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Hi!
Sounds like she has had a rough time lately but I am glad you are getting into the swing of training 🙂Both pre-games are going well!
Paw target:
She was definitely getting the idea of the paw target here! Yay!A couple of ideas to help get the behavior a bit faster:
Before you start the shaping session, and before you pt the target on the floor, have the cookies ready in your hands so that the delivery is super quick, almost instant.. and so she doesn’t look at your hand or pocket as you get the cookie out 🙂Also, since she wants to offer the sit and down when you are on the floor, let’s put you up on the couch or in a chair, so she is less likely to offer the down and more likely to offer the targeting. So yo can sit in a chair, get the cookies ready… then put the hat down 🙂 That way the hat is very interesting and you can get that first click in right away.
Tossing the treats was great for getting her out of the down, so definitely keep doing that 🙂
You can also more tug breaks so you can pick up the prop, play a bit, then put it back down. It is a nice mental break for her, balances the toy and food drive, and gives you a moment to reload cookies and plan the next part of the session.
Nose target: she is doing well here too!
Same as with the foot target – have the cookies ready in your hand so the delivery is super quick and so she watches your hand and pocket less. As the session went on, she was watching your hand & pocket more and more because that is where she could see the rewards being delivered from. And for this one too, let’s more your position up to the couch or in a chair so that she isn’t also offering the sit or down because you are low.You can add more tug breaks here too – Like to break off the cookies for tugging after every 4 or 5 cookies, to give the pup a mental break and let me switch hands, reload, etc.
Great job here! Onwards to the next games!
TracyHi! He was a good boy here!
Bear in mind that since he is so small, you can still outrun him (enjoy it while it lasts haha!) so you can show him that it is OK to win. I think he was being polite LOL!!! So when you throw it and race, you can set him up to win by letting him go before you start to run, so he has a head start. Then when you start to move, you can run a little less fast so he wins 🙂 As he gets bigger and faster, you can try to win more by starting to run at the same time as you letting go of him.
So for now, try a few more days of letting him win… and then we can see if he is ready for you to try to win 🙂
Great job!
TracyHi!
He was great about getting all 4 feet on this plank! Yay! And it fits nicely with the emphasis of getting all 4 feet on all the things. So definitely keep this in the rotation 🙂And as I suggested above… no other dogs in the training zone LOL! You can see that his corgi sister was a distraction here so he didn’t always know what to do and you missed some reward moments because you were telling her ti lie down (and then he was confused and ended up in a down LOL!). She can wait further away, so you don’t have to split your focus between the dogs and you can give your total focus to him 🙂
The next step here is to toss treats off to the side, so he can run to get the treat then come back to hop on the board with all four feet. And you can add in luring him around in a slow circle, trying to keep all four feet on the board.
Great job!
TracyHi!
He is doing really well with these games! I have some ideas for you to build more of the behavior we want, while also isolating his hind end.
There are a lot of different sessions here, which is fine at this stage to get a lot of confidence built up. So now we can strategize to isolate the hind end more and getting his whole body on things, rather than just front feet.
To do that, take a ‘less is more’ approach and stick to the same behavior for more short sessions, rather than changing things as often. Also, bear in mind that there is a strong physical component to all of these so at 12 weeks old, he will get tired easily – I suggest just one session of the goat games, per day, otherwise he will begin to compensate because he is tired.
The next step is to get him to put all 4 feet on or in things. He was GREAT about getting all four feet in the big bowl on the 2nd video!!! Super! So keep that one in the rotation for now, maybe do it every other day. Feed him with his head a little higher so he can keep his feet in the bowl (dropping the treat in the bowl might cause him to pop a foot out to get the cookie) and you can also toss a treat off to the side for him to get, so he can run back and get all 4 feet in the bowl again.
The other thing I think you can prioritize for now to get all 4 feet on is the fitbone. He was close to getting all 4 feet – you can take a semi-deflated disc or another fit bone and put them close together, giving him a bigger playing field to get all four feet on. As he gets more coordinated (on the 16-18 week range) he will be able to get all 4 feet on the same item, but for now add 2 or 3 items together.
With that in mind, you can take the 4 paw pods out of the training rotation for now, it is just too hard for him to get all his feet on and it is also possible the odd feel weird to him. So put them away til he can get all 4 feet on other things, then eventually we can bring them back out. You can also skip the hind end pivoting on the disc for now – it is too hard for a pup to balance with a big inflatable and move his rear, so he was getting wobbly pretty quickly. Plus, we can emphasize getting all 4 feet on things for now so you can deflate that disc a little and use it next to the fit bone to encourage all 4 feet on things 🙂
I think your other dogs were REALLY good about staying in their downs! They were a little too close – that adds pressure to the pup and also a bit of distraction, as he was trying to multi-task figuring out his coordination AND watching them and seeing them get cookies. That was causing him to focus on more on your hands & treats. To help the pup out, ask the other 2 dogs to be in a stay outside of the shaping zone, so maybe 6 or 10 feet away. And in the middle of the training session, at this stage… no cookies for them LOL!! The total focus should be on Charlie 🙂 Please send the other dogs my apologies and give them cookies before and after the session haha!
Great job here! Let me know wha =t you think!
TracyHi!
I think this went really well! Yes on the first video, trying to do that little push-back-and-run game was fun for him for recalls, but he was too fast for you to get the blind cross in 🙂
On the 2nd video: You did get plenty of great blinds in! And on the last clip too. I think the more important thing than the blind cross is getting him to understand (and enjoy) going from cookies to toys to cookies to toys. He did pretty well with it! To get him even stronger with this, use the lowest value, smallest cookie you have, and place it in a bowl so it is easy to see. Send him to get it from the bowl, and then as he gets it call him as you run away: and use the best, craziest, furriest toy you have 🙂 So the boring cookie versus the amazing toy will definitely get this even easier for you :). Eventually you will be able to use fun cookies too, but for now, use the boring cookies and the amazing toys and you’ll continue the success he had here 🙂
Great job!
TracyGood morning!
He was a good boy to back all the way uo the ramp, but I think it is too soon to ask for that much – at 12 weeks old, let’s just get him doing one step on the flat 🙂 he was losing a bit of coordination here (back feet turned out and he had to sit) and since it is too soon to do any conditioning with him, we can work on isolating just one or two steps with his feet 🙂 It is a good shaping game too!Have fun 🙂
TracyOoh I Ike the music in the background, totally fits the situation LOL! The targeting looks great and is totally setting us up for how we will use it. I can’t hear if you are using a marker for the treat (loud music) but she has the rhythm of it the game.
The only thing I would add are tug breaks after every 3 or 4 cookies. The behavior was very easy, so she was sometimes free styling a foot target or a side swipe to get the cookie toss LOL! A frequent tug break will keep her from changing the criteria because she won’t have as many reps in a row.
If you wanted to do more of this, you could work it up to you standing. But it is in a good place for when we use it in a couple of weeks, so you can shift your focus now to the prop games and sends 🙂
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
>> This morning I worked the Goat Tricks Part 1. I was reading up on it last night, and I want to see how this will transform into a stay behavior. Casper is way too busy and wiggly to get any kind of stay duration. Sitting nicely pictures… I have to click my camera really fast! And I love to take pictures so he needs a stay. >>
The Goat Tricks don’t really transform into a stay – they are intended to be confidence building games that involve a lot of moving around 🙂 We will train the stay separately – and I promise we will do it soon LOL!!! Now I have to go back and see if I emphasized stay behavior here. You can reward with the treats while he is on the items, and you can get a bit of duration while he is on them by slowing down the pace of the treats… but the formal stay will be something we approach separately 🙂
The shaping is going well!!
Looking at getting on the board – I think your choice of item was really good: it is low and it is BIG so he can fit himself on easily. It might be slippery but I think it is still fine. While he is offering, you need to be quiet 🙂 You had a lot of conversation happening so he wasn’t sure where to look: should he engage with you? Should he offer on the board? So all of the chatter can be during the tug breaks, and when you go to shaping the only verbals should be the reward markers. (Speaking of reward markers, check out the new game I added on Wednesday). With a marker, you can mark the behavior as being correct as well as telling him where to find the reward. For example, a “yes” can be for a cookie dropped on the board, and a ‘get it’ can mean you’ve tossed a cookie off the board. I think he is ready for you to toss the rewards back and forth because that will encourage him to run across the board and also to get his back feet on (he was a front-footer in this session :))
And then when you are going to take a tug break, you can add in all the talking about how super he is, etc. 🙂
Now that he is probably teething a bit: During tug play, move the toy less so he can grab it more. You were moving it around really fast so he didn’t really get a chance to clamp on it. I was super proud of him for going back to the toy so quickly after the food! YAY!!!!
On other thing I noticed in the tugging: He does *not* like the hand play (being touched or rolled around or gently smacked) while tugging: he drops the toy every single time. That is GREAT info from him (and it also is in line with how he feels about being touched/grabbed in other situations). So to keep building up toy drive, don’t touch him during play for now 🙂
>>I just used a board I found in the basement, but I do have a soft tiles platform that I use for stays and things. Can I use that instead? Or does it need to be something novel?>>
The board was good for the confidence building of getting on things, and you can use anything novel for that. Don’t worry about a stay yet 🙂
>>I have another kinda off-topic question. I shape a lot of behaviors with my dogs, and I wait for them to offer things. While doing things with Casper, I usually let him offer a behavior and then click/treat. For example, he’s been offering a little beg and a little bow. But I’ve been thinking, should I start naming these things? I wonder if all my dogs don’t have really good verbals because I usually wait until the behavior is pretty solid before I put the verbal cue in. But… my dogs usually don’t have good solid verbal cues for tricks and will keep throwing themselves around to find out what I want. I would rather have the “only one cue, always on cue” philosophy, but I’m not good at getting that. :p. I just keep thinking about the idea of not giving a behavior a verbal cue until the dog really understands the behavior. But with my dogs, they seem to struggle to put the verbal with the behavior even after I start to say it.>>
This is a GREAT question!!!! My philosophy is when I can predict that I will reliably get the behavior I want, then I can add the verbal cue for it just before I somehow elicit the behavior. For example, with my pup, I know I will reliably get the ‘out’ of a toy if I elicit it with a cookie on his nose, or if I elicit it by having my tug hands get stationary. So I have added the word: I say ‘out’ and after I say the word, I elicit the behavior.
So for the things you mention, like the beg or bow… what elicits the behavior? If you are able to reliably elicit it… add the verbal. Or is it happening in a general “mom has cookies and a clicker” environment? That makes it harder to reliably elicit, so don’t add the verbal. Instead, set up the environment or a physical cue that can elicit it – then when that is in place, you can add the verbal.
And when we add verbal directionals on wings and eventually jumps, we will know how to elicit the behavior before we add the verbals. That makes training verbals SO much easier 🙂
Let me know if that makes sense! Great job here!
TracyGood morning!
Thanks, it was a good holiday bookended by an 8 hour drive before and after LOL!!! But watching my 6 year old niece train my 4 month old puppy was priceless!!
>> I am not understanding the difference between prop and GOAT 1.
In a nutshell: the prop is a front foot target with specific criteria for front foot hits, that we will use to cue behavior. The Goat Games are basically confidence building games where we just want the pup to climb on things and put her back feet on things too.
>>Prop – reward away from prop (after loading) and use for running back to owner for tight turn.
Yes – after the initial value building, we cue the target behavior then reward back from our hand to begin shaping turn commitment.
>>GOAT 1 – Reward at novel prop that dog can fit on.
Yes, shaping to getting all 4 feet on. And then eventually you can toss treats for the pup to get off the item then offer getting back on. This getting on is all shaped, not cued.
>>– is pick up prop necessary? I have trouble lifting something her size AND she really wants to get to the “novel prop” I’m holding.>>
The foot target prop should be something small and light enough that you can pick it up and move it. Also small enough that she won’t want to put her back feet on it. It is not intended for climbing on. I have used a hat, a sneaker, and a small cooler bag as my props. But they are also relatively flat, so the pup can foot target with front feet but won’t climb on them.
>>– Punch is in love with ANYTHING she can climb up on. So all fit-bone,wobble boards, inflatable anything, even skateboard (we have a lot). Needs to be put up before any training.
– Punch’s favorite thing in the world is to get a toy away from me, race to wobble board and fight toy on wobble board – so maybe I need to move on?>>Sounds like you can reward sticking with you more, even when the other stuff is visible? So you can hold the toy or reward with food for sticking with you, or reward near you with a 2nd toy. In a shaping session, you will be near the thing you are shaping on, so we don’t want her to leave you to get on various things in the environment. And to start this, clear the environment of those other things so she can’t access them independently.
>>also GOAT 1 item – is it okay if she lays on it (if reward takes a little time she will go from standing on item to laying on it – I think I trained this earlier)>>
If she defaults to the down, then no… we don’t want her to lay on it 🙂 Plus, much of what she will learn eventually will require her to be standing or moving. So you can have the treats ready before the shaping (either keep her tugging while you get treats out, or gently hold her collar during the transition if she will begin offering behavior before you are ready). Also, for the goat games, if she offers the down a lot: move to tossing the treats off to the sides. She gets on, you mark it and toss the treat off to the side so she gets off, grabs the treats, gets back on. The response cost of getting off the item to get the treat should effectively get rid of the down 🙂 If she is very quick and offers it anyway, reward by tossing the treat off to the side and never feed in the down position for this game.
Keep me posted on how she does!!
TracyGood morning!
She did a great job here, completely focused forward on task! Super!! You did a great job of connecting to her before the release to the toy: perfect!
When you are holding the toy, try not to slide it in front of you before she arrives at the toy, we don’t want her learn that we want her to curl in front of you 🙂When you tossed the toy straight, she was totally perfect about going straight! And you added a bit of motion and she was great with that too. You can keep adding your motion by throwing the toy further so both of you can move more. Start by walking then work up to jogging – and if she is happy with that, you can move to the running needed for this week’s Toy Races 🙂
The other thing she seemed to question was when you asked her to bring it back at the very end 🙂 For the driving ahead, you can either go to her and play when she drives ahead, or you can turn and run the other way to encourage her to bring it back (I like to do both, mixing them up during the session). And if she comes back to you, even without the original toy, you can totally reward with another toy 🙂
Great job here! Let me know what you think!
TracyGood morning!
Super nice sessions here – he has such a nice balance of tugging, offering, treat eating. Super!
He was happy to offer interaction with all 3 items you presented here (plank, disc, wobble board). I think for all three items, the next step is to get him to get all 4 feet on easily. The best route for that is to make the playing field easier. By that, I mean you can try the following:~ For the plank, either put something under it so it is a little elevated, or put 2 planks side by side so he has more room.
~For the disc, place a second disc (or even 2 more discs) next to it so it is pretty easy for him to sit on it.
~For the wobble board, you can use a bigger wobble board if you have one, or add another wobble board if you have one… or just surround this wobble board with a couple of balance discs 🙂
You can totally mix and match – you can do a wobble board and a disc or two. That way he has more room to get all four feet on. He did get all four feet on the wobble board (good boy!!) but he really had to compress himself to do it and wasn’t comfortable, so he didn’t do it again. By making the playing field bigger, he can easily get all 4 feet on the item(s).
And, since he is doing so well offering behaviors, you can move to tossing treats off to the side as the rewards: he gets on, you toss the reward off to the side, then he grabs the treat and runs back to get on again 🙂 And keep up the good work with the tug breaks!!
As you add more treat tossing, you can check out the marker game posted on Weds so you can add words to your good placements here: handing him the cookie (I use “yessss”) versus tossing the cookie (‘get it!’) versus grabbing the toy (‘bite!’). This is a great game to add these too so you both get used to them, and they will be really helpful in the future 🙂
One other suggestion: when tugging, keep the tug toy nice and low like you had it in the wobble board video, but move it around less. Move it around only enough to entice him, but then let him grab it and let him do all the pulling 🙂 You were moving it a lot and lifting it, so he was having trouble gripping it which made the tugging harder for him to do (you can see he had to let go a lot, and we want him to get a good grip on it).
Great job! Let me know what you think!
TracyHello and welcome! Great to see you here 🙂
Yes, predictability is HUGE for resilient creatures, both canine and human 🙂 So we’ll be doing a series of games for this over the course of the class.
>> Starting this exercise now with him and my baby dog! To clarify: “Yezzzz” is “treat from my hand” and “Get It” is treat on ground (anywhere? or separate cue for drive away needed, like “Go Go Go”)?>>
For treat from hand, I do use a separate marker (yessssss) from my toy from hand (bite!). Get it is the marker for the tossed away reward (treat or toy, unless the dog has questions about which). So the get it basically says to the dog: that behavior you did is correct, the reward will be tossed away for you to go grab.
Go go go is not a reward marker, it will eventually become the verbal directional to drive straight over obstacles ahead of you 🙂 So you can use go go go in the toy race games, for example, because that is the beginning of how we shape the Go behavior. But for rewarding something with a tossed reward in a shaping game, for example, the ‘get it’ marker will be more helpful.
Let me know if that makes sense!
TracyHello and welcome to MaxPup: Golden Edition LOL! So many great pups 🙂 Keep me posted about Igor!!
TracyHi! This was a great session! She did really well!
The value building at the start looked great. The sending went really well – I think you ended up outside of her ‘bubble’ on a couple of reps, meaning you were just a little too far away for now. You moved in closer and she was perfect again. It looks like 4 or 5 feet is her bubble, meaning she will get it when you are that close. But if you are 8 feet away? Nope! So you can start at 4-5 feet then gradually work your way further away over the course of a few sessions.
>>I noticed my hand being high in this session as well, so that’s definitely something I will need to continue working on.>>
No worries! One of the reasons we play this prop game is that we can get the dogs used to our high arms LOL!!! It would be GREAT if we could all keep our arms low, but since we humans can’t seem to do that, we will teach the dogs to send even when we aren’t perfect 🙂
>>1) she doesn’t seem to engage with a ready dance. She is a pretty serious worker, but I’m sure you’ll have ideas
I think she was engaged! Every dog is different. Her version of engagement is facing you, eye contact, tense muscles ready to go! She doesn’t want to waste energy barking or leaping, but she is fully engaged 🙂 Also, she doesn’t like the hand play when you smack her gently – she moves away each time you do it. LOL! So, no need for that, you can keep doing what you are doing. She was great!
>>2) food in hand with sends is hard. I ended with some shorter sends so we could work on this.
Yes it is really hard! And I think you tried it at the edge or outside her bubble. So try food in hand very close to the prop, making the distance really easy peasy 🙂 You’ll find that she figures it out really quickly! By slowly expanding her bubble, we will get some amazing commitment when we move tihs to jumps!
Great job! Let me know what you think!
Tracy
