We've been taking Ioda and Helper on a regular basis to a nearby, large park. The park is perfect for several reasons, 1. there's a dog park in it, so there are very few dogs in this area and 2. It's very easy to switch between areas where you can see quite a ways and areas with sight restrictions. Some people do walk dogs, but we can easily control the distance without their help. We bring peanut butter mixed with liverwurst, we call it doggy-crack (and we bring a spoon to give it to them with.) They love it, and Helper can't bark with much peanut butter in her mouth.
In this setting, Tim wanders off and plays with Ioda and I work Helper. It started with just throwing as many cookies and swigs of doggy-crack at her every time another dog was visible (even if she didn't appear to notice it). We've progressed to click treat every time she sees another dog and then turns to look at me. If she starts to get tense, we increase the distance. When there are too many people, dogs, or just plain activity, she will often start wining and let out a bark or two and we're done for the day.
Today, I brag. Zero barks. No need for doggy-crack. We got out the long line and even played tug and recall games. She held some great sit-stays. Hurray!
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Emergency Recalls and Treat Party
While I'm stilling thinking about the most awesome puppy class ever, I thought I should mention recalls. This class effectively trains two types of recall. The traditional, puppy, come! Puppy turns to come, click treat, the usual. What this class also discussed, and what I think too few classes build in, is an emergency recall.
Great, you want your dog to come every time, and you've been working on it, but what do you do in a pannick? You through a treat party.
A treat party is a *major* jackpot. I'm used to giving *major* jackpots when one of my dogs comes off a particularly interesting distraction (this is why I can now call Ioda off running cats).
What is a different about a treat party, is that the dog knows she's going to get a *major* jackpot. It works like this: You yell "Treat party!" and start dropping wonderful, delicious treats on the floor, one at a time, while playing with your dog and telling her she's the best dog ever. You give her about 2 minutes of full on puppy bliss. Start doing this around distractions, enough that she knows that anywhere she ever goes, treat party means treat party.
Now you have an emergency recall, "Treat party". Use it carefully and use it wisely and always make sure that treat party = treat party. Like you've taught your dog that click = treat, "treat party" = treat party.
Puppy classes and on-leash walking
This past Monday I attended the puppy class a friend is taking her 9 month old husky mix. It was awesome. It was a clicker class for puppies. Each puppy was tethered on a bungie leash and had play-gates separating them from the closest other puppies. They worked on basics, like not jumping on people (everyone just rotated around the room from puppy to puppy to practice), recalls, cookie parties (emergency recalls), and loose leash walking.
I was most impressed with the loose leash walking, probably because I struggle with this myself (being consistant and actually working on it, it's just not that reinforcing to me). But the method I saw is quite creative and brings loose leash walking back into the fun to train/something to actively train mode. They call it the silky leash method. You teach the dog to follow light pressure on the leash. You apply enough pressure so your pup can feel it, but not enough to activate the opposition reflex. When the dog moves into the leash to reduce the pressure, you click! Pretty simple.
Naturally, I tried it with my pups. Ioda loves it! He was like, why didn't you tell me this 10 years ago? This is easy and makes sense! Helper has to concentrate much more to keep it up, but it has turned her into active participant thinking about what's going to happen next.
Disclaimer: I'd been trying the be-a-tree method with Helper.
With her it works like this: she pulls, I stop, she looks at me and backs up just a enough to have a loose leash (because she's turned to look at me, not because she understand the criteria) and we move. She acts like, wow, that was a buzz kill, but does not think about why. This is probably because I can't be accurate enough with this method. I've also paired it with clicking when the leash is loose, but again, I don't think she picked up on the criteria.
I was most impressed with the loose leash walking, probably because I struggle with this myself (being consistant and actually working on it, it's just not that reinforcing to me). But the method I saw is quite creative and brings loose leash walking back into the fun to train/something to actively train mode. They call it the silky leash method. You teach the dog to follow light pressure on the leash. You apply enough pressure so your pup can feel it, but not enough to activate the opposition reflex. When the dog moves into the leash to reduce the pressure, you click! Pretty simple.
Naturally, I tried it with my pups. Ioda loves it! He was like, why didn't you tell me this 10 years ago? This is easy and makes sense! Helper has to concentrate much more to keep it up, but it has turned her into active participant thinking about what's going to happen next.
Disclaimer: I'd been trying the be-a-tree method with Helper.
With her it works like this: she pulls, I stop, she looks at me and backs up just a enough to have a loose leash (because she's turned to look at me, not because she understand the criteria) and we move. She acts like, wow, that was a buzz kill, but does not think about why. This is probably because I can't be accurate enough with this method. I've also paired it with clicking when the leash is loose, but again, I don't think she picked up on the criteria.
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