Monthly Archives: November 2011

Lyra is pretty good at paying attention to me, especially if I’m holding food or toys.  If I’m playing with her, I can usually get her to drive back to me with her toys for more interaction – she loves to tug and she understands that I’m a big part of that picture.

Now I’d like her to drive away from me with an equal degree of intensity  To get that, I’m starting some simple opposition reflex games.

First, I held her in my lap and threw cookies.  I’d talk it up a bit (ready, set, go!) and let her off my lap for the cookie.

Next, I threw the cookies and held her at my side.

Finally, I threw the cookies and held some combination of her collar and ruff.  Lyra’s natural tendency is to turn back and look at me, or to avoid my hands.  Unless you condition the dog to like it, most dogs will consider a collar grab a correction – it’s definitely worth taking the time to change this perception if you want to use opposition reflex to build drive in your performance dog.

Lyra is starting to understand that holding back by her collar/ruff is a reason to look AWAY from me.  This is a major shift, since 95% of the training I do encourages Lyra to look AT me – my demeanor, food and toys all encourage handler focus.  Opposition reflex games are the start of object/non handler focus.

I change my tone of voice to a “What’s gonna happen”, building up tone.  I look where I want her to look (thrown food, toys, mark, etc.) I try to get her engaged in whatever object I’m using before I throw it – with varying levels of success.    I release her when I feel her leaning forward (or at this point, when she is looking forward – leaning will come)

At this stage, I do not put any upwards pull on her collar or ruff – she is not showing enough forward drive, and that would be perceived as a correction. What I do instead is play tug and hold her collar at the same time – all movement comes from the toy.  I will “shake” her ruff, but I’m not actually moving her.  Someday she will love this game and I will be able to use a scruff shake as a drive building game, even without the toy.

The nose touch to the painter’s tape is the start of the go out for directed jumping.  I will also teach a go out to a platform.  Eventually, she will do go outs to platforms, walls, white poles and baby gate stanchions.

Here’s Lyra’s training today, unedited.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyK25S4NF9w

Lyra has worked away from home about ten times now.  Finding the “toy on a stick” was excellent luck, because she loves that thing.

For those who have five minutes to kill and an interest in puppy training, I’ll go through this video with you, step by step.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v01-VxRYRWw

I do not show the first minute of work; I had removed her from the crate and encouraged her to pee.  This was the third time she was out at this park on this day; each exposure lasted about five or ten minutes.  Of the three sessions, she was fastest to engage in this video.

From 0:00 to :29, I allow Lyra to adapt.  This is critical.  I expect 100% attetnion from Lyra when she works, so she must be ready to work.  I will not ask her; I will allow her to choose when the time is right.

:30, Lyra makes eye contact.  That is work!  I praise and feed.  I continue to praise and she stays engaged, so I stand up.

:44, Lyra makes an effort to move into heel position.  That is a clear indicator that she is interested in work – at some level.

:49 Lyra disconnects to observe the whining dog.  I stand up and move slightly away.  I will not praise and interact with a dog who is ignoring me.  I am more important than that:).

:55 Lyra is back to paying attention to me.  She’s a little sleepy but as long as she maintains attention on me then I’m willing to work her.  I know not to ask too much when she’s low energy.

1:28 I thought I was going to lose her to the grass, but she quickly changed her mind and stayed with me.

1:45 I pick her up and carry her to the ring. I  will only work her in the ring if she is “in drive”.  I want her to associate the ring with energy and play.  I don’t mind if she’s a little flat outside of the ring, as long as she is basically engaged.  This is Lyra’s third time in a ring.  I carry her so that I can put her down and go right to work; I don’t want to have to engage her through the entrance – not yet.

1:56 First reward comes very quickly.  This is her favorite toy, so an appropriate choice under distracting circumstances.

2:14 I started to take her into heeling and then realized she wasn’t sufficiently locked in on me, so I went back to trying to engage her in front of me first.  Once she is in heel position, she must work or I will remove her from that position.

2:37 I reward her for showing energy and engaging me, even though she did not heel.

2:47 Lyra is punished for losing attention in heeling.  Even at this age, I will not allow a dog to remain in heel position if they are not working for me.

2:54 I give her another chance to work; note how I am getting more energy and engagement this time.

3:07 More heeling.  I can feel a bit of “softening” in her effort, but there is enough dog there to continue a bit longer.

3:15 Ask for a left turn/pivot, immediately followed by a driving reward to the right.  I want her to “give” to the left and get her rear end in, but at the same time I want her to learn to drive forward or to the right immediately following that left turn.  This work will accomplish that.  Because she didn’t drive forward sufficiently, I pulled the toy up a bit early and gave her another chance.

3:25 I attempt another left turn.  She does a better job driving forward after the turn, so she gets the toy.

3:38 Her third left turn.  I reward the left turn itself instead of asking her to drive to the right after completing the turn.

4:05 Final left turn.  This one is followed by a few steps in a straight line before the reward.

I don’t normally do this many left turns in a session, because done well they are hard on a young dog.  So….in her next lesson I’ll focus on work that involves faster paces or driving to the right.

Enough people commented on the first “Environmental Cues” blog post that I’d like to revisit it with a few thoughts.

Each of us is an individual with specific goals for our dogs.  Our dogs, in turn, have different innate tendencies to consider when formulating our training ideas.  We make decisions about our dogs and our training that fit in with our entire life situation.  I know that there are some people who are trying to use my blog to train their dogs, and I think it’s great if I might be able to help someone in that way.  But keep in mind that your dog is your dog, not one of mine.  You must adapt everything that I might do to your situation.

I know from experience that one thing I do very well is create handler focus.  If you hand me a rock, I will work hard to have a handler focused rock.  It’s what I do.  It’s what I love.

What I am not good at….helping dogs feel comfortable in the world.

With those points in mind, the plan I have for Lyra is to differentiate work spaces from exploration spaces. I want her to explore, because I have learned what happens when a dog is too handler focused.  To understand where I’m coming from, see Raika’s blog post at: http://denisefenzi.com/category/raika/.  I believe if I had properly socialized Raika as a puppy – to LOOK a the environment – the issues I had with her would not have developed.  I worked Raika everywhere, all the time.  My mistake.   To avoid that, I am actively encouraging Lyra to look at the world and to engage with it – 100% and on her terms.  And since I don’t enjoy that, my husband has been given that assignment.  He likes walking dogs:).  When she goes out with my family, she is not out of control, but she is not asked to work. She acts like a normal puppy.

For my training purposes,  I also need her to be able to work in public and around distractions.  Fortunately, “dog working places” are pretty obvious to both dogs and handlers.  Lots of dogs, ring gates, buildings, training equipment, treats and toys, my demeanor and focus, etc.  When Lyra encounters a place that meets this description, I want her to work.  The sooner she learns to recognize a working space, the easier it will be for me to help her generalize her work.  I do not want to fight with environmental issues (other people and dogs) when I am in a place where she does not need to engage these options.

So I am teaching her that there are two types of environments; those where we work (handler focused) and those where we exist (environmentally focused).  Right now, my husband has done a much better job than I have, so she’s too environmentally focused.  I am starting to work on that.

Long term, this differentiation will become blurred.  If she is like my adult dogs (and I suspect she will be), I will turn her into a workaholic.  When that happens, the rules will change.  Anyone can play with her or feed her pretty much anytime, because I will be her priority.  She will choose to work when I ask.

But Lyra is not an adult; she is a puppy who is just learning how to navigate this world of competition obedience and family pet.  Structure will allow her to succeed.  One day I’ll realize that the structure doesnt matter anymore, and then the rules will change.

Until then, others dogs and people may not interact with her in working spaces, and I’ll leave her to enjoy her socialization in non working spaces without expecting anything in return.

What should YOU do with your dog?  I don’t know.  If you were my student, I’d spend a good deal of time getting to know you; understanding your life situation, expectations, goals and tolerances.  Then we’d come up with training exercises and a socialization program that made sense.  As long as you are not hurting another person or hurting your dog, then there are tons of reasonable options, each with possible consequences, both positive and negative.

And of course, I can always change my mind.

You know my doggy genius?  Well, she’s only that way at home.

When we take the show on the road, she looks a lot like every other puppy.  She’s fascinated by every leaf, blade of grass, moving person, building, tree, and whatever else is in the world.  She likes to stare off into the distance where people or cars might be moving about.  Sometimes even a dog.

It’s close to impossible to move through a park; she’s too busy with the journey to care about my destination.

Work?  Sometimes I get 10 seconds at a stretch – much better than two weeks ago!  At that point I was lucky to get three seconds.  That included several mini heeling bits….each one rewarded with a cookie or toy and a huge fuss.  A few “ups” on the platform, and near the end of our training time, she would retrieve the dumbbell to her platform.

Attention span for toys is even more limited, she loses interest in about five seconds.  After that she abondons the toy and wanders off to explore something else.  Today (two weeks later), we got close to thirty seconds of sustained interest – I had to do a lot of running to keep her engaged.

She can play with me without toys, but not very well.  She is easily distracted and it can be very hard to redirect her to a toy or to work.  I have to remember to scale back and use beginner toys.  Today I used a beginner toy and it went better.

What it comes down to is she can perform work within a tiny window.  The cues have to be obvious; a dumbbell, platform, a distinct offer of heel position.  Good thing I have bits of work that can be performed within a three to six second window, followed by a one minute recovery period.

I don’t know how long this phase will last, but I’m patient.  I can’t even remember my older dogs behaving this way, but I’m quite sure they did.  Time heals all wounds, you know.  I spent about thirty minutes in the first park two weeks ago; thirty minutes on the outskirts of the dog training class five days ag0, and today I spent another thirty minutes in the parking lot of a local community college.  I doubt we did more than three minutes of work the first time, five minutes the second, and maybe six minutes today, but it was about right for her. I  am resolved to do this at least three times per week, in addition to the general socialization she gets with my husband.  It clear that she is improving, but I need to keep with it.

This is definitely not a time to get frustrated or to start pressuring her to “pay attention”.  Lyra knows I have toys and food.  If she is capable of overcoming her curiosity or fear, she knows to turn to me in order to work.   If she is unable to do so, then the respectful thing to do is to give her that time – she needs to learn about the world (and work) at her own pace.  That doesn’t mean I let her approach alternatives (I do not).  But if she needs to look, then by all means….look!  I am an interesting person with treats and toys….she’ll start to choose me when me the time is right for her.

I’ll try and tape her next session away from home.  If you think your puppy has a remedial attention span, that video will make you feel better.

Here are a few things I’ve learned or changed  in the past few weeks.

I’m using more food.  What can I say…it works.  When I call her into the house, she now gets a cookie about 1/3 of the time.  That’s up quite a bit from what I had hoped for.  On the 2/3′s when she does not get a cookie, she gets my enthusiastic gratitude.  Apparently I’m too lazy to put a leash on her when she goes outside, so this is the solution.  Her recall is becoming pretty good.

I’ve put the “play without toys” on hold for a couple of weeks.  That doesn’t mean I dont’ play with her….that is what I do 90% of the time.  But I’ve had too many clothes ripped and hands bloodied to continue without something in her mouth most of the time.  I will continue trying, slowly weaning her off the toys and onto play without toys.  At this point I do not think she is capable of controlling her biting for more than a few seconds at a time, so this is what I will ask of her.

In this video, I show my current strategy.  She holds a toy and we have a few options:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIkEm06BHSM

1)  play with the toy while Lyra holds the other end

2) Play with Lyra while Lyra holds the toy.  This is my preference as much as possible.  She chases me or comes into my space while I either pet her or push her away.  Then I run off or call her close for more attention.  Note that she consistently returns with the toy for more engagement.  That is a very important foundation skill, and with it mastered the options increase dramatically for both play and training.

3) While Lyra holds a toy, ask her to drop it in order to work.  In this scenario, I use an object like a dumbbell, so she has to drop the toy to get the dumbbell.  She is then rewarded with a high energy toy game.   This is another very important foundation skill; the route to getting me to play is to do what I ask, even it is appears counter-intuitive to your interests.  I do not ask her to drop the toy; she has to figure that out for herself.

4) Play with Lyra without toy.  Ask for heeling before she gets too high, and reward her with the opportunity to get the dumbbell (which is followed up by toy play or food).  In this scenario, her reward for work is actually more work of a different type (retrieve).  This is another example of blending elements of work.  This particular combination also develops drive for both the dumbbell and for heeling.