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Good 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!
TracyThis is the Prop shaping game:
Great job going back and forth between toys and treats! Super!!We definitely want this to be a foot touch and not a down, so on the next session: when he hits the target, you can toss the treats off to the side so he keeps moving back to target it again, rather than holding a down on it. That will set you up really nicely for the sends that come after this! As soon as you get reliable paw hits but no downs, you can move to the sends.
You can also consider attaching this to something so it is a little raised, making it more obvious and easier to target. This will be useful when we add more challenge to it.Great job on all these! Have a great Thanksgiving!
TracyThis is the blind cross game. The first 2 reps were really just sorting out mechanics, but then you nailed it! Nice! He is speedy so you can start running away as soon as you send him to the treat, then start the blind as soon as he grabs the treat. The last rep was the best one – really nice early timing! Great job with all of your connections here!
The next step is to add more distance, either by throwing the treat further away or having someone hold him like a restrained recall so you can get really far ahead 🙂
This is a the wing wrap foundations video – looking really good!!!
He did really well with the bowls, cone and upright here. No need to add a lot of distance yet, we will make some tweaks before that to add more challenge 🙂
Using the jump upright, the next step is to move the bowls further back behind you (make next to your heels here) so he has more too to make the turn and approach the upright, which adds more challenge to the turn. The upright can be maybe a foot away from you when you do this.
When he is fine with that, you can change your position to sitting in a chair, which is the next step to be able to get you standing up 🙂
Each time you change a variable, move the upright in closer to you so he can be successful, then you can inch it back out. For now, it doesn’t need to be more than an arm’s length away, because we will add distance later on and change lots of other things before adding distance.
Nice work on the prop sends here!
Try to start the sends with engagement with you (the ready dance :)) rather than a collar grab or just sending. That will give you a snappier behavior, because he will be more excited and will know exactly when to start the send. Yo can see on these reps he was not entirely sure of when to start, so was not driving to it immediately.
When you got too far away he started offering a line up behavior, so stay a little closer for now 🙂
Nice job with the hits and rewards, so the ready dance for engagement will really help him be faster to start the send 🙂A-ha! This one’s got motion! He did well driving ahead of you here with motion, no problem! Be sure to throw the toy on a line more directly in front of him – when you throw it in front of you, I think he might take you down in a collision! You can try throwing it further to add even more distance.
Hi!
More driving ahead on this clip, he is rocking this game!
Definitely add in your motion now too, so you can build to the toy races that got posted today 🙂
This was driving ahead with more distance, and it went really well too! You didn’t pull him back or up by the collar, so he was more balanced on the release. Yay!
You can start adding your motion forward on this game, walking towards the toy as soon as you let him go (building up to having you jog then run).And to encourage more retrieve, you can start running the other way as soon as he arrives at the toy. And, play heartily with him – on this clip, you were teasing him with the toy more than playing with it, which might be why he doesn’t bring it back when he gets it LOL! So, more play with him will definitely help!
