Tanner knows how to do a nose touch to my hand (cue=touch) as well as a paw whack (cue=five). However, when I hold my hand out for either of these cues, it looks relatively the same. How does Tanner know what I want? He learned to wait for the cue!
I wanted Tanner to have excellent stimulus control (I only want him to offer the behavior in the presence of the cue) on these two behaviors for a couple reasons:
It can be annoying for him to constantly paw at me or try to put his nose in my hand every time I hold it out.
Teaching him to wait for the cue also teaches him self control.
It was challenging for me to teach.
It makes him use his brain. (watch for the steam towards the end of the video)
I started putting in sub headings in the pertinent points but then faded them out. A few things to point out; I often click Tanner for not responding to the hand alone, I want him to wait for the cue! When he makes a mistake, I take my hand back, pause a beat, then try again. If he does not respond at all, I take my hand back thus ending the possibility of getting a reward, pause a beat, then try again.
I do not tell him "No" when he does the wrong thing. I don't want to punish him for trying. Why? Because a dog that is not afraid to try things is easier to train. Besides, he "gets it" without the aversives!
Another thing to note is that both of these behaviors were trained pretty fluently at home. We have taken them "on the road" and used them in other situations as well. However, this is the first time I have asked him to discriminate outside the house. We are at our local dog training gym, a place very familiar to him. Although he does not hesitate or make mistakes at home, you can see that this environment is a bit distracting and he has to work a bit harder to concentrate.
There is a new trend in dog sports and fitness called canine conditioning. It takes all the information we know about human core conditioning as well as yoga and pilates techniques and adapts them for four legs.
One of the first steps you would learn from a canine conditioning coach is to teach your dog a command for "feet up" or to put their front feet on something that you indicate. There is a lot you can do once you get this behavior.
The thing that I am the most interested in is to teach Tanner how to use his back end to maximum effect. At not quite two years old, he tends to be a big goober at times. I think if he is properly conditioned and body-wise, he will be less likely to hurt himself or someone else. Plus, I am a bit of a training geek and wanted to try teaching this behavior.
I didn't get every training session videoed but hopefully enough that you can see the progress.
Here is one of our first sessions. I apologize for cutting off his head (this is what I get when I put the camera on the floor). At least you can see his feet. My criteria at this step was one foot touching the object. I try to give him his treat when his foot is still on the target. This video is a little long about two minutes but you can get the gist of it rather quickly.
Tanner is consistently giving me one foot on the target. My criteria is still to click for one foot but I am feeding him extra for two feet. We also had an issue where he wanted to lay down on the target. I don't know if this is because I had previously taught him to lay down on a different target or because he is lazy. Either way, it is just behavior and can be molded. I give him his treats up, in other words I hold the treat in such a way that he has to stretch up a little bit to get it. I also do not click for laying down on the object and instead ask him to do something else to move him off the target to reset.
In this next video, Tanner is really getting good at Stomp. I haven't added the cue yet. This session took place during a break a training seminar. I was pretty impressed that he was so eager to perform even with the distractions. From this session I can see that the behavior is where I want it to be and we are ready for the cue.
Here we practice with the cue "Stomp".
Now that he has the behavior on cue I switch it up and ask him to "Stomp" a stool. I click for one foot up the first time or two to get him going.
On to bigger and better things! We were taking part in a small canine conditioning class and Tanner got to try out his new behavior on some equipment. The squishy disc reminds me of a Bosu ball. When Tanner gets both of his front feet on it, he has to work to keep everything steady. Because he has such a good reward history with stable things and this behavior, he has no problem trusting me and attempting to do this.
Now he gets to try the peanut ball. This ball is easier than a plain round one because it can only roll in two directions instead of 360 degrees. Eventually, if we work at it, we will work up to the round ball without my need to stabilize it.
What a good boy!
Many of these videos were made at My Dog's Gym in Salem, Oregon and the rest were made in my messy living room.
One of my favorite training aids to teach a dog to go out and work away from me is the staples Easy button. Touch it and it says "That was Easy". Once they learn how to make the button talk they are crazy about it. I used it to teach Whisper to go in a straight line in agility. She used to take a jump and look back at me for direction. In agility they may have to jump in a straight line for 2-3 jumps so curling back to me was a disadvantage. Once she learned the button talks and and she would get treats for making it talk she became motivated to work ahead of me.
In the last video Echo is also learning how to make it talk to get rewards.
Everybody needs to learn self control, even adorable little greyhound puppies. Teaching a puppy or adult dog to wait before jumping out of a car, bolting through a door, or diving for a food dish is important for the safety of the dog as well as the owner. There are many opportunities through out the day where a dog can and should be taught self control. Learning in many different contexts allows the dog to generalize more quickly and can make your life happier.
Tanner and his littermates all had a good sit and wait for a cookie before they went to their new homes last year. When he arrived at my house, he was asked to sit and wait for his food bowl to touch the floor. If he got up from his sit before the food bowl touched the floor and his release command was given, the food was picked back up. In the very beginning, I used my hand to help restrain him, to give him an extra cue and make it easy. After all, I believe in setting the dog up to be successful in teaching new things. As time went on, the physical cue went away. Now, he goes into his pen and waits for the food. I don't verbally tell him to sit anymore, he knows what he needs to do because I am consistent in what I ask. He eats twice a day and twice a day he has to sit for his food. Here is a video clip of Tanner and Shine's dinner routine.
We have a narrow set of stairs in our house. When we first moved here, the dogs would rush past us down the stairs, often bumping into us in their haste to get by. Hmmmm, this could be dangerous! I could have my hands full with laundry or the dogs' dinner! I could have a visitor who is unsteady on their feet. Someone could get hurt! It's an easy fix. I thought to myself, "what do I want the dogs to do instead of rushing and bumping past me down the stairs?". I taught the dogs to wait on the stairs. When I head for the stairs, they wait for me to go (unless I tell them to go first) and I tell them when they come down or up after me. Since I am consistent, they do this well. If they forget and I hear them put a foot on the step, I stop and back up until I hear them take their foot of the stair. Here is a video of them waiting on the stairs until I get to the bottom with their food. In my mind, this is not a dominance issue, this is self control. Shine often sees me preparing their food and goes down the stairs and to her spot before I get there. I don't mind, as long as she is not pushing me aside to get through.
Another opportunity that Tanner has to wait is when he is in his pen. Whenever I can't be around to watch him (see the posts on chewing), he is in an x-pen that is anchored to the wall. He has access to small part of the yard through a rather large doggy door. When I go to let him out, he sits and waits to be released. He knows what to do because of consistent repetition multiple times a day. When he first came home, I would ask him to sit as I was reaching for the door. He was really good at that! If he tried to get up and come out when the door was opened, I would shut it. At the same time, he was learning to wait for the release command on the sit in our training sessions. It was easy for him to understand in this context as well. Eventually, I would reach for the door latch before telling him to sit. Now, he understands that my reaching for the latch his cue to sit. He has also learned the same behavior in the car and his crate. He sits and waits to be released. Here is a video of him waiting in his pen.
Last but not least is the front door. I hear about poor dogs running out the front door and getting lost all the time. I try to combat that at my house by purposely teaching the dogs to wait until told to go through the front door. There are three different routines that we practice with the front door. One is where I go through the door without being prompted by a knock or without putting leashes on. In this instance, I started by opening the door and throwing treats to the other side of the room. In the following video, you will see that I can leave the door open while I go through it and dogs don't even want to approach the door. In fact, in order for the video to show anything at all, I had to cheat and bait them into hanging out anywhere near the door. The kept running to other side of the room! Here is the video:
The other door routine involves a knock at the door. The dogs run to the door when they hear a knock. They always want to greet visitors! I make them sit and feed them treats while I deal with whoever is at the door. We don't get many visitors so I have to convince a friend, or my hubby to help me train this. My plan is to get a wireless doorbell and train the dogs using this before hooking it up for actual use.
The other door routine is with leashes. They sit while I put their collars and leashes on. I open the door and pick up their leashes before releasing them. Once through the door, I always have a cookie for them. The idea is that instead of wanting to leap out the door to look around, I want them to go out the door and then turn around and look at me. That way if I missed the cat/squirrel/bunny in the yard on my first look, I have another opportunity to get control over the situation. It also ensures they are not tempted to pull on their leashes while I am trying to lock the front door.
Most of Lyric's puppies went into show/performance homes. Becca owned by Donna passed her CGC(Canine Good Citizen)test at just under one year old. Below is Donna's write up.
Four days short of being 1 year old, Becca passed her CGC (Canine Good Citizen) Test!!! She and Donna had been preparing for this with their Advanced Novice classes. For those of you unfamiliar with this test, it involves 10 exercises for the dog, involving some basic obedience and behaviors:
1. Accepting a friendly stranger--Evaluator approaches and shakes hands with handler who has dog on a leash; dog is not touched. 2. Dog is asked to sit politely for petting by evaluator. Dog must show no shyness or resentment. 3. While still sitting, evaluator brushes dog, exams dog's ears and front foot 4. Dog is walked on a leash by handler while being directed by evaluator to do right and left turns, an about turn and halt 5. While dog is on its leash, the dog and its handler walk through a crowd of people. Dog may show casual interest, but not jump up. 6. Handler has dog do a sit and a down; then handler leaves the dog in either position, walks away 20 ft and then returns immediately to the dog. 7. Dog is attached on a long line and told to sit and stay; handler walks out 10 ft in front of dog, turns to face the dog and then calls the dog to come to the handler. 8. Handler and dog walk toward another handler and dog; dogs are asked to sit; handlers then shake hands. Each dog and handler continues on their walk in opposite directions. Dogs can show casual interest. 9. The dog is presented with 2 distractions and is not to panic or show aggression. In Becca's case, it was a chair being dropped nearby and then someone using a walker in front of her. 10. Dog is on a 6-ft leash and given to an evaluator; dog is asked to sit or down by handler, but dog does not have to stay in that position. Handler goes out of sight of the dog for 3 minutes. Dog is to remain quiet and calm during this time period.
