She was so happy to be working again! We’d go out to the training field to practice, Saga wagging all the way. After training, when I tried to take her back to the house, she’d dig in the brakes and try to drag me to the van instead.

“Oh, no! Working dogs go in crates in the van, they don’t go in the house!” she said.

Funny old dog. Now I have to decide if, at almost 10 years old, is she too old to go on to Open? I think she’d enjoy the training!

Friday was interesting… horrible weather with periods of pouring rain and some good winds that threatened to take out the canopies at ringside.  But the dogs liked it!  Saga got her last leg on her CD with a 192, Dax and Zappa both got qualifying scores in Rally, and Harley and Lexi both qualified in Rally Advanced.  Harley ticked the first board on the broad jump in open (NQ) and Lexi did it beautifully, but didn’t sit in the front position.  The judge decided to wait her out to see if she’d sit, which of course she wasn’t going to do at that point, so when nothing happened, Lexi offered a behavior — touch!  Unfortunately, she chose to “touch” the end of the broad jump with both feet — hard.  So that was that.

Saturday didn’t go nearly as well for the dogs, although the sun was out for a while and it actually got hot for part of the time.  No Q s for Dax and Zappa, Lexi walked over the broad jump, and Harley nicked it again.  I also blew the drop on recall because I didn’t react to the judges’ signal — total handler bungle.  Lexi and Harley q’d in Rally advanced, and Lexi finished her RA, and Saga actually did very nice work on Saturday, but the judge was REALLY tough and she got a 182.

And the worst part was that nobody (especially bad was the rally judge on Sat) would give us time to warm up — both Zappa and Dax went straight from the car into the ring and back into the car.  Not what I had in mind for ring experience!

So next year we’re just going to volunteer to run it instead of enter.  HUH???!!!!

Is there some point to this exercise? -photo by Ingrid http://www.psychtkennel.com

June got here pretty damn quick! The trial is four days away! And we’re still having to do a LOT of handler help in the broad jump. We were sending to a target; they got that pretty quickly. Now we’re having to send over the jump and try to get a good front without too much coaxing. A few more weeks sure would be nice! And Lexi, who had been sailing over the silly broad jump like a pro, started walking it yesterday. O boy.

I’ve been telling myself that I never want to enter something again before I’m ready. I want to be building drive and responsiveness the week before a trial, not still teaching exercises!

On the other hand, if I didn’t enter before I was ready, I’d never be ready! I need the looming threat of an upcoming event to really motivate me into training.

So, wish us luck. I at least hope it’s fun. That’s why we do this, right?

If your puppy is really too busy to come when called, you can practice “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”. In the beginning, this may be difficult to practice because you need to switch back and forth from the bad guy to the nice guy in the blink of an eye. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde makes it very clear to the dog what is acceptable and what is not.

First rule of dog training: keep everything black and white. No grey areas! The dog should never have to guess what you mean.

Call your dog. If he heads off in the wrong direction, say “hey” or “oh-oh” in a stern (but not necessarily loud) voice. Clap your hands or go towards him scuffing your feet. Your goal here is to make him turn to look at you, nothing else. All that is required is that he acknowledge you in some way. Don’t keep repeating his name or the command come — just do something that will make him look at you.

As SOON as he glances your direction, or even twitches an ear in your direction, you’re going to be the most wonderful thing in the whole wide world. Call “puppy puppy puppy” in a bright happy voice. Say “yaay, what a good dog!” and mean it. Be happy and inviting — back away from your dog, smooching or clapping your hands. You might even turn and run, looking over your shoulder at him and inviting him to chase you.  Don’t be a brick wall by standing up straight or moving forward, in doggie language that means “stop” and will effectively block him from coming in to your space.

If he goes back to sniffing or looks away (and he will), scuff your feet again and say “ott…”. Again, scuff, clap, move towards him. You might even have a tin can with some pennies in it to throw. All we want to accomplish here is to get him to look at you so we can reward the look.

When he does look at you (even to see if you’ve gone nuts!) move backwards again and be cheerful and inviting. Your job is to switch from “darkness” to “sweetness and light” back and forth as quickly as you can. If he looks away, it’s darkness. If he looks towards you, it’s sweetness and light and all sorts of wonderful things.

Your timing is critical. You’ll fail if you are still saying “oh you bad dog” when he turns to look. Stop mid-sentence and switch to “what a good dog!” the moment you get any response, no matter how small.

Give him every opportunity to come to you. We want him to be successful, but we also want him to understand that ignoring your recall is not an option. Be very happy, with lots of genuine praise and abundant treats when he finally decides to come to you.

If he’s still too busy sniffing or otherwise ignoring you, you may have to walk up to him. Give him a little pinch or pull his hair. He will swing around to see what you did — at that exact moment, start backing up and say wonderful things. Tell him what a good dog he is in a happy, sing-song voice. If he looks away, say “ott” in a warning tone. If he looks back, say “excellent! What a good, smart dog you are!” We’re walking a tightrope here, and need to make it very clear that one side is everything wonderful and the other side is darkness.

If he still doesn’t come when you call, you can have him drag a light 20 foot line around. If he takes off away from you, step on the line. Let him correct himself by hitting the end of the line. Don’t pick the line up — it’s imperative that it’s his choice to come to you. If you must pick up the line, just give him a few quick tugs in your direction and drop the line again.

This method doesn’t work because of punishment, it works because the reward is so wonderful.

When your dog hears his name or the word “come/here” he should be excited because he knows that those words are attached to all the best things in life:  dinner time, car rides, going for walks, going outside, coming inside. Reserve “come/here” for those good things. When you need to give him a bath, trim his nails or put him in a crate, go and get him. Don’t call him and then do a Bad Thing. Coming when called should be happy. The dog should respond without thinking and be halfway to you before thinking “hmm, maybe I really wanted to stay and sniff that bush, but oh, well coming when called is always good too.”

Call your dog to you may times throughout the day. Touch his collar, praise, reward, and release.
Use Life Rewards — those good things mentioned above, and not just treats. DOG TRAINING HAPPENS throughout the day. A few moments of training 10 times a day is far more effective than 20 minutes once a day.

The foundation: puppies and adults. What they need to know:

• Active treat rewards:
  • run – active back up, follow hand.
  • Turn, take from low hand (from behind) left & right
  • chase food through legs – teach for later use in front rewards
• “Positions”
  • sit
  • stand
  • downs: move dog backwards and then down
• Spatial pressure
  • Follow hand — “Spin” and “twist”
  • BACK – as Carol pointed out, if you’re having problems teaching the STAND, teach back first. Then STAND comes easy.
  • Because pushing back thru body pressure can affect fronts (closeness), work on rewarding for very close/touching sits in front. Reward thru legs.
• Yield to leash pressure
  • Finishes on the wall
  • BACK on the wall
• Retrieves
  • Throw toy, encourage puppy to com back fast!
  • hold muzzle, fingers hooked in collar below. Mark & reward as soon as pup yields.
  • Holding muzzle, with fingers in collar, take one step backwards and encourage pup to move with collar pressure. Mark & reward as soon as the pup moves with you.
  • Holds with pvc pipe
• Fronts & Finishes on wall, later transition using a guide stick
• Heeling
  • Attention
  • Moving attention
  • Heel position on wall
  • Model head’s up heeling with treats away from the wall
  • Hand touches as a way to move treats out of sight
• Foot touches on a target. Raised target to begin with.
  • Pivot on a target. Use guide sticks if necessary. Can work on both front position and
  • Left turns – cue head movement
  • Go outs to a target
• Recalls
  • Restrained recalls
  • Recalls through a group of people
• Whistle recalls – not for obedience, but a good tool to have for off-leash control.
• Attention
  • Someone else plays and lures the pup away from the trainer  (backs up, excited, no food or toy) – trainer recalls puppy off of the helper
  • Trainer feeds continuously, asking for attention, while helper claps, talks, runs by, etc
  • Allow puppy to visit other dogs. Helpers ignore puppy while feeding their own dog. Trainer remains neutral until puppy turns away from helper & their dog — then becomes active and engaging. Puppy learns that all the good stuff comes from owner, and nothing good comes from visiting.

BEGIN EACH TRAINING SESSION with food, then go to play and toys. Going from toys to food violates the dog’s expectations. Most like food as long as a ball hasn’t been already present.

REWARD ENERGY, SPEED, FOCUS: active food rewards & play — use food like a toy. Whip around – chase – catch up – grab – same physical actions as when you switch to a toy. Increases value from food reward. Can be rehearsing these actions with food while puppy is teething, then when go to toy, puppy understands chasing and grabbing.

PLACEMENT OF REWARDS. Dogs are very efficient. If the reward always comes in the same place, the dog will put himself in a position where he can efficiently get the reward when it comes. Use this to reward heel position and fronts. Consistently give the reward in the same place every time. You can stand square with your arms hanging down at your sides when you call the dog. Then mark and then bring your hands together to reward on the centerline of your body, and in a place that brings your dog’s head up on the centerline. In heeling, let your hand hang naturally at your side, or have your hand on the outside of the dog’s head (for larger dogs!), mark YES, then reward up and directly over your dog’s head.

Food is a great motivator — so much so that it can be painful at times for the trainer! Doggie Zen is a way to teach the puppy not to take the food so roughly.
Get down on the floor with your puppy. Hold a piece of food in one hand between your thumb and index finger. At first, close you hand so that it hides the food from sight, but let him know you have it. Depending on how food driven your puppy is, he may sit back and wait for you to offer it to him, or he may start biting and pawing and otherwise trying to mug you for the food. This is great! — an opportunity for learning!
Hold the food hidden in your hand. Don’t move your hand around; keep it still and in one place. If he roughly tries to take the food out of your hand, just hang onto it tighter without moving your hand away. Ignore any of the pawing or biting unless it gets out of hand, then flick the puppy across his nose with your last three fingers. At some point the pup will back away in confusion, as if to ask “what do I have to do to get the food?” As soon as he stops mugging you, open up your hand and let him have the food.
We’re ignoring the bad behaviour — biting, pawing, licking — and rewarding the good behaviour — waiting politely or backing away.

Think about space as a tangible thing: how do you feel when someone gets too close to you in line at the supermarket? Have you ever had a boss who looms over you when he checks your work?

Who gets the big, compfy chair in the corner office, and who gets the little, hard chair in a cubicle is a clear example of space hierarchy at work.

In the animal world, space is also at a premium. The dominant mare in a herd of horses makes the other horses move away with just a look. The “natural” horse trainers use pressure and release in training. The clearest reward to a horse is the release of pressure.

The dominant dog doesn’t move out of the way of an irritating puppy; if the puppy is a bother, the adult snaps at it and tells it to go away. The top dog gets the best toys, the best sleeping spot, etc.

We can use space very effectively in dog training. If you want your dog’s attention, move into his space. Use your body pressure to demand his attention. Once he looks at you and yields space to you, relax your pressure. Move away and invite him into your space. This concept works well to control the dog who likes to jump up in greeting. We instinctively move away from the dog as he jumps on us, but in effect, we’re yielding, saying “here, you can have my space”. Instead, lean into the dog. Scuff over the top of him, while saying happily “oh, were you in my space? I wouldn’t have stepped on you if you weren’t in my space.” We will work on this “space game” concept extensively in class, as it has applications in both agility, obedience, and daily manners.

Monday nights at 7.15 — Continuing Agility

Wednesday nights at 6.30 — Obedience and Rally FUNdamentals

These classes are on-going… that is, they have no beginning or end, so you’re welcome to join us at any time.

This just in:

This writing circulates all the time on the dog lists as “Author Unknown.” The author of “What is a Title, Really?” is Sandy Mowery, and it originally appeared in the publication Front & Finish.

—–
What is an obedience title really?

Not just a brag; not just a stepping stone to a higher title.

Not just an adjunct to competitive scores … a title is a tribute to the dog that bears it; a way to honor the dog; an ultimate memorial.

A title will remain in the record and the memory … for about as long as anything in this world can remain. Few humans will do as well or better in that regard.

And though the dog himself doesn’t know or care that his achievements have been noted, a title says many things in the world of humans, where such things count.

A title says your dog was intelligent and adaptable and good-natured. It says that your dog loved you enough to do the things that please you … however crazy they may have sometimes seemed.

And a title says that you loved your dog, that you loved to spend time with him because he was a good dog, and that you believed in him enough to give him yet another chance when he failed … and that in the end … your faith was justified.

A title proves that your dog inspired you to that special relationship enjoyed by so few … that in a world of disposable items and disposable creatures, this dog with a title was greatly loved, and loved greatly in return.

When that dear short life is over, the title remains as a memorial of the finest kind, the best you can give a deserving friend, volumes of praise in one small set of initials after the name.

An obedience title is nothing less than the love and respect, given and received and recorded permanently.

— Sandy Mowery

When the dog is first learning a new skill, we reward every correct response. This is called continuous reinforcement, and is effective in the beginning stages of learning.

However, we need to move quickly away from continuous reinforcement as it is not effective in the long turn. Imagine if you put a nickle in a slot machine and pulled the handle, and every time you pulled the handle, you got a quarter back. You would be making money hand-over-fist, but how long would you keep doing it? Probably just until you had enough money to go do something else more interesting.

Contrast that with a variable reinforcement schedule, where payment occurs after a random number of responses. A reward might occur three times in a row, then nothing for ten times, then once, skip once, and reward again. (In the lab, the reward is based upon some predetermined average, but I’m not that meticulous a dog trainer!) Thus a reward is not given every time the dog performs the behaviour, but is unpredictable — there is no set pattern.

Using the slot machine example again, the “one-armed-bandit” is a good example of variable reinforcement. When you put a nickel in, sometimes you get a nickel back, sometimes you get more, but most of the time you get nothing. The more times in a row you get nothing, the greater the expectation that THIS TIME you might hit the jackpot! Hope keeps you pulling the handle.

Dogs are the same. If your reward is always the same piece of hot dog every time, and you never vary the food or it’s presentation, your dog will eventually work only when food is visible and he feels like eating. Most likely he will wander off to find something more interesting to do.

Much of what makes a reward system work is hope, expectancy, surprise and occasional disappointment. Use a variety of rewards (different sizes and types of food) and vary the way in which it is presented. Variable reinforcement means not only that rewards are given randomly, but that there is variety in the reward. Be random in when you present the reward. Expectation enhances incentive. Each time the dog responds to the cue he has a chance of being rewarded. The more he responds, the better the chance of a reward. Training is more exciting — the possibility that this might be the time causes the dog to work harder. And occasionally, if that reward is better than expected, the incentive to keep working increases.

(Remember, though : every time you say “yes” or click, it is followed by a treat. It’s against the rules to click and not treat! Random reward means that you don’t mark/click/treat every time he sits on command, but when you do mark/click, it is always followed by a treat.)

Build faster responses — only reward the best tries
In addition to being completely random in your reward system, you can also begin to reward only the best and fastest responses. Pick a criteria, for instance “if he sits before I count to three” and reward only those responses. If he does sit, but is slow or distracted, break him out with a “good boy” but no click and treat. Pick a time limit of two or three seconds; don’t guess, count it to yourself. Reward when his response is under three seconds; don’t reward if he hasn’t sat by the time you count to three.

If you have two dogs, you can use this as well: call the dogs to you and ask them to SIT. The one to sit first gets the treat.

Jackpots. Reward really spectacular tries with a handful of food. This large, unexpected reward may help motivate the dog to try even harder. Let the dog stick his nose in the treat bag and help himself, or give 10 small pieces of food, one after the other, in rapid succession. Or, save some liver for jackpots and use string cheese for normal rewards.

Two-for-ones ask the dog to perform an exercise twice for one reward. Tell your dog SIT, praise, release with an OKAY!, then command SIT again, mark and reward.

Delayed rewards. Delay the click by asking SIT, mentally count “one-two-three” and then click and treat. Sometimes wait 10 seconds before clicking and treating; sometimes click and treat immediately. Remember, variety is the spice of life.