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Okay, I had no intention of adding in the blinds tonight, because we have done very little with this exercise due to a lack of safe running space. But Spy loves this game! I was initially worried that I’d pull him off the food, but he never once failed to eat the treat (and never once failed to come back at me like a freight train!).
My brain had a very hard time processing to reward from the off-side hand, but it is so clear in the video how much it opens up the correct side to the dog. The timing of the blinds was pretty terrible, but I’m so impressed with how hard he worked to try and come in on the correct side regardless.
Luckily I’m not a coffee drinker, so I’m fair game at all times!
I’ve been terrible about videoing this week, as I’ve been buried at work. But Spy and I have been working on his toy skills throughout the day and tonight it all came together! I wasn’t sure I would get the behavior again once I stopped to set up the video, but low and behold, he just kept jumping up to give me the toy.
Such a small victory, but I am so very happy. Silly “this is my first border collie and I’ve always wanted a dog that does this” skill #1 – check!
Hopefully life eases up this week and we can actually start working on some other skills.
Oh, he already drops toys on me plenty, he just doesn’t shove them into my hands! He goes to work with me and I’m waiting for the day he sends an unfinished email or something when he puts his Wubba on my mouse. I probably shouldn’t have encouraged it so much early on, but after 14 years of *begging* my dogs to play with me, I was just so happy to have a dog as excited to play as I am! Thank heavens he’s a pretty chill guy by nature. As long as he’s had a good run that day, he’s pretty good about settling down to some self-directed play time if I decline the toy a few times in a row.
So, one of my not-so-secret favorite things in some of the border collies I’ve gotten the chance to run is that thing where you tug and release the toy to them, and they immediately shove it back in your hands. I’m easily excited by little things like that:) I’ve wanted to teach that to Spy, so we started “put the thing in my hand” a while ago using a different method. He is super reliable about it when I’m sitting on the ground, which is how I started it initially, and wasn’t transferring it to me standing up very well. So I’ve started this intermediate sitting position to see if that helps. This is also one of the first times I used a tug rather than a random non-toy object. I started this session with a tennis ball, but he was getting distracted ripping at the fuzz.
I’m hoping the tugging with his feet up on me helps with the “put it in my hand” when I’m standing up as well. I realized as we were doing it that it might be kind of a rough tugging technique on his neck, so I moved to sitting with this for now as well.
I was pretty sure this is how toy races were going to go, but I figured I’d try it out just to see:
And continued work on the sit-tug-sit game. I think he’s getting quicker to offer the sit (most of the time, anyway!). In general I think I’m starting to see glimmers of improvement in his ability to work with the toy out. Little glimmers once in a while, anyway.
Spy got to accompany his big brother to an agility trial this weekend. He has been to good sized trials before (heck, I picked him up at New England Regionals and he spent the weekend in an ex-pen behind the worker table) and has handled them beautifully, but this was the first time in a few months AND it is a new and very tough environment (American K9 Country, which means tight space and lots of strange daycare dogs going in and out and lots of noise).
I was so, so impressed by how he handled everything. He walked into the building with loose swinging hips and his tail up but not high over his back. He greeted people who cooed at him with kisses and feet up (some day that will wind up on my training list), but could also easily ignore people to take food from me or tug. He doesn’t really “watch” agility (now that he’s learned how fun tunnels are, I wondered if he would), and when I am not actively engaging with him, he offers to settle on the floor next to me. He is really so spectacular in that environment. I hope I can maintain it as he gets older.
I do know the one situation that really throws him for a loop is horses/livestock. I’m going to try and see if I can get him near some soon to see if he is willing to lick out a Kong in sight of them. Fortunately right now he doesn’t want to approach, just big alert barking and hackles up and tail curled tight over his back.
Congratulations on the new puppy! So exciting!
Having a “prop” out to help Spy figure out the point of the game definitely seemed to help. I was getting zero sits when using the Wubba (the ultimate exciting toy) before bringing out the lid to the footstool. I initially started his sit stays on that, because I thought the defined space would help prevent the scooting and crouching I’ve seen some BCs do. So he very much understands that is for sitting on.
We did some shaping going around a bucket with the toy out as well, but my phone ran out of juice and didn’t record that. He was able to do the behavior pretty consistently, but basically had his eyes glued to the toy the entire time he was doing it.
I don’t have any new video for this, but I just needed to say thank you immediately. I was very hesitant to post that video, and almost deleted it in the middle of the night while laying awake thinking about it. It felt like such an “I broke this puppy” thing and I could just imagine us two years from now, unable to get a sit on the start line because of it. It is near instant relief to have some steps to follow to move forward! Your comment about the presence of the tug not being a cue to offer behavior makes so much sense.
It is all such a change from carefully clicker training my previous dogs to convince them to even put a tug in their mouths!
Okay, so I realize this isn’t using any of the good ideas you gave above, but just because I got a great example of the issue on video tonight, I’m sharing it. This is the usual reaction when I’m trying to use the toy as a reward in training.
I can *usually* play tug, put the toy out of sight and use cookies to train, then bring the tug back out as a reward. But if it is in my hand, I get a lot of this.
The one thing everyone seems to advise when I ask about it is to not let him freeze, hence all my weird shuffling around.
We will have to work on his ability to keep tugging on one toy while I start bringing up the next. I think I created that behavior by doing a lot of two toy games where I very quickly offered the new toy and expected him to latch on immediately. I will start playing with keeping him on the first toy longer. I also think I just need to up the quality of food for this game. I keep pretty boring kibble and such in our training area because that is all I usually need there, but he’s a chow hound when the cheese and meat treats come out elsewhere!
Last night was our first time in a new space for him; my friend has his litter mate, and we are doing a weekly rental through the winter to train together. I was able to get help with restrained recalls, since I’m normally training by myself.
I also wanted to get video to show that he can’t do the tug-sit-tug game…so of course, he decided to do it just fine! My biggest struggle with Spy so far has been that once a toy is available, he tends to just freeze and stare and ignore all cues. We could do ten sits in a row, rewarding with treats, and the second I had a toy in my hand he would just crouch and freeze. We’ve been working on really simple behaviors like flicking his eyes up to me, but even sit has been a really hard thing for him. I don’t think it is “fixed” by any stretch, but I am relieved to see a little improvement!
The link doesn’t show on the top of that post for you? Trying again…
He is nearly as food motivated as he is toy motivated, thankfully! If both are present, he will sometimes try to turn down a low value treat in hopes of getting the toy, but most of the time he has no issue working for either.
Whoops, I did an edit to the post to try and imbed the video and that didn’t work. It looks like you can only edit once? Here is the link instead.
I will definitely be finding all kinds of fun new ways to mess up this time around!
This is a short tugging session from this evening. He’s losing teeth and blood all over the place, so he’s not quite as fierce on the tug as he has been. He does generally have both a good “out” and “take it” with (moderately) good control with regards to not grabbing the tug until cued.
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