A great inside look at the importance of developing fluent behaviors in working dogs. Steve showed and discussed examples of police dogs, SAR dogs and service dogs. He uses R+/P- to train police dogs and the resulting dogs’ performances under pressure demonstrate how advantageous these methods are for working dogs.

Second Session: “Did He Say Left or Right?”: Modifier cues: what they’re for and how to teach them with Ken Ramirez

This was a great session, with quite a few “a-ha” moments. The discussion extended beyond modifier cues to what Ken calls “concept training”. If you have ever seen the Africa Gray Parrot who can count the number of colored shapes on a plate - this is an animal who is performing beyond a simple cue/response situation. Animals are capable of so much more than what we give them credit for. Many of the attendees at the event are service dog trainers/owners/handlers - and the tasks and responsibilities that these dogs must master is kind of awesome to contemplate.

Third Session (Lab): Retrieve This!: The great American hot dog retrieval challenge with Steve White

In this session, we worked on shaping the dogs to “retrieve” a hot dog. This was a great way to demonstrate how a behavior can/must be broken down into small increments to make progress. Steve’s strategy was different than the one I used with Ellie.

I shaped Ellie to recognize that she needed to do her regular retrieve with the hot dog by “re-training” the retrieve with the hot dog instead of a toy. We just started at step one and moved on. Steve didn’t it a bit differently in that he took the dogs retrieve behavior and presented a non-interesting item. He shaped the hot dog by gradually making the item more and more like a hot dog.

Now - the strategy that I used with Ellie was perfect for her learning style and temperament. I tried it with Katy and she just chomped on the hot dog and ate it right away. I still want to teach her to play this game since it’s a wonderful challenge. I think that Steve’s strategy will work better for Katy (also, Katy’s retrieve, though enthusiastic, still needs work).

It will be interesting to see if/how the list changes.

The current list:
1. Portuguese Water Dog
2. Border Collie (yeah - I limited the search to red ones. Encore stole my heart! And a red merle - that would be the ultimate. I think they are just the most gorgeous dogs!)
3. Rat Terrier
4. Cattle Dog
5. Border-Jack - Crazy!
6. Bearded Collie

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.

The major issues that I need to address:
- running off to self-reinforce when off-leash
- getting the toy/tuggie then running away instead of running back towards me
- motivation/drive/enthusiasm level while training (incorporating play into training)
- wavering attention during moving exercises - the time she stays with me while working needs to be built up.
- develop a very strong and reliable recall
- develop the retrieve as Susan demonstrated during the workshop
- eliminating on leash!
- maintaing/improving on-leash behavior while around other dogs
- perfect LLW

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.

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.

11:00am - Let her outside while I soaked Katy’s foot. Came inside and we tested some more of the levels. Once I can figure out where she is, I can incorporate this training into our everyday sessions. Surprisingly (or not) her eye contact is not that great when it comes to measuring duration. We can get about 5 seconds, then she looks away and then back for about two minutes. Have I trained in these little breaks? Time for me to start working on eye contact duration - with very, very small incremental increases in duration (so that I don’t kick off an unintentional shaping session).

note - despite infection, pain, fever and a foot she can’t walk on, Katy still has all the energy in the world to bark at the other dogs and the mailman!

1:15pm - LLW down to the end of Elm and back. We saw the postman - that was exciting! Pretty good for most of the way. Treats used: boiled chicken. Let her run around in the backyard with Katy for a bit.

2pm - Out of her crate to play with the squeaky sun. At first she was only interested in the kitty, the smell of the breeze coming through the window and imagined sounds from outside. I put her on leash and had a party with the toy. “Ready, ready, ready” got me a squirrelly girl who only wanted to rub her GL on my leg. We had a quite a struggle as I worked to interrupt. She is strong. Finally, finally, I got her to chase the sun. She was into it and we did some crate game releases to tug on it.

6pm Katy won’t walk on her back left paw. I soaked it in epsom salts like the vet suggested, but she still won’t step on it. She’s in Ellie’s crate looking sad.

6:30pm Walked around the bigger block with Ellie with smoked salmon! LLW in the face of birds and squirrels. Still she did pretty well. Came home and played with the squeaky sun. Tested some of the levels. She tested all the way up to the level seven down!

8pm Pre-Novice class with Ellie at CABTC. She had a really great night in class. We worked on scootches in front and in heel position. Then we did a couple different recalls. One was restrained. One was a chase and one was a call to front. She did excellent on all of these. And got compliments from the teacher!