Lesson from Francis

I went to lunch with the girls after class on Thursday and Francis said something that I so needed said.  She was telling a story how she was in the house and told Covey to heel and Covey refused and went and hid under the desk.  Francis went got her and asked he again, Covey again refused.  They did this for 30 minutes before Covey heeled.  This is I think a big part of what I am missing.  As soon as my dog looks like he doesn't want to I stop trying; be it because there is not enough value in the doing or the dog isn't happy I quit.  This tells my dog that face and running away gets me to back off, what Susan was saying about teaching shutting down.  Yet another tool in my dog training box.

Yesterday we had a day off, I don't think we tugged all day.  We are going into the yard with the dogs and he is doing well.  I have to work on it's your choice for Splash's bum, he is obsessed, such a yucky boy :).  He is starting to respond better around the dogs, at least when they aren't moving :).

Today I am going to start with the recall course again.  Susan put out core games that our dogs should have before we begin the course which is supposed to start in a few days.

I still am not building enough value sometimes.  He seems a little off today, I allowed him to be outside the crate a lot yesterday and he seems off today so he is spending his day in the crate.  I think he just doesn't rest when he is out???  Anyway twice today I got the I don't want to work look and I worked through it once with jumps and once with the squirrel tree.  The jumps I was doing serps and he may be confused ????? anyway we did a few and stopped but he was never there perky ready to work he was looking around smelling the air.  I have to video tape this and send it to Christine, I am unclear on what I should be doing when this happens.  At the squirrel tree I was doing collar grabs right at the tree and waiting for eye contact before release.  He was doing it, after 3 reps I asked for a sit and nothing.  I moved about 5 feet from the tree and held his collar and waited for eye contact, took longer than it did at the tree, when I got it I asked for a sit, didn't get it and moved further back.  When I got it I released to the tree.  Too  much????  Let's face it he let me grab his collar should I have just rewarded this 15 times and ended it there.  I will try that later today or tomorrow.

Starting to use IYC

I am starting to be able to use IYC better.  I spoke to Christine last Friday at class and that as always helped to clarify.  She also had the class before doing RZ and IYC and I realized Iggy could not do the exercise she was asking of them which was stay in position beside me as we walked by XYZ.  Funny I had been think that was RZ wasn't going where I wanted it to go now I see the next step.

Since last Friday I have been very non interactive on our walks, on some not calling him at all.  We have gone into both side fields and walked around the front yard and he has been great.  I think I was just driving him nuts and not letting him enjoy the walk.  I need to do recall work but using proofing or testing value in set up situations not everyday life.  This morning twice he was rolling on something and I called.  Both times he looked and I had to call again before he started coming but then he came with great speed.  I regularly see him checking where I am and he never really got that far away so overall exactly what our final goal is.

Testing the value

Let's start with yesterday and this morning were great.  He is happy, responsive, wanting to work we are having a great time.

I wrote a long email to Christine asking some specific question trying to get my head around making life a game of IYC.  She wrote back that I am going from easy to impossible which is why we are having so much failure and we end up battling.  Basically I am not methodically working through the steps to that level of difficulty, call it proofing or testing the value.  When testing the value you have to have management tools in place so if Iggy makes the wrong decision I can let him know it was the wrong decision, ideally by managing the environment and not the dog.

I got Bill to help me do some recalls yesterday.  In the kitchen, dog in a stay, me 15 feet away and Bill the distraction.  We did 4 reps using a bag of treats in his hand as the distraction, the only time Iggy even looked was when Bill threw a bunch of treats on the floor and then Iggy looked but kept coming.

This week I start classes again and Tiffany has offered to help me with proofing other dogs.  I need to create a plan to get the perfect recall of at least her dogs and hopefully it will transfer to all dogs.

New understandings

On Thursday night we had an awesome class worked jump circles, jump to tunnel and spins in RZ.  At the end of class I went to release him out of the crate to put his leash on and when released he ran at Churchill.  I left the building and he ran around playing with the other dogs and never bothered caring about me gone.  After a few minutes I grabbed him and put him in the car.  So by Friday morning I really was ready to kill him :).  I decided that I didn't want to work Friday morning so I opened the garage door and released him to run.  I walked around the field he ran around always within 50-100 feet of me and once came over and bounced me we played tug for about 10 seconds and I told him to go run.  When I got to the door he beat me there and we went in.

I wrote Christine of my woos and asked for inspiration.  She wrote the following back

Restricting his privileges SHOULD be about allowing him to choose you...you're just restricting the number of options that he has. It definitely shouldn't be about a battle. It's about making you the only really great option. It's not actually about taking things "away" because he's not working (as in, you don't do your homework, you loose TV for tonight). It's more a "you don't have any privileges to begin with. You do X, you get reward Z." From a behavioural standpoint, it's actually a big difference. Having the privileges and loosing them is very frustrating. Having no privileges and EARNING them is reinforcing and not punishing. If you do it the first way, you build in more frustration. Of course we have to do SOME punishing (even if it's mild punishment like negative punishment). Too much of it is punishing though. If you start with zero privileges and everything is earned, then you can use mostly reinforcement, which builds on positive feelings and you can get more transfer of value.
You're putting him in a "small box" with few options. The great option is you. All the other options are B-O-R-I-N-G.


I am not doing it right, I am using the restrictions as a punishment for bad behaviour.  I still don't get the whole letting him earn privileges.  I get it on paper but I am having a very hard time putting it into practice.


Class last night he did great and Christine said that is the best she has seen him work.  The class was very small only two dogs working at once so I think I was much more relaxed and therefore so was he.  He did leave a couple of times but it is really nice with Christine when he leaves, I leave and she tells me what to do.  It took him a few minutes to care (OK felt like a few probably only one :)) but then she says he was looking for me so I came out and ran around like an idiot until he not only engages me but is begging me to play.  A couple of time he did leave and came right back and I so wanted to tug with him and she stopped me.  Makes perfect sense you don't want to reward him for leaving by rewarding him for coming back.  Very hard just mild praise and go back to what you were doing.  Don't grab him or take away his choices just keep working let him choose to work.  Brilliant will have to work very hard to put this into effect.


This morning we went for an off leash walk in the rain, I only called him once or twice and he came right away.  I did a lot of just changing direction and he followed every time.  I have let him out for two pees again out the front door and he went out peed and came right back even though he was staring at the birds flying around in the tree.


The only work we have done today is choosing to play with me regardless of what toy I have in my hand.  We worked with the schumm tug, the flying squirrel and the swiffer.  He liked the flying squirrel and that was by far the hardest to get him to relinquish and play with me with another toy.

I think it's working

I am trying real hard to try stuff with Iggy, I really have no choice because what I have tried hasn't worked, but then I start over analyzing and put myself into a state of brain freeze and doubt.  I also have to be very careful because when things go wrong I seem to increase my criteria so all we do is fail.  At the same time I know when things are good I let criteria slide, probably because I don't want to mess with good.  Somewhere in the middle is the dog I want to train.

This mornings plan was to go out and do a jump.  Yesterday we did one serp set up and he did fine on the second set up he spent 30 seconds looking around so I put him on leash and brought him in.  We did some shaping and tugging short and sweet for the rest of the day so was ready to try the jump set up again.  Anyway got outside this morning and he picked up a piece of bark, I didn't want to take it away because that just encourages the whole keep away.  So I let him go for his pee and walk a bit with his wood in his mouth than started playing with the toy I had.  It took a bit but he did eventually drop the wood and come for the toy I teased him for a bit and then played tug when I released I let him go back to the toy and repeated.  Again it took a bit but he did eventually come back to me for my toy.  I had him on a leash so prevented the pick up and run away which he did try a couple of times.  Will have to repeat this regularly I feel it worked exactly how I wanted it too and gave him the right info.

I have been doing a lot of walking with him on a very short leash in RZ.  I am giving the cue for the position before I put him in the spot, I am putting him in the spot so I am still questioning whether or not I should be cueing first or is the cue telling him I am about to do this so fight it?????  Anyway I called him so he looks give him the verbal cue and then the physical cue which is drop the shoulder back then with the leash I put him into the position.  I should stop doing it with the leash do the hand touch, funny how it comes to me know when I write it down.  The reason was I am using it when he pulls but that's OK I think it will still work.  We got to the end of the driveway and I called his name and his brain was elsewhere I was all over him without getting mad but  grabbing his face and smacking his ass, I have been doing some work on smack tug and he seems to be getting up when I smack him which really is what I want.  I feel I have done enough rewarding with a lot of this and now he needs to not be given a choice.  This is where I am experimenting with him and get terrified that I will screw him up and that makes me an ineffective trainer.  Anyway I think it worked :) and gave the info I wanted, stop being an ass I called you.

We walked passed the wood on the driveway in RZ, he was walking nicely so I released him to go and get it and then carry it for a while.  When we were almost to the house I had him in RZ and asked him to sit when we got to the door.  The garbage truck was coming down the road so he got very distracted.  I forced the look at me by moving his head to the right position and releasing until he gave me eye contact then I released him to look at the truck. I can't remember if I called him or just waited but he looked at me we tugged for a few seconds and I released him to look at the truck and he chose to look at me we again tugged for a few seconds and released to look he eventually chose to tug and ignored the truck which was now at it's closest point.  I am so happy how well that worked, he chose me.  This is one of the few times that I actually saw him choose me :).

The winding road

I am beginning to get over my kicking and screaming at life and beginning to be able to think again.  Putting him in the crate has been a god send.  It allows me to have my bad moments and him not to have to suffer them.  Looking back I think I see how it was starting to go wrong.  I may be imagining it but it's all I have to go with so go with it we will.  I think I allowed to many instances of mistakes and not enough reward history to make up for them and ya I got pissed which doesn't help.  Still not 100% sure how to fix it but at least we are on the road back again.  I need to do a private with Christine and part of that private needs to be discussing off leash walking.

This morning we went out and did a couple of jumps he was so there and then one restrained retrieve and two PB & J.  We then walked down the driveway and did 2 recalls along the way and one at the end.  He was awesome.  Then the snow plow came down the road.  We didn't do too badly.  He tried real hard to keep tugging but would lose it once in a while but come right back.  I wanted to do IYC when I would walk away he wouldn't look at me but kept coming with me without the leash tightening so I was very pleased.  Honestly most I have enjoyed with him in a few days so we had fun.  It helps it's not too cold and the sun is shining.