Steps to Success

Handling – I clipped a nail! (I’m very glad his don’t grow very quickly, or I should probably have gotten further by now… Oh well. We live and learn. Next dog (if ever), I’ll start earlier and with more confidence.) We are also brushing several times per week, which makes a missed vacuuming less the end of the world. He accepts back, chest and legs. Tail – not so much.

Occasional Zen out the door, and always out of the car. Still not automatic, would have to work a lot more before we’re there.

Social

One outing to the next village, where he got to splash in the sea, sniff and explore around the church yard, and then look at grocery truck loaders coming to the village shop. I sat with Fenris at a park bench outside (so that they would NOT have to pass us to get to the shop). When one of them approached us anyway (ooh! cute doggie!), Fenris triggered (of course), but I made them back off by saying F was protecting me. It’ll do as a white lie. He’s definitely protecting – but probably just as much himself as me.

Obedience

CANIS stuff: I bought the pdf book yesterday (“Lydighetstrening i teori og praksis”, by Cecilie Køste and Morten Egtvedt), and buried myself in reading. A large part is learning theory (of which I’ve read, but it never hurts with a refresher course). Then there’s a lot of the same theory reframed for the practical trainer. Then the section we’re mostly going to focus on; the foundation behaviours. (And finally how to put them together to the complete obedience title exercises – if we ever go that way.)

Some of it is a repeat of their online article, but there is (of course) a lot more depth and suggestions involved too. Free-shaping is the name of the game, with a dog being ‘clicker wise’ if he knows to throw behaviours at you, and ‘repetition wise’ if he is good at repeating whatever gave him most clicks lately. Fenris is well on his way to both, although he does have some defaults, like plopping into a sit.

Today, for example, our foundation was ‘Drop‘. He can mostly do it on command with toys, so I decided to pick out the variation ‘Drop on Target’. The target in this case was my lap on the floor, and the object was the retrieve dummy. I started by clicking for drops, then drops in my lap. We had 3-4 successes. Then he failed at that twice in a row, so he lay down (default). I decided to throw a reset treat and then lower criteria to just dropping. His next rep was a drop in my lap – which earned him a jackpot of treats.

Yesterday we just did a click-and-treat pivoting session, his only ‘cue’ being the pivot (hot pot mat). We ended with some nice Front work, and I was really happy about that, because he’s tended to spin into heel every time he’s on the pivot. (TEAM: Except when we’re working come to heel, and there is far too much latency between step on pivot, move almost in, then finally step fully in.)

Monday’s foundation was Stand, so we worked a little Stand-Stays. It might not be competition pretty, but I’m really more interested in distraction proofing. 

There’s one other thing I read that I really need to take with me forwards; <paraphrased> “no more than 4 x 5 reps of an exercise per day”. I tend to just do ONE x5 of each! If I want to up our game, I should at least increase to TWO.

TEAM1 exercise: I had a real fail session on Tuesday where the aim was Mat station -> trick/engagement -> heel. Basically, I couldn’t get him off the mat… No matter how much I danced and encouraged and told him Free or tricks or whatever. Well. The tendency to encourage too much and leave too little to the dog is well documented (‘chattering squirrel mode’ according to the new book…), and I’m bringing that information forwards. (And I guess his mat distraction proofing is awesome…)

After that, I’ve decided to back chain even the tiny little pieces of that chain. So heel at pivot; engagement/trick -> heel; increase engagement -> heel; and finally later add mat first. We also practiced our Free command today (norwegian Værsågod)…

Back Chain? A chain is a fixed sequence of behaviours, where the dog is supposed to do all in a row, and one behaviour ending is his context cue for the next. (Picking up the retrieve dummy -> return to handler, for example.) Reinforcement typically comes at the end of the chain, making the middle bits easy to deteriorate (why do something you’re not rewarded for?). The idea of back chaining is to teach the final behaviour very well with lots of reinforcement, so that that behaviour becomes a secondary reinforcer in itself. Then you get fluency in the next to last behaviour, and reinforce it by attaching it to the last one. Then third to last is added, etc, etc. The result is that the reinforcement (likelihood of the dog doing the behaviour) travels back up the chain.

Agility

Back Cross introduction. Some with toy, a couple of sessions with Zen bowl. Some attempts outside with makeshift jump. I need to go a little slower, I see, and make the direction more obvious (straight to the side, rather than behind us). Also outside is still hit or miss – depending on what the birds and neighbours are up to.

Other stuff

Fitness training. Recalls uphill, backup on stairs, position changes with frontlegs on cushion. Catching on to the idea of paws on cushion and NOT ooh! toy!