This question comes up a lot, so I wrote a supplemental lecture for my online Engagement class on this topic. However, since I discuss Engagement on my blog quite a bit, I am sharing the lecture here as well. I hope this provides clarification! What is the...
When I talk about personal play or interaction, I’m talking about the process of interacting with your dog without food or toys in a manner that is enjoyable for both of you, but rarely do I consider personal play a reinforcer. So what does that mean? A...
If you’ve been following my blog, then you know I’m a huge advocate of playing with dogs regardless of your sport or personal interests. I also know that many people are a bit stuck. Stuck on where to begin. Stuck on how to progress. Good at one type of...
Here is an eleven minute training session of Brito from this morning. You can see a variety of things. Shaping with a dumbbell. I normally hold it because he tends to put his feet on objects sitting on the floor. That is not a habit that I want to encourage. (...
Today I took Lyra out for some personal play time. No toys. No food. Just me and a dog. That, however, didn’t last long, as I was joined by my sons. One proceeded to take over my jumps for his personal fitness training and the other….became a magnet...
The following study was sent to me recently: http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/jeab/articles/2012/jeab-98-01-0105.pdf The question being evaluated was the relative value of food or social interaction as a reinforcer for dogs being asked to perform a simple task (nose...
Today I began my student’s lesson with the following directive: “Heel with your dog for two minutes without using a food or toy reward. You may talk, play, put hands on, and make the heeling as interesting as possible. At the end of two minutes, you may...
Playing with a mouthy puppy is different than playing with an adult, and takes a fair amount of trial and error to figure out what works best. I don’t get upset with Lyra for biting when we play; I simply stop moving and wait for her to let go. At this point,...
Juno’s style of play is yet again different from Cisu or Raika; her style incorporates elements of each of the other dogs. Juno’s natural style of play with other dogs is chase; chase and be chased. Since I choose not to chase dogs, Juno has to chase me....
My last blog showed Cisu and Ali playing; these are physical dogs who like physical play with a lot of opposition reflex. For dogs like Cisu, play is both physical and reflexive (not thinking). Raika has a completely different play style. For Raika, play is a...
Here is a video of personal play with a physical, interactive dog – she has strong opposition reflex and likes “hands on” play. This video shows my dog Cisu playing with me; we play a ton in the ring between exercises. The only thing in this video...
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....
Lyra has made great progress in her play and work skills. She consistently returns her toys to me – all types of toys including tug toys and stuffie toys. She knows what play and training are, and she puts herself into drive when we head for the training field....
Either Lyra’s food drive just kicked in, or I’ll be purchasing Freeze Dried Turkey Hearts in bulk. My friend gave me a few, and wow…..got some serious work out of her. Check out her heeling with something delicious. At the end I spent a bit of...
Sleep is improving by the hour! I still have to get up every few hours to let her potty, but the screaming is minimal now. Today she visited my son’s school. We went early in the morning, so there were very few kids around. After 10 minutes I took her home....
It’s Cisu’s turn in the limelight. She’s will remind some people of their own dogs because she’s rather typical of “dog”. Cisu has many interests, of which I am only one. She enjoys food and toys and exploring. She likes humans...
I’d like to introduce the current canine members of my household – not only are they a huge part of my life, but each has contributed greatly to my current ideas about training for competition. My plan was to start with Cisu; after all, she is the oldest....
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