L2 Sit Step 1, Part 1

Moving on...

L2 Sit Step 1: "Dog sits and stays while you walk 5 feet away and return."
Step 1a: Sit without moving.

Luna can do this in daily life, but NOT when there's clickers and treats involved, aka a Training Session! So we are diligently working to fix that.

I hadn't actually planned to start L2 today, but after Luna had dinner I re-filled her food container and of course she came asking if she could have some more. Since she's on the skinny side of lean, I figured, why not. So I took another handful of kibble and took her to the mat in the hallway. Starting on slippery tile is destined to be an epic fail, we'll safe that for later.

At first I tossed the treats to reset her after each count, but that was too hard. She couldn't sit calmly, was trying to offer other behaviors, and so on. So I had her sit once and then just handed her the treats after each count. Then we got up to 5 seconds before she moved her feet. Back to one. Then we got up to 7 seconds before she moved her feet. Back to one. Then we got up to 4 seconds and I dropped the treat, so she got up to get it. Again up to 5 seconds but then I realized I was paying for noise, so we ended with 2 seconds of quit, calm sitting.

Tomorrow I will make sure to treat noise as a mistake, and go back to one if she even looks like making noise (her face gets tight). Despite that, she did better and was physically calmer than I had expected, so yay!

A Morning of Play

We spent 2 hours in the park this morning. We played Scavenger Games, tug, Downs and Recalls to the whistle. Luna had a blast swimming, then racing out of the water, onto grass, and literally throwing herself sideways to the ground to rub herself dry.

We played the Scavenger Games with kibble in the grass and cheese for recalls and downs. She did great, even downed on the whistle without needing the hand signal.

Oh, and she backed up, in yet another new location, for a new toy (a Safestix)!

To, from, and through the park I ride my bike, and Luna runs alongside. In the park she's off leash and outruns me, to the park she's on leash and cantering beside me on a loose leash. On the way home she trots.

What an awesome morning with a boatload of fun!

More Back Up Progress!

This morning Luna demonstrated the ultimate understanding of the back up as an operant behavior; my parents always dole out bits of egg, cheese and meat from the breakfast table. Luna, thinking about how to get those goodies fastest, looked at my mom for a moment and then, very deliberately, BACKED UP!!! How cool is that?!!

After our morning walk we worked again on backing up on cue for a game of tug. I did 5 C/T's with kibble, just to get the behavior and remind her again of the word that goes with the movement. Then I took a ball-on-a-string and cued a back up. Two wobbly reps, and then she got it and backed up smoothly for the ball.

Time to find a bit more space so she could back up further without bumping into things. We went into the street, where we might see CATS. Luna didn't care. The first try was spot on; I said 'Back!' and off she went. On that first rep I always take the first two correct steps, just to make sure she doesn't give up. After that I got 4 steps, 5 steps, and even a double back up when I didn't click when she expected it; instead of quitting, she stood for a moment and then she just backed up 3 more steps!!!

Yes, I think I can safely say that we're making good progress!

Yucky-Stuff-On-Ground-Zen

There's this really yucky-looking thing on the ground on one of our walks. I won't even try to describe it for you. We've come across it several times now, and each time it sucks Luna's nose right in. Today the yucky thing was in the middle of the path instead of by the edge (where I don't see it before it's too late), and I had my trainer hat on. I realized that this was a great opportunity to work Zen.

Yup, first pass and Luna's nose went right down on it. Kept going past, then turned back and waited for a choice; are you gonna go for it or will you look at me? Ah, said Luna, this is a ZEN thing! She did everything in her power to NOT put her nose down. She looked at me. She went around it in an arch. She looked at it with her nose tucked to her chest. She sniffed the ground instead of the thing. I didn't click for sniffing the ground or those times (3 or 4) when she couldn't keep her nose off it. I was never between her and the thing, and considering that, she did an awesome job. We came at it from all angles; north, south, east, west. She tried really hard and we did many, many reps. I was hoping to be able to quit at a point where she stopped noticing the thing, but that was too much to ask. Still, I think she was at least 70% correct on keeping her nose to herself.

When we continued our walk, I thought about how I could make this more clear to her. Aha! Here's a new rule for interesting stuff on the ground; look at mom!

Now I'm hoping it's still there tomorrow, so we can work it again and I can apply my new criteria. Clicking only when she looks at me and not progressing to walking past and over the thing until she can get 9/10 correct when just standing near it.

Oh, and I learned that our "Go Around" cue is completely gone. She has NO clue. I'm sure that's because I'm always asking her to "Paws Up" on all objects that can double as "Go Around's". So, Re-teaching is in order, and a good opportunity to teach it to both sides on the cues "Away" and "Come By".

Funny how you just keep trying the cue, hoping that maybe, by some stroke of luck, she suddenly remembers what it means...

Back Up: Adding Cue & Ball Reward

We've spent 3 sessions now on adding the cue to the back up. She goes between 3 and 5 steps reliably, and I don't really see the point in adding more steps. We might do that sometime, but for now I'm happy with this. She clearly understands what the behavior is (walk backwards), and that's enough for now. We can work on duration/distance when we feel like it.

Our back up setup is basically the same as the solo Come Game; I toss a treat out ahead of me, when she turns back I drop one between my feet, she eats it and she backs up. I add the cue when she finishes the treat between my feet. X15, and then I 'test' her understanding by switching to a ball instead of treats. I taught Luna a default down-when-someone-holds-a-ball, so now she has to really think about what I'm saying; skip the down, just do the back up. The first few reps are a mix of both. She downs and then backs up. I click the first 2 steps and we play tug with the ball. After 3 reps she's got it and I get a nice, clean back up of about 4 steps consistently!

I suspect we'll do a few more Remind, Review, Reteach sessions before she can do it 'cold' for the ball, but her understanding of the cue is definitely growing. She backs up faster and further WITH the cue than without it.

No more dinnertime training.

I think Luna and I should not be training before her dinner anymore. Or at least not for a while.

I feed her once a day, after the humans in this household have had dinner and after I've cleaned up. Lately, we've been having really late dinners, which means Luna doesn't get fed until 8 - 9 PM. This means that by the time she gets her food, she is REALLY, REALLY hungry. We can't train at that point. She can't focus, she can't listen. I tried doing some Chutes & Ladders with Sit (1 Sit, C/T, 2 Sits, C/T, 3 Sits, C/T etc.) but she was very noisy and throwing other behaviors the whole time. Unfortunately my brain didn't kick in until after the session...

So either I don't train her right before feeding her, or I feed her sooner regardless of the humans having dinner, or I feed her twice a day.

Just writing it down so I remember.

And again, sorry Luna...

Learning Plateaus & Giant Leaps

Wowza! It took 7 sessions, but we've finally made it over the 'can't go further than 3 steps' back up hump.

All this time, if I waited for a 4th step, she would quit. Sometimes I got a 4th step by accident, but more often it was 3 steps and then, if I didn't click that, I'd get LOTS of noise with sitting, downing, targeting my foot, anything but backing up. Then I'd have to start her all over again with hind-foot movement backwards.

Tonight I set out once again to explain it to her, but she surprised me and gave me FIVE solid steps back on the first trial! And again! And again! And then I clicked a few times for 4 steps (literally stopping her in mid-backup) just because I was afraid of losing her if I kept going for 5. Didn't faze her at all, she went right back to 5 or even 6 when I let her go again!

What a great breakthrough. And so solidly, she was rhythmically stepping back right, left, right, left, right, left. It was beautiful!

Hopefully she remembers tomorrow, and if she does, I think she's ready for a cue.

Changing a Poisoned Cue

Luna is a crossover dog, and I'm a crossover trainer. It took a long time for me to really understand WHY it is so important not to use force or intimidation to get the behavior that I want, and I think part of that is that I have a very low 'base mood'. It takes very little to throw me off the deep end and cause frustration and anger. The no force pennies dropped in heaps about two years ago, and since then I've worked hard to teach myself new reflexes; teaching, guiding and using known +R cues to get and interrupt behavior, instead of reacting and adding pressure. 'HEY!' works especially well, and that's the one I struggle with most. It's out of my mouth before I'm even aware of it.

'No' was, as far as I can remember, never used as +P. I've always tried hard to use that word as information, a neutral no as Sue would say. I think, unknowingly, I've taught her that word as a Zen cue, or maybe it's a no reward marker ('that doesn't work, try something else'), but we can communicate very nicely with it. Just yesterday, on an off leash run with the bike, I used No and Good Girl to keep her out of the canal. If she got too close, intending to go in the water, I'd say No, Luna would turn away from the water, I'd say Good Girl and she'd keep going along the track.

It took me visiting other kids, a month ago I think, to realize that I was still using a +R/+P 'command' even though I now treated it as a cue, a request. That command is Sit. Luna was interacting with those kids, taking treats gently, laying down every time on the first or second cue, but she flat out refused to sit. Sure, she would sit as a default, but when the kids asked, she downed, offered other +R behaviors or just looked away. When I saw that, and I realized WHY she didn't respond, I immediately promised her that I would stop using Sit and teach her a new word, a REAL cue this time, to ask her to sit.

I started the next day on our morning walk; looked at her, waiting. Got the default sit, clicked that about 10 times. Then I said the cue as she sat; Assis. Another 10, 15 reps with the cue. Then we continued on our walk. Luna was off leash, and checked in frequently as she always does. Every now and then, when we had eye contact, I'd say Assis, and SHE SAT!!!

Sometimes I forget and still say Sit, but those slip-ups are less and less. Here's the real beauty of this new, clean cue; when I practiced Sits with her on off leash walks, she would often just stand still, or worse, she downed. And I couldn't figure out why. I now realize that she downs because she feels pressured, even though I haven't commanded her to sit in over 2 years. The new cue, Assis? It works like a charm. When I ask for a sit, even when she's off leash and not looking at me, she is 90% succesful; she sits, and she sits proudly. Chest out, ears forward, looking right at me. No more 'this worries me' downs or freezing in a stand. Even when I ask for a sit with the new cue before I throw a toy, a highly arousing situation, she nails the sit again and again. Yesterday she was looking -staring is a better term - at her favorite cat across the street. I stood behind her and quietly said Assis. Her butt went down immediately.

Yes, thank you very much, I finally understand the importance of cues instead of commands. We haven't visited the kids yet, but when we do, I'll be curious to see whether she'll sit for them on Assis.

Oh, just for completeness, this is what she used to do - besides standing or downing - when I said Sit; look away, drop her ears, lick her lips. Those signals I understood, so I tried to say Sit as softly and gently as I could. Over the years, those signals stopped, but the downs didn't, and I didn't realize until this year that those, too, were meant as 'I'm uncomfortable with that word'.

Sorry Luna!

Backing Up – Session 3.

Yesterday, in our second session, Luna ended the session being able to back up 3 steps consistently. She was calm, quiet and focused. So was I.

Our third session today had a lot of changes. We worked in the living room instead of the kitchen. I used cheese instead of kibble. The camera was filming.

In short, this was pretty crappy. I lumped, I clicked when she stopped instead of when she moved, I disengaged with her without disengaging her. Luna whined, sat a lot, got stuck a lot. The worst of it is not on video because I hadn't pressed record that time. We got 2 steps sometimes, 3 steps sometimes.

Lessons learned; FOCUS! Click for movement, not for stopping. Start with one step, when that's good, move to two. Then three. Don't start waiting for two! And forget about the camera.



For Lynn; these are the 'nesting cups':

Nesting cups & back up.

Homework for our next visit to the dog school; nesting cups and backing up. We started this morning.

Well, nesting cups was easy-peasy. There are 9 cups in my set, and Luna could nest 7 of them. The last two were too small to hold in such a way that she could aim well, although I might try them next time.

So, we moved on to backing up. I sat on the floor and paid close attention to her back legs. If either moved a tiny bit backwards, C/T. I placed the treat on the ground in front of me so she'd come forward to eat it. By the end of the session she could take 2 steps! We'll need to take it slow to make sure she's going straight and not trying to 'target' objects with her hips, but she was definitely getting it! Also, the noise level was very low. Does that mean we're both starting to understand this shaping thing? :D

A day out.

Yesterday, Luna and I spent the day traveling and playing at a dog training school 130 kilometers away.

We took the train. 3 changeovers, 2 hours travel time. Luna was a star. She loves traveling, she knows exactly where the train station is and she leads me there. She hops in and out of trains easily and boldly goes up and down open stairs. There were lots of other dogs traveling, and once, upon exiting the train (Luna always goes ahead of me) Luna ended up nose to nose with 2 strange dogs. None cared.

Normally, when waiting for trains, Luna is busy scanning the environment; looking for trains as she slowly circles around me. I decided I'd try to calm her down a bit. 'Luna, Assis.' She sat. Cookies. She got up sometimes, but sat right back down when she noticed there was no need. Then, when I waited too long to deliver the next cookie, she DOWNED! Yay, more cookies!!! In fact, she was so comfy in her down that I decided not to pay for sitting anymore. So if she got up, I just waited for another down and paid again. She was nicely over on one hip, looking around calmly. Cool!

When we arrived at our destination, we had a blast. The weather was wonderful; warm enough for the humans to be warm outside, and cool enough for the dogs not to be hot. We had our dogs cross in front of us to the other side, something Luna and I do daily on our walks. She was lovely. I did discover that we need to do some right-hind-end awareness; if I asked her to cross to the left, she swung her but around nicely, but if I asked for a cross to the right, she went across in a straight line and then waited for me to catch up.

Time for a break. Whenever we were not working with our dogs, I had Luna on her mat. At the start of the day she was tied to the fence, but halfway through I stopped bothering, because she was perfect. She stayed on the mat even if I went out of sight. She was calm. She was quiet. It was great. I learned that I have pretty good aim.

After the break it was time for some real action. We got to do a mini-agility course. Jump through three tires, and take a tunnel. Luna and I had a blast. She's never done tires, but she never missed one and we RAN the whole course, 3 times. When she came out of the tunnel, we played a game of tug. What fun!

Then, we all demonstrated our progress with stacking rings and putting toys away. A good way to see if the dogs really understood the task and could do it in this new environment. All dogs (7 of them) were successful!

On the way home, there was a dog-reactive dog on the train. Luna, again, was cool as can be.

The coolest thing ever was that I had Luna on her collar the whole time we were at the school, and she didn't pull AT ALL. She touched the end a few times, but before I could do anything she'd bounced back and fixed the problem. Wow! Loose leash in a new environment.

Happy birthday Luna!

Today is Luna's 7th birthday. Can't believe it, time flies!

Happy birthday my eternal puppy, may you have many more!

'Clean Up Your Toys'

For a wonderful, +R get together this Sunday, we are to teach our dogs to put toys/objects in a basket of some sort. This morning Luna and I did our 4th session.

I had three soft, squishy balls and an oval ice cream container that fitted those balls perfectly. Since the other 3 sessions were with an ordinary cardboard box, I first loaded this new one as a 'good place to put your nose.' Yes, I needed Luna's "huh?" to remind me of that, but I caught on immediately when I'd laid out the balls and the container and Luna didn't do anything but look at me. Duh. :D

So, first some C/T's for putting her nose in the container. Then place one ball in the container, C/T for nose touches to the ball, then for picking up the ball when it was in the container, and then on to placing the ball on the ground and C/T when Luna picked it up and pushed it (her nose wrinkled :D) into the container. Then put 2 balls out, couple of C/T's for picking up and depositing each one. Then 3 balls, more C/T for picking up and depositing each one. Then asked for 1 ball for 1 C/T, then 2 balls for 1 C/T, then back to three balls for 1 C/T each. And again. Then three balls for 1 C/T, and a couple C/T's for 1 ball at a time. And so on.

She did a great job. Quiet, calm, shoving the balls into the box, nicely following my finger points and NO FRUSTRATION. I think she's got it (for now). Yay!

Oh, and again, a short session. Maybe I'm getting it, too. ;-P

L1 Target Step 4 CA

Interesting how relieving myself of training 'duties' always leads to training. :D Even more interesting that those unplanned sessions are way more successful than the ones where I decide I 'must' train something.

So tonight Luna and I did a nice short session on Target: L1S4 CA; "All previous Steps, now with dog's nose touching your foot." Absolutely BEAUTIFUL High Rate of Reinforcement and perfect rhythm; click - treat - eat treat - behavior - click - treat - eat treat - behavior etc.

Luna was calm, quiet, focused. Soft mouth when taking the treats. That alone was worth an A+.

I started by sitting on a stool, with one foot resting on my knee. She came towards me, I clicked when her face was near my foot, fed off to the side. Again, click when she accidentally moved towards my foot, treat off to the side. At first she sort of thought I was talking about her turtle laying on the ground under my foot, or maybe stepping to the right, but I just ignored those thoughts and kept on clicking as soon as her face was near my foot. Then the lightbulb went on and she started moving towards my foot on purpose. Clicks and treats for that. X20. Then her nose brushed my foot. C/T. And again. C/T. NOW she got it; she started really shoving my foot with her nose. OK, time to refine WHERE I want you to touch. A little longer between clicks and treats, a tiny whine, but then she found the sole of my foot and got a click, and off we were again. Finished after 6 consistent nose-pushes against the sole of my foot by putting her dinner dish down.

WHAT an AWESOME session.

Before we move on I will think of a good cue (was thinking of 'Bop', but of course it could just be 'Touch'...), review all the L1 Target Steps, and then see where we can go.

Where we are on L1.

Zen = default, no cue
Hand Target = hand signal only
Sit = "Assis" or hand signal
Down = "Down" or hand signal

A LL walk.

This morning I decided to take Luna for a long walk on her collar, which means the leash MUST be loose.

She was a star. Look At That when passing other dogs, even in close quarters with Luna on the side of the other dog. Lots of connection, attention and joy.

Only time she really pulls is when her nose gets the better of her. Back up, she releases pressure, click and send her back to sniff. Once is enough not to let her tighten the leash again. We had about 4 moments like that. Part of this issue is that I have a tendency to follow her when she sniffs, in which case I'm telling her that pulling when she smells something is OK. That happened the first time she took off sniffing. Oops. This is clearly a habit I need to work on. After that first time, I was paying attention and we worked on 'you can't sniff over there unless the leash is loose.'

Also tossed treats way out ahead of us several times while walking, and she did better than I expected. Of about 10 tossed treats, she started to pull twice, and immediately came off the pressure when I took a step back. Other than that I could walk her right up to the treat, and she wouldn't go for it until I clicked. Cool!

Something I realized today; when I walk her in a harness, that's Luna's cue that I am not In The Game and thus she isn't In The Game. When walking her on a collar, I AM In The Game and thus, so is she. Hello, duh!

Also, I learned that her LL is better than I thought; I don't walk her much on a collar because I think working on LL is hard work, but actually we had a great time and it wasn't nearly as brain-consuming as I thought.

Hopefully, that means I'll be working on her LL skills more often. We definitely still need work on approaching cookie ladies and doggie friends.

Overall conclusion; this was FUN!