The other day I started working on Sue Ailsby’s scentwork with both Katy and Ellie.

The first step, at Level 3, is taking a single item and placing a piece of food under it and then letting the dog find the food. I used both a towel and some big plastic party cups. Both dogs “got” the game and found the food.

The next step, at Level 4, requires the assistance of a stranger. I took two of the plastic party cups to work and had my co-worker handle them for about 30 seconds each. He then put them back in a plastic bag and I didn’t touch them.

Today I took out one of the cups, being careful not to put my hand in the bag or to touch Ben’s cup and put my scent on the one that I pulled out. We played the game where I put just a little bit of cream cheese on the cup and send Ellie to “find it”.

After about eight successful “finds” and three times when she picked up the cup and brought it to me, I brought out Ben’s cup and placed it next to mine (mine has writing on it so that I can tell the difference between the two cups). Ellie found my cup about eight out of ten times. I changed the relative position of my cup on each trial so that she wasn’t picking the cup based on it’s positioning. Twice, I set the cup down while she was in a sit-stay in the other room, so she couldn’t watch me put it down. She got those right as well.

As Sue indicates, the hard part for the dog isn’t the scent discrimination. It’s learning that what I want is for her to pick the one that smells like me! The only thing that I wonder about (well not the only thing) is whether she’s playing this like the hot/cold game. I don’t think she is - as she’s going straight to the correct cup at a high rate. But, I’ll have to work a few more sessions to determine if I think she really get’s that it’s my scent that she’s working for. The other difference between this and the H/C game besides the fact that I had Ben stink up the cups is that the items are identical in appearance. When we play the H/C game, I use items that are very different physically from each other.

L2 Distance - Dog goes out around pole from 2′ away
L3 Distance - Dog goes out around pole from 4′ away

L3 Front - Dog hits center line of front ray diagram at least three out of five times

L2 Handling - Dog allows for handling of feet, tail and ears. Minimal fussing

L2 Leash Manners - Handler stays in one spot. Dog maintains loose leash for one minute.

It’s about time I do this Level One Homework. Ellie has tested up to level seven on some of the behaviors and still haven’t completed MY homework.

Five things I hope to accomplish by training the levels:

1. All around good behavior from my dog(s)
2. Increased awareness on my part in the planning and design of training sessions. I don’t want to keep my criteria too easy for too long nor do I want to raise the criteria too quickly. Record keeping will help with this.
3. Increased eye contact and attention in challenging situations.
4. Solid foundation of self-control for future obedience and agility training.
5. The ability to use eye contact to move my dog (Sue demonstrated this at her seminar and it’s really cool to watch)

To work on:

Level Three Watch (Required) The dog finds the handler’s face and holds eye contact for 30 seconds with as many voice cues as necessary. Glancing away is acceptable but any prolonged look is not.

Level Three Down Stay (Required) The dog Downs and stays while the handler walks 20′ out, stays for one minute and comes back. One cue is allowed for the Down, and two cues for the Stay. There will be one mild distraction. (Tested and failed - she only stayed for about 45 seconds and then went into a sit.) Work on duration and maintaining position. (work Level Two outside on the long line!)

Level Three Sit Stay (Required) The dog Sits and stays while the handler walks 20′ out, stays away for 30 seconds, and comes back. One cue is allowed for the Sit, and two cues for the Stay. There will be one mild distraction. (tested and she broke the sit after about 45 seconds. Increase duration)

Level Four Sit Test this! The dog sits from a down with one cue.

1. Start to teach “close” - basically, a swing finish into heel position on my right side. (”Side” is my word for this same position on my left, though I don’t think Ellie associates the word with the position yet.)

2. Verify that Ellie understands the “side” position well enough to give it a verbal cue. Apply the verbal cue.

3. Play more crate games. See how far away we can get and still send to the crate successfully. Currently, I can send reliably from about 4 feet, straight in.

4. Work on left pivots and correcting heel position on her own. She’s very close to “getting it”

5. Continue to work on hand targets. Currently the plexiglass is on my hand completely. Work on getting it on the floor without my hand.

7. Work on collar grabs with dinner. Add a few mild ones before playing games - with lots of fun treats.

8. Have fun with the jumps. Make some low ones that she can play around in. Save the purple rubber frisbee for just this game.

9. Bring the step ladder inside and work on trotting through it.

10. LLW, of course.

11. Scootch. Call to front position and then scootch.

12. Find something to use as a perch. This is a job for me.

A few weeks ago, I purchased Greg Derrett’s two training videos, Foundations and Shame About the Handler. I’m now officially in love with Greg’s handling techniques. His foundation work is exactly what I’ve been looking for. I just wish I would have had this video at the beginning of the summer.

Fortunately, fall in Ohio is usually pretty nice, so I still have at least two months of nice outdoor weather. Truthfully, some of the circlework would be fun to work outside in the snow as well.

Jo’s “Teach Your Dog to Turn” (membership required) and “Direction Cues”

So, thinking about left and right directional cues. Jo makes a very good point about pre-planning what the cue will mean when it is delivered. Does “left” mean turn left now or does it mean turn left after the next obstacle. I think the way that I’ve taught Ellie and Katy “left”, it’s definitely a turn left now signal. And it’s definitely a spin. I’m not sure that I can take the spin and adapt it with the same cue to equipment.

SG instructed us to teach the directionals without the spin. The dog needs to be able to head in the right direction without spinning themselves around in a circle. But, if I’m reading Jo’s article correctly (and following Greg’s example), the spin is taught first and then adapted to useful directionals on the equipment. I’m a bit confused about the best way to do this. Though, by teaching Ellie to spin left, and reinforcing it so that it’s become an extremely reliable behavior, I can definitely get her to respond and turn to her left side almost instantaneously. Some more thinking on my part is required.

Greg’s “wait” command is going to be my command of the week. It’s obviously essential to all future exercises and I really like the stand position. I also like the routine of placing the dog in the wait. I may want to shape it - though I wonder if the routine of the physical cues (lifting the dog a bit, then grabbing the scruff) help reinforce the behavior because the cue is so distinct.

Victoria Farrington, Bob Bailey and Gary Wilkes all describe using a NRM (no reward marker) during shaping sessions.

Victoria’s explanation from the agility.uk forum really made it clear for me. Why waste time and energy during a shaping session letting the dog try every trick in the book. A simple NRM will help get the dog on track without a huge amount of handler interference.

I worked one NRM session with each dog today using Bob Bailey’s description. They both caught on right away (Katy was a whiz kid, of course). The only confusion that I have is that Bob seems to indicate that a cue is already in use for the initial hot spot. I’m wondering if the same cue (Sd) is then used for the *new* hotspot. Guess I’ll have to ask the experts…

For the session, I used pyrex refigerator bowls - a green round one and a red square one. I used un-unh as my NRM, but I think I’m going to use “not that”. It’s more concise.

I just read an article by Gary Wilkes where he suggests using a “working cue” while shaping. Once the behavior starts to look like something specific, start using the working cue. Use this while the behavior is refined and then when the behavior gets to 99% reliability, add the “performance cue”.

On to the next step with this behavior. I’m asking for a nice, square solid sit. One second count. Nose touch above her head. My hand target is within her reach so she doesn’t have to jump or really even move her body to it. Only her head. Hopefully, I’ll see the slightest bit of weight shift towards her back end.

(note: with new steps in the shaping of this, the original list will have to be redone.)

Session 1 :: Only problem is my sloppy handling. If she sits at an angle, she has a tendency to twist as she reaches for the hand target. I think I want her sitting straight on in front of me. Hmmm. Does that mean going back to shaping the sit and selecting for position. I think I’ll wait until after this next session and watch how bad the twisting is. I’m feeding this behavior in position.

Session 2 :: Patience. She’s doing really well. All I want to see is collection of the back. Keep sessions really short since the handler can’t seem to maintain her criteria for longer than about ten treats.

Next session. Same as before.

Katy hasn’t practiced her skateboard training in awhile.

During the last practice session, she was standing on the skateboard and easily tolerating lots of movement under her feet. Mostly, though, it was moving because of her weight shifts rather than moving because she was actually pushing it. I would like her to push it - moving with her front feet on the skateboard and her back feet on the ground.

Goal for todays first session: Orient the skateboard so that Katy’s body is closer to parallel with the board. Click for solid front feet on the board and a good position (between 12 and 3 o’clock). Any movement of the board is good as well.

Session 1 :: OK. So Katy isn’t clear on where her feet should be on the skateboard. Totally my fault - I never taught her that there was a preferred placement of her feet. The problem is that she tends to walk towards me on the board and ends up on the front, upturned end. And then she pops a wheelie on the board. Which is cute and she doesn’t mind it. But it conflicts with what I want the finished behavior to be.

Next session, she will be clicked for the placement of her front feet. Both feet, anywhere on the flat part of the board. I’ll stabilize the board a little bit so we can focus on the foot placement.

Session 2 :: Much better. I put the skateboard on the pink velour blanket so it didn’t move around too much. I’ll repeat this session a couple of times. After maybe one or two more sessions, I’ll change the criteria to putting her feet anywhere on the flat part except for the one inch before the upturned ends.

Session 3 :: Perfect. She’s getting and is successful at least 80% of the time. Next session, raise the criteria for feet being closer to the center of the board.

Clicker Retrieve
From Deb Jones
with modifications for using a tennis ball in preparation for flyball.

TRAINING STEPS:

I. With tennis ball in your hand, close to you

1. Look at ball
2. Move towards ball
3. Sniff ball
4. Touch w/nose
5. Touch with mouth/teeth
6. Put mouth over ball
7. Close mouth over ball
8. Hold in closed mouth
9. Increase hold duration

II. With ball placed on floor within 3 ft. of you

10. Look at ball
11. Move towards ball
12. Sniff the ball
13. Touch w/ nose
14. Touch w/mouth/teeth
15. Put mouth over ball
16. Close mouth over ball
17. Pick up off of floor
18. Increase vertical distance off floor
19. Turn towards trainer w/ball in mouth
20. Move one step towards trainer
21. Increase number of steps towards trainer
22. Bring ball to trainer

III. Adding distance

23. Place ball four feet away. CT for pick-up
24. CT later & later on return
25. CT when dog reaches handler
26. Keep increasing the distance that the ball is placed away from the handler
27. Yo-yo distances
28. Place ball on a raised surface - like a chair seat, ottomon or overturned laundry basket.
29. Repeat steps 23 through 27 with the ball on a raised surface.

IV. Adding requirements

Retrieve over jump
Proof for send anticipation (stimulus control)
Proof for distractions

Solutions for common problems:

Playing with the object, including keep away: 2 treats/toys, trade, on leash work. Shorter, calmer retrieves. Place object rather than throw it.

Mouthing: size & type of retrieve object. Position of head.

Anticipation: NEVER CORRECT, just don’t reinforce. Reinforce the stay instead.