Thought it was time I added a few more vids and will try to do this more regularly (along with piccies) to break up all the text.
I would have had several up except SOMEONE was silly enough to spend most of the video outside of the frame of her iPhone propped on a chair so basically all you see is my rear end and hearing me make silly noises while playing with the dog. Not really worth the upload time I hope to re-do the ones of Billie and Josh tomorrow.
I did get a couple of good ones of Fyre however. There wasn’t any major plan around these – just to video a few things we have been doing. As always, looking at them does point out a few things I need to work on.
Fyre has huge value for his crate (I literally can’t go near a crate now without him hovering around the door desperate to get in) so it’s no problem for me to have a big game of tug once he comes out. With Billie however we are still building value for going in the crate, so I tend to focus on her driving INTO the crate more than playing when she gets out. Pity my backyard isn’t bigger because Fyre really does have awesome drive into the crate – he will race ahead of me and bound in. With this video I was trying to illustrate that.
You can also see here one of my rules of tug games, which is that the dog picks the toy up to play – my dogs all play tug regularly now so I expect them to fetch a toy to me. As Fyre still needs encouragement to do this sometimes, I probably need to go back and work on it some more, perhaps with a higher value toy than this. All he wants to do is get back in the crate
Then we did some practice sending him in from different places around the crate as I have done very little of this – first off, I really should have moved the crate further out so I wasn’t obstructed either side (mechanics!!) which made manoeuvring the dog into the right spot difficult. You can see Fyre look at me the first time like ‘Hmm, what do I do now?’ but because he loves the crate so much by default that is the first thing he tries.
You can also see me working criteria for crate games - at one point he moves to sniff something on the floor of the crate, so the door shuts and we start again. No paw movement is the rule!
I am also trying to be aware of reward placement – I have done a LOT of rewarding from in front, tugging, treats etc so my circle work has been made somewhat harder because the dogs always want to come around in front – that is where the most value is. I am trying to be aware of this now and rewarding as much as possible at either side. Of course it is easier to tug from the front so I have to be careful not to forget myself and simply follow the easiest path!
The second video is Fyre playing It’s Your Choice with food – his criteria in crate games is to sit when my hand goes on the door and then hold that sit (no feet moving) til I release him. So here he holds his sit while I throw treats on the ground in front of him, then because he chooses to hold position he gets to have those treats as I retrieve them from the ground. If at any point he moved a foot or stood up or tried to come out I would have shut the door and started again, but he has played this a few times now so has pretty good self control. Next time we might up the ante and make it a bit more of a challenge.
The other thing I have been aware of with all the dogs is which way they turn when they go into the crate. The dog should always turn towards you, never ‘flick away’ – this is the basis for agility handling – and prevents the dog from taking off course obstacles. Unfortunately you can’t see me when I send Fyre in the crate the last time or you’d see that he started on my left side and therefore should circle right when going in the crate (towards me) which is why I took him out and sent him in again before rewarding. This isn’t a punishment – simply a ‘Let’s try that again’ and then he gets his food reward. He has improved at this a lot. However this really is a behaviour I’d prefer to work away from the crate because I don’t like re-dos when the dog has done a great job otherwise of driving in. So I am also working all three dogs around a cone, as well as shadow handling/circle work so they are always rewarded for turning TOWARD me and not away. (Must try and get some video of the cone work too as the visual illustrates it better than my trying to describe it).
One thing leads to another and I never know what I'll end up doing next...
We are currently working the exercises in Susan Garrett's 5 Minute Recall course and of course as one thing leads to another I find myself also incidentally working lots of little other things in association with the recall games, and coming up with lots of new ideas too. It is a lot of fun :)
This week I have started occasionally using the dogs' sack bed in place of a crate as a starting/ending point for exercises. They actually love it because they can take a flying leap to land on it, so it has become quite exciting. The only thing I have to watch is that the whole bed goes skidding across the floor with the force of their leaps both to and from! This is less of a problem when outside on the grass though. Whilst they are very excited to jump on and off I need to work on them staying there until I release them. Fair enough, as I have only just started doing this, so our focus the next few days will be building value for staying on the bed no matter what I do, and gradually introducing more distractions to the point where I can have one of them staying on the bed whilst I work another dog. Obviously our continuing training in crate games will help with this also. I see it being a very handy tool, being able to place the dog on a bed/table or such and know they will wait there until released. It will also transfer over to the 'official' table in agility, having a dog with great drive TO the table (or bed as it may be), with an excellent stay once there and also able to blast off at full speed once released.
Putting foundation training in perspective - turns out it really is worth the effort!
My dogs continually amaze me. Just the other night I took Billie out to do some training for only the second week in a row at club and was amazed and more than a little stoked at how well she did.
Now, Billie is a 20 month old Aussie who tears around the yard like a maniac at top speed chasing (or being chased by) my other two dogs much of the time, uses walls as a pushing off point by leaping against them, jumps over and onto everything she can reach with no thought for her own safety and generally does things at a million miles an hour.
This same dog was able to work off lead in a relatively strange area (she has only been on the club grounds a few times previously and not recently) with multiple other dogs running, barking, jumping very close by (there were three or four other classes going on around us at various distances). She never left me once. She focussed on me. She played tug with me. She offered behaviours on and around the equipment. She maintained a high level of enthusiasm and confidence throughout.
I was surprised (interpretation: drop dead amazed).
It pointed out to me yet again how often we underestimate our dogs, and how easy it is to focus on the things they CAN'T do over the things they CAN. It also confirmed to me that I have chosen the right path to do so much focus on foundation work, and that the positive style of training I am using now is the right one for me.
I am very grateful to have gained all the training knowledge I have, particularly from attending the seminars with Greg & Laura Derrett and Lynda Orton-Hill and of course everything Susan Garrett has published. (I am eagerly anticipating Susan's workshops here in November as well as her 5 Minute Formula Recall internet course that we have signed up for). I have learned so, so much in the last couple of years. I am beginning to feel now that I have the knowledge to not only give my dogs a good foundation, but also that I am explanding my ability to apply that knowledge to many different scenarios.
For example looking at Billie's training session on Fri night. We probably did about 20 mins of 'training' total. I'd say at least 15 mins of that involved playing with toys and/or crate games (so it was really broken up into multiple very short sessions). I don't know how I ever trained a dog without crate games. My often hyperative and easily distracted Billie was able to do multiple perfect sit stays in an environment with a huge number of distractions. How long would it have taken me to train that without crate games? Not only can she hold a sit stay she is focussed on me and poised for action so when I do release her she comes right away at full speed. She can also drive ahead of me in a straight line with confidence (in fact, she went so fast once when she leapt into the crate she practically bounced off the back wall before she could turn around!)
Because I have tried very hard not to use corrections when training, I have a dog who is confident to try things and therefore learns very quickly. After seeing a tyre for the first time, it took her a total of about 5 seconds to work out she needed to go through it. Head through hoop, stand on hoop rim, walk through hoop - oh, hey, that worked! Well, I can do that again easy! And now I can do it more quickly, and do it as a jump!
The ability to fail and recover - how much more quickly we can progress. Second night working on a table - we simply spent a lot of time building value for the table, tugging in the table, playing sit-tug on the table, rewarding her for offering different positions on the table. Very quickly I was able to progress that to me walking around the table in both directions, me starting to walk/jog away from the table, and so on. I never used a stay/wait command. She made the CHOICE to stay there. When she did jump off once she quickly worked out that she could start earning treats again by hopping back up again with no cue from me.
We also started 2x2 training, and she was able to quickly hit entries from both left and right with fantasyic speed/drive, and then displaying the same returning to me with the toy.
To say I was thrilled with this training session is an understatement! I have a dog who is fast, responsive, happy, confident and focussed, exhibits the ability to make intelligent choices, recover from failures and exhibits SELF-control. I'd say that's about everything you want for an excellent agility dog.
Can Billie sequence four obstacles in a row? Not yet. But she has the foundations of many behaviours associated with negotiating those four obstacles correctly - she will be able to hold a start line stay while I lead out, she will be able to break from that stay on command to take those obstacles at full speed, she will focus on my cues of where to go next or alternatively have the ability to drive ahead of me in a straight line. And if she does fail she will have the confidence to re-attempt until she gets it right.
