Tracking, Down stay, Recall, Group, Jumps

Sunday 15th of March 2009

Tracking

Plan:

Serpentine track, not too long. Food in every foot step. Not opened Ceasar dog food in the end, hidden. About 10 minutes.

Training:

Group of people watching, good for Elsa and good for me. Had her sitting before I let her go on the track. Happy tracking, a little bit confused at times but comes back to it.

Analysing:

I laid too narrow bends in the serpentine therefore she got a bit confused. However, she solved it and got to the end without that much struggle.

• Need to do bigger swirls if doing serpentines.
• Good to have people watching.
• I should could lay much longer tracks.

Down stay

Plan:

• Lay her at the club while other dogs are training.
• Reward when head is down.

Training:

• Quite a long down stay, probaly about 10 minutes. Other dogs doing sendaway, playing and just generally training.
• Rewarded her while head down.

Analysing:

• She is very stable.
• Need somebody else to click while head is down. Otherwise she goes on my command and/or my looking at her.

Recall

Plan:

To see what she does if I recall her from a down position on a 30 paces distance.

Stop in the present position.

Training:

Laid her down and called her to the present position.

Analysing:

Need shorter distance for a little while since she started to swing a little on her way in.


Heel work around group

Plan:

Just walking around a person, reward while concentrating on me.

Training:

Lost concentration first but gained it back. I backed out of the situation and we started again. This time a lot more successful. We stopped really close to the guy that helped us. I clicked and rewarded her with pulling game with the "kong".

Analysing:

Need bigger groups as soon as possible.

Fifth and sixth training session

Fifth training session

YES! I think we are repairing the biting/chasing now.

Training:

2X10

From clarity to clarity, Bill just got it and went like a little clock - nose touch, click, treat - nose touch, click, treat.

I left it after 2 sets.

Analysing:

Right thing to go back and sort out our little hickups.

Sixth training:

Plan

To higher it so that he has to raise up to touch it.

Training

3X10

First set, got it straight away.

Second set, started to work away the stick which he responded really well to.

Analysing:

Decided to go over hand signal to verbal signal. So next session, lessen the stick and move over to visual cue - two fingers pointing at him.

Fourth training session - 2nd of Dec

Plan

• 3X10
• To try and repair the damage I did by raising the criteria too fast. (Sigh!)
• The way to do it was to go back to having the target stick very close to him every time so I do not accidently trigger chasing/biting. Setting up for success.
  
  

Training

• 3X10
• I'm sitting down in the kitchen.
• Slow down tempo.
• Target still so no biting/chasing occurs.

Analysing

• Some slight biting in the last set as well even though it constantly became better.
• Next training: exactly the same until no biting occurs at all.

> Reason for being so meticulous about the target is that I might want to use it for other things in the future so I want the target work to be as clean as possible.

Second and Third Training Session - Bill - Stand on backpaws on Cue

Second Training Session 29 Nov 09

• 1X10
• Stayed on just nose touching the target stick. The session were more to show off to my husband, Andrew, how clever Bill is so I decided to not raise the criteria :-).

Third training session 30 Nov 09

• 3X10
• On the first set I decided to move around in the kitchen.
• On the second set I decided to raise it a little bit so that he had to stretch upwards in order to reach it. All of this went fantastically well.
• On the third set I decided to slowly moving the target stick in order for him to follow it.
• I added a last set of 1X5.

Analysing

• I raised the criteria far too quickly on the third set. I almost immediately got grabbing it with his mouth and sometimes he did not fully understand what I meant.
• Therefore I added a last set of only 5 repetitions where I had it still on his level in order to try and mend anything that might have gone wrong.
• Results will show in the next training session.

Bill is learning to stand on his back paws on cue

Goal: To do it both on a hand signal and on a verbal cue. Idea is that he should remain there until new cue or finishing cue.


General steps for shaping the behaviour:
1. Capture the behaviour with nose target
2. Work away the target little by little
3. When anticipating clearly add visual cue -hand signal
4. Add in default behaviour (standing in front of me), click and treat for that


Phase 2:
1. Reward for staying up, add time slowly.


Phase 3:

1. Proof in different situations


Phase 4:
1. Add verbal cue where distractions are low
2. Mix with default
3. Mix with default and visual cue
4. Proof the new cue in different situations


29-11-09
First training session- P1
I thought he might do it as a behaviour he would offer naturally. Why I thought that is because he is often doing it in various situations. He has got an amazing balance and is so agile. He is contact seeking, he is alert and he is so keen to learn things. He has got a lovely balanced temperament with a good ability to concentrate in my opinion.


So I thought I would like to develop some of his ability and see what we can do. I was very pleased with the first training session.


Training

• He did not offer the behaviour.
• I instead introduced a nose target to him which he more or less got straight away.
• We did 3 X 10 of the nose target and the last session we started to move it to different places and heights.
• All went very well and he worked really concentrated. Very quickly you could see him deliberately choosing the target rather than sniffing it out of curiosity.

Plan for next training

• To start move it around to teach him to follow it.

Conclusion:
What a lovely dog he is. Of course I already knew this but you know how it is when the feelings just overwhelmes you and you feel like you have the most clever, fantastic dog in the world. I am sure you all know what I am talking about. He is so lovable and we always have so much fun together :-). Looking forward to next training session. Will be my rewards for writing concentrated on my Assignment in Animal Behaviour for a while :-).

Jihaaa!!

Finally found out my password and username to this blog. Was not too hard actually :-).

So what has happened since last time? A lot.

Things that comes to mind at this late hour:

1. Started Animal Welfare Studies at Anglia Ruskin University
Feels like a natural and interesting way to go in order to go into Animal Behaviour on a more academic level. I really enjoy it.

2. Been to CAP3 training course in July in the Cotswolds at Learning About Dogs. Kay Laurence Clicker Assessment Program in this case led by Helen Philips, author of Clicker Gundog. Fantastic course. I so thoroughly enjoyed it and now Elsa and I are working away towards our CAP3 award.

3. I do not train with Dave Martin any longer which means that I do not have anybody I can do regular bite work for the Schutzhund training with :-(. Together with everything else that happens I therefore have put the Schutzhund training to one side. At least for the time being.

4. I am planning a boxer litter this spring. I am very excited about this!

5. I have applied to the Championship Show Judge course given by the Swedish Kennel Club. I have the Schnauzer-Pinscher Club recommending me as well as Mr Bo Skalin.

6. Charlie and Bill are both qualified to Crufts 2010.

7. I have started to do some Charity work for RSPCA. At this moment in time I am giving a puppy training course to the volonteers and to some new owners.

8. I have successfully worked with several boxers on one to one basis . I have also worked with several other breeds and cross breeds but mainly Rottweilers, AmStaff mixes and Mastiff crosses.

These are the things I immediately come to think about.

Hopefully I will let you know what happens soon again.

Ewa xx

Updates on its way

Hi dear blog,
I have not updated you for quite some time now even though Elsa and I have been doing training. She is coming on well in the bite work and we are now waiting for the right Intermediate sleeve to arrive. I cannot wait to see how she will react to it.

Tracking has been going a lot better too. She is much more concentrated, however I feel it is quite a lot of work left. Main thing, just keep doing it.

My thoughts are to write about our last sessions here soon so that I keep the blog/training diary up to date.

Elsa is in season now so it has not been much training lately since no clubs in this country would really welcome a bitch in season. She has, to be honest, been quite low as well so I have just done little things inside and on walks.

The weekend coming I am off to Slovakia and ATIBOX IPO World Championships to support my Swedish friend, Tobbe, who competes. I do not think there are anybody else from Sweden competing, but I will know when I get there. I wish Tobbe and Kaxe the best of luck!