Scent work buried containers

It's been forever!  I'm bringing this back, if for no other reason than having a place to write things down and share them.  So here's my first share, how to make AKC scent work buried containers.

The standard container is the Sterilite 15-Quart Clearview Latch Box Storage container which measures 17"L x11 1/8" W x 61/2" H with a cookie cooling rack (or possibly this one) over it.  It is traditional to pick up the container and then walk around the big box store until you find the cooling rack that fits.  This construction is admissible for trials per AKC's rules and regulations (see Section 7 on page 51.)  This is in fact what we use here in San Diego.

For fill, you will use either water in some and play sand from Home Depot in the others.

Okay, so what do you use to put your hides in? For the sand, tea strainers and kcup reusable pods are popular.  For the water, thin black hose is common.  It needs to be thick enough to hide a q-tip.  Use putty to secure it the hose to the bottom of each water container.

Happy sniffing!

(Thanks goes to Kay for the specs and the photos!)

Squats for Dogs

Ioda keeps getting older.  He has hip dysplasia and some arthritis in his lower back.  Luckily, we live in an area with great veterinarians specializing in this sort of thing.  Basically, the vet gave us some exercises that Ioda gets to do daily.  They could be a tedious chore, but we think of them as games or a shaping opportunity.


One such exercise are doggy squats.  The goal is for the dog to duck under an object, causing him to "squat" for a few steps.  With Ioda I've been using lawn chairs and my little Ikea table.  I'd been luring (I know,  not optimal) Ioda under the table and chairs.  However, he tended to either 1. run too fast and knock his back on the undersides or 2. crawl and not duck.  So instead, I've been shaping it.  Here is our third session.

Here's an outline for how I taught this:

• Click for looking at table, etc. until interacting with table.  Each time, I was careful to throw the treat either under, or on the other side of the table.
• Click for head under, throwing the treat under the table to slightly on the other side.
• Click for head under + ducking a bit, again throw treat as in past steps.
• Once the dog has head under + ducking + a step or two under the table, click and start throwing the treat further away on the opposite side of the table.  Repeat 2-3 times.
• Now hold out until the dog is committed (nose is sticking out the other end of the table), click and throw the treat on the dogs line a body length or two from the table.  

It might take a session or two to get going completely under the table, but this is a pretty fast one to teach.  Some other nice things about this trick:

• Doggy conditioning, great for older dogs and agility dogs - Helper will be doing this one when she's off crate rest.
• You can sit on the couch and and give your dog a workout.  :)
• It's another trick your dog does away from you.  I'm always looking for tricks which help with distance.
• It will become an obstacle in my old-dog-living-room-agility course. 

Towel nose game

How to keep a not yet 3-year old border collie sheltie mix from going crazy while on crate rest?  We are doing many things, like shaping picking up spoons, crossing front paws, and walking slowly around the couch.  But sometimes she needs a bit of mental activity and I need to work.  Here's a game that she can play by her self for a few minutes in her kennel.

The towel game, i.e., hide treats in a crumpled up towel and place it in her kennel.  Start off easy, but you can build to rolling the towel up and tying it in knots.  Super easy, and she loves it.

It's been a while.

Hi all,

It's been a while, but I'd like to get back in it.  Since I've last posted:

• Helper's gotten much better around other dogs.  It's been a lot of hard work, but it's paid off.  As my agility instructor said last May, "You have a real dog now!"  As in, I don't have a little monster-dog on a leash.  I'll always have to be proactive on her part and keep her out of situations she can't handle, but I can walk her in public, take her to trials, and play fetch at the dog park.
• Helper's been doing so well that she ran in her first flyball tournament this October.  She did great!  She's bit nervous of all the other dogs and noise and she doesn't like the judges' whistles, but with each run she showed a bit more confidence.  If she has a job to do, she's going to do it!
• Ioda's been great.  He's not allowed to jump anymore, so we've been taking nose-work classes, which he loves.  We've been practicing rally and rally-free at home too.  Additionally, he's been seeing a great PT vet, and we've been training his exercises as tricks.  
• And finally, Helper tweaked her back Friday evening.  After a trip to the vet's and some good meds, she's on crate rest for the next three long weeks . . .  Ioda thinks this is awesome and has been tearing around the house and yard, which is much easier without Helper trying to herd him.

And some upcoming posts:

• What to do with a wiggly little dog on crate rest.
• The importance of teaching self-control to reactive dogs.
• Tricks for old dogs, tricks old dogs can do, and tricks that are good for conditioning.

Progress!

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!

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.