Review week 18

Courses and Programs

Homeschool the Dog – We have practiced the Hot Zone a lot, using the mat regularly as an alternate behaviour. Whether that be barking at stuff outside, licking the dishwasher, or other ‘problem’-behaviours. It needs more money in the bank though, so a few sessions where nothing is distracting, might be a good idea.

I finally got a jump poke to hand target. Instead of just lifting himself on the spot, he sprung forwards at my hand. Plenty of rewards for that! I’ve had some frustration there earlier. One of the ‘put energy into heel’ exercises in Awesome Obedience, is to start motion into a hand target, but Fenris either just lifted his forelegs slightly – or he spent five seconds aiming before jumping. Neither gave the behaviour much energy.

Toys: Made a tug out of an old skip rope, and worked carefully to a) get his interest (easy), b) keep his interest despite not giving to him to ‘own’ (harder) and c) tiptoe around his resource guarding when I accidentally let go of it (super-hard!). More eggshells when getting it back; first enticing him away with treats (without lunging for the tug), then playing with him to say “hey, you didn’t actually lose it!”, and finally rewarding him well with treats as it got put away. Lots of moving parts to what looks like a simple game, but I’ve struggled so much with that shit, and he’s chewed apart so many toys and I’ve worried over the knife’s edge between ‘keep it scarce to be interesting’ and ‘too scarce is disappointing the dog’. So not as simple as it looks. (Facebook reads me: it keeps giving me sponsored ads about a $100 course on developing the perfect tug. Sorry, not spending cash on that.)

Stair Master: Done a couple of sessions, but I have to go back to rewatch the videos I think. My sessions might be too short to tire out a big dog, and I think he’s moving too fast. (Ahem – reminder to self to video stuff.) On the other hand, he isn’t jumping up, but splitting legs into the trot, which is good.

Collar Grabs: Yes, but well. I’ve had some attempts at restrained fetches and jumps, which is very reinforcing for me – first time I tried it he was a puppy, and he just timidly sat down on his butt. Now he actually seems to put some energy into it. Also, I’ve stopped worrying about how it will affect his leash manners, and started to trust the process. Sometimes the experts *gasp* know what they’re teaching! On the other hand, we could need a few more sessions of ‘pennies in the bank’ basic “present your neck, plz, doggo!”

ItsYerChoice – yes, but well. Hand-zen good, putting liverpate on the floor good. Throwing the treat – hmmm can I pounce on it before mum can step on it?

Social skills and Daily Life

When we did our public rally practice, there were kids at the other end of the parking lot, some thirty-fifty meters away. He was interested, but easily redirected. The digging and sniffing was more of a nuisance, really.

Rally

We have had two sessions outdoors at home, and one in a new place. The first at home was a nightmare, with lack of focus, but I got one decent slalom. I wanted to drive him somewhere, but he refused to go in the 4wheelDrive, and I ended up doing slaloms and sits just outside the carport. The second, near the local school, we filmed. It felt better than it looks, actually. He was enthusiastic enough, and not always wanting to go play elsewhere. The third was on the carport roof, where I got a couple of nice 360 degree turns. His left turn needs more work, as he drifts forwards and we get in each other’s way.

On the plus side, when I worked the left turn both inside and outside, including on the terrace, he quickly caught on to how I wanted it improved.

Did spirals inside, and he worked very well. It’s hardly show-heeling, but I’m pleased.

Other

His cue discrimination is improving.

I’ve brushed him about three times, once also tapping his nails with the clipper.

Discovered a webpage called roamresearch.com, where I can build up a personal wiki on all the skills we are using, including daily notes, global todos, full automatic linking between pages (and the links in context in the same page view). So far it looks good, and it’s nice to get a better overview. I can have a description of how I want the formal front to be, todos for what I need to work on next, and a list of the days I worked on it, the skills that require it, and the props I use – all on the same page, and then I can click on any of those and get more info. Or I can pull up the page/list of all the todo’s linking to all the skills I’m working on. Or I can have a list of all the rallyskills. Or a graph showing the links between all those nodes.

I’m always on the lookout for the ‘perfect list’, and I’m thinking this might actually be it.

Plan of week 19

HS the Dog

Tugging, toy rewards as part of hand target exercise. I’ve watched the next video (and learnt that a long tug is better for my fingers than a ball, for aroused play!), and introed this. There is more and more enthusiasm and energy to the targeting, which is nice to build on.

Revisiting and continuing good foundations in ItsYerChoice, Hot Zone, Collar Grab (both basic and part of restrained exercises).

Building further on Stair Master and Recalls.

Rally – the skills this week are 

-front, come to heel, move forwards. His formal front is actually very pretty when he comes from straight ahead, but we have to work on the spin out of heel and into front. The exercise allows three steps back for the handler, but the fewer we can manage, the prettier.

-slaloms and spirals again, since this is so important for the precision heeling

-about turns. This is the ‘surround me’ cue, where we’ll work on tightening our movements so he comes straight into heel.

-pace change to fast

Restarting CANIS foundations

Focus, Target, Sit, hind-leg awareness and Pivot, Finishes

Plenty of overlaps there, particularly in the targeting. We can do both the hand target/toy exercise, and the fading prop for the Formal Front exercise.

For hind leg awareness I’ll do the backup alongside a wall thing.

For sit it’s both Fronts and Finishes.