and they gathered around to watch. I know I live in a rough area, but I've seen people less interested in a car on fire than on somebody training their dog!
Thanks for reading, if you got this far, CLICK AND TREAT FOR YOU!
We started off at the vet. He really didn't like it and we were there a while discussing his epilepsy. He got gradually more and more stressed, and when he eventually had his needle he was not happy about it! The kennel cough vaccination came straight after, so he wasn't a happy bunny and made some 'I'm going to kill you' noises at the vet. His open mouth and teeth were right next to the vet's arm, but apparently he didn't catch him. From that, I can only conclude it was just a severe warning. As a pug cross he wouldn't have done major damage but he's still quicker than any human so if he'd wanted to bite, he would have. I've now got a new behaviour to throw into the mix, desensitising to having that area touched. It'll be lots of touching+treat repetitions, gradually getting firmer until it can be a grab+treat. I'm not going to use a clicker for this, he's relatively new to clicker training and was frightened of it at first, I don't want to risk tainting the clicker if I accidentally go too fast with the desensitisation.
It took a while to be able to use a clicker with Pig, because he hated the noise and ran away. Thanks to the brilliant tip from Kikopup on YouTube (check out her awesome videos if you haven't already) it was much easier to muffle with a bit of blu tac, and since then it's been all systems go.
Today we did a bit of free shaping 'on your mat' and he was very good at it. Dare I say a genius? No, definitely not a genius, but good.
Then we went out and did more ball training.
If anyone wants to know how to train a dog to be possessive of toys, Pigbee's previous owners could teach you. First, you take a dog who likes toys. Then you don't walk him (ever), and pay him little attention. Then, any sign of him wanting to keep his toys, take ALL of them away from him for a week. No wonder the poor guy was keen to keep hold of them!
At first he would growl and leap on a toy if he thought you wanted it. On a walk, even the usual tricks (two balls, swapping for treats) wouldn't work. The behaviour of guarding toys had been very strongly proofed! The behaviour of letting the human have the toys had been very severely punished. Incidentally, this was very specific guarding. Dogs around his toys? No issue. People? You're gonna have a problem.
I bought him cheap fluffy toys he could tear apart, and left the toy skin around for him to play with as long as he wanted. I got him a squeaky toy that was tough to squeak (easy squeaky toys were hell because he'd just stand there and squeak incessantly. Does your dog destroy squeaky dogs in seconds? LUCKY YOU!)
So, today I went armed with my clicker and some hotdog, and I practiced in the park. He was much better, he'd return with the ball, and drop it for a click. Then I was reaching towards it, and clicking and treating, and repeating that getting closer and closer. Then I picked up his ball, clicked and put it down again. I did that a few times, threw the ball and then repeated the process. I don't like to throw the ball right away as a reward, because I think to some dogs that can be mildly aversive. They run after the toy not because they're having an awesome time, but because they're stressed about losing it.
I am still deciding on a proper training plan, because there are some things I'm not comfortable with.
Right now, I'm clicking for me leaning towards the ball, regardless of his reaction. Sometimes he moves his head down, ready to grab it if I make a move. My dilemma is, do I go for classical or operant conditioning? Classical conditioning means that it doesn't matter what he's doing when I reach, the Conditioned Emotional Response is what matters. Operant conditioning means that I should be focusing on his behaviour above all else.
I think the plan of action is to just make it easy. I'll get three toys of varying appeal. Grade C toy would be a boring rubber ring or frisbee. Grade B is a tennis ball, and Grade A would be his squeaky squirrel. I'll practice in the house, getting him 100% in the house and garden working up to the Grade A toy, then go outside starting with Grade C.
My favourite thing that happened today, was a couple walking their jack russells. One of the Jack Russells, Charlie (I know his name is Charlie because his owner was screaming it at him as he came hurtling over) wanted to interact with Pig, but Pig just wanted to play with his toy and completely blanked him. Poor Charlie! His female owner saw I had a clicker and treat bag, loudly shrieked to her husband "she's training him! She's using a clicker!" and they gathered around to watch. I know I live in a rough area, but I've seen people less interested in a car on fire than on somebody training their dog!
Thanks for reading, if you got this far, CLICK AND TREAT FOR YOU!
Friday, 8 March 2013
Hi!
I'm Jo, I run the training and behaviour service at The Mutz Hut Dog Creche in Newcastle, and also run training classes in Sunderland as Paws 2 Play.
A year ago, I rescued a gorgeous little pug cross from the Little Dog Rescue. His name is Pigbee, he's about 9, and he's adorable.
The problem is, I'm puppy broody. I would love to add another dog to the family for lots of reasons.
Firstly, Pig doesn't want to do the things I want to do. He'd hate agility and flyball, he'd think I was crazy if I attempted Heelwork to Music with him, he doesn't want to learn a repetoire of tricks. He just wants to eat, sleep, cuddle and snort.
Secondly, one thing Pig does amazingly well, is help out with socialising dogs. He's good with puppies, he'll ignore shy puppies and give them a chance to approach him when they're ready. He'll tell puppies off when they're boisterous and OTT, he'll split up play if it's too excitable. He's great with grown up dogs who have issues. He'll ignore them barking at him, and will allow them to make friends with him when they're ready.
His main failing is, he's too little! I can't subject him to an over enthusiastic adolescent lurcher. He trusts me to keep him safe, and to not put him into situations where he might get hurt. Aside from the fact that, as his human, it's my job to keep him safe, he wouldn't be able to do his job if he didn't feel confident that he was going to be ok.
So, I'm going to set myself a goal. I'm going to myself a list of behaviours that I want to train Pigbee before I think about adding another canine family member.
This has the added bonus of taking the time and keeping me busy while I wait for the other circumstances to be right.
I will update this blog every Friday (I hope) to keep you informed of the week's progress, and the goal for the week ahead.
The following is the some of the behaviours I want to teach.
1. Reliable recall
2. Back up
3. Waiting for a release to go through a door
4. Happily giving up toys
5. 100% Loose lead walking
6. Confidence with the hoover
7. Go to bed
8. Stay in bed (This will be particularly useful in classes)
9. Tuggy and drop
10. Chase recall
11. Emergency stop
12. Settle
This is not an exhaustive list, and no doubt I will come back to it and add things on. These are just the things that will make life much easier when integrating a new dog into our household.
My first thing to train is going to be 'back up'. That's because it'll be useful for both loose lead walking, and for control around doorways.
The reason I'm going to do that before recall (which is arguably more important) is because when I do recall I want 100% of his food to come from the training programme. While I'm doing that, I can still be reinforcing the control around doorways and loose lead walking training, as the rewards from that will be life rewards rather than edible ones.
So, that's the plan. Next week I'll let you know how 'back up' and recall foundations went!
A year ago, I rescued a gorgeous little pug cross from the Little Dog Rescue. His name is Pigbee, he's about 9, and he's adorable.
The problem is, I'm puppy broody. I would love to add another dog to the family for lots of reasons.
Firstly, Pig doesn't want to do the things I want to do. He'd hate agility and flyball, he'd think I was crazy if I attempted Heelwork to Music with him, he doesn't want to learn a repetoire of tricks. He just wants to eat, sleep, cuddle and snort.
Secondly, one thing Pig does amazingly well, is help out with socialising dogs. He's good with puppies, he'll ignore shy puppies and give them a chance to approach him when they're ready. He'll tell puppies off when they're boisterous and OTT, he'll split up play if it's too excitable. He's great with grown up dogs who have issues. He'll ignore them barking at him, and will allow them to make friends with him when they're ready.
His main failing is, he's too little! I can't subject him to an over enthusiastic adolescent lurcher. He trusts me to keep him safe, and to not put him into situations where he might get hurt. Aside from the fact that, as his human, it's my job to keep him safe, he wouldn't be able to do his job if he didn't feel confident that he was going to be ok.
So, I'm going to set myself a goal. I'm going to myself a list of behaviours that I want to train Pigbee before I think about adding another canine family member.
This has the added bonus of taking the time and keeping me busy while I wait for the other circumstances to be right.
I will update this blog every Friday (I hope) to keep you informed of the week's progress, and the goal for the week ahead.
The following is the some of the behaviours I want to teach.
1. Reliable recall
2. Back up
3. Waiting for a release to go through a door
4. Happily giving up toys
5. 100% Loose lead walking
6. Confidence with the hoover
7. Go to bed
8. Stay in bed (This will be particularly useful in classes)
9. Tuggy and drop
10. Chase recall
11. Emergency stop
12. Settle
This is not an exhaustive list, and no doubt I will come back to it and add things on. These are just the things that will make life much easier when integrating a new dog into our household.
My first thing to train is going to be 'back up'. That's because it'll be useful for both loose lead walking, and for control around doorways.
The reason I'm going to do that before recall (which is arguably more important) is because when I do recall I want 100% of his food to come from the training programme. While I'm doing that, I can still be reinforcing the control around doorways and loose lead walking training, as the rewards from that will be life rewards rather than edible ones.
So, that's the plan. Next week I'll let you know how 'back up' and recall foundations went!
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