The Project - Day 10

This was a busy day, with much on our agenda.  As the holiday season approaches (I already have Halloween on display in three of my four accounts), I am trying to make the most of my days off.  I decided since it had been a week since we last worked on The Project, that it might be a good idea to do a baseline and figure out where we are on things.  Thus, my plan was to just do 10 click/treats on each behavior and see where they were after the week away. 

I'll try to get things set up for better quality videos next time. 

Apple - back into a box, back feet only

First, you can see the modifications that I made to her apple box.  It stays nicely out from the wall and no longer tips when her foot hits the sides.

Interestingly, the front feet returned with a vengeance the first time around.  I was careful to not do any extraneous clicks, but it seems its a behavior that is pretty firm in her mind.  I'm sure that is my fault.  Waiting for her to take her back feet out and then return them to get a click/treat didn't seem to be affecting her tendency to start with her front feet.  Its a distinction that I don't think was clear to her, so instead I was seeing a lot of unproductive frustration.  

So even though my plan was to baseline each behavior, I decided to try something and do another 10 treat session to see how it went.  I put her on leash, keeping it loose.  She "could" have pulled to get the front feet in, but never even tried.  In class our work was always on leash, so that may explain why she tended toward no front feet more often there than at home.  I think I will continue with the leash a few more times and then gradually fade its influence.

Orange - get onto a small perch with all four feet

This went well.  We are at the stage of teaching her the concept of waiting for the cue.  So that is what you are seeing here.  There's a little bit of extinction, a little bit of clicks for waiting (carefully extending the time) and some of the mixed sets.  I think she was beginning to get the concept toward the end. 

Grape - dead bug (on back, feet in the air)

Its really very funny how much she loves this behavior.  She'd make a very good clown.  You can see based on just the time it takes to get ten click/treats with this versus the other behaviors.  I'm still giving her a click when she gets into down, just to get her started since this behavior has no prop.  She's also getting a click for rolling over at the start.  Once the name goes on the behavior, those clicks will go away.  I am just starting to add the name in this session.

Peach - head under a chair

When we left off, this behavior was on cue.  It becomes very clear in the beginning of this clip that Gimme thinks the cue only applies to the chair we were using at class, where we added the cue.  Interesting thing to see - so clearly I need to get the behavior better generalized BEFORE adding the cue, possibly adding the cue over different sessions using different chairs.  In any case, once I got her started putting her head under this chair, it only took a couple repeats of the cue for her to understand that it applies to this chair too.  That's because she's such a smarty pants.

Melon - push cube with nose
This is the behavior that needs the most work I think.  Her tendency to bat at or bite the cube is still very strong.  It's just going to take awhile for her to understand and accept the behavior I want.  At this stage where I have to still have one hand on the cube most of the time, I find I'm all thumbs.  Its just so hard to manage the cube, clicker and treats.  I am continuing to pick up the cube briefly if she paws at it.  And of course, if all else fails, offer The Grape.

Distraction training
I had several errands to run, so did the parking lot thing. 

At Topfoods she did exceptionally well and really got to training quickly - only 8 check-ins before she was ready.  We were at the far end of the lot and it was quiet.  The only challenge being that it was a place she'd never been before.  At Target, it started out well and I thought it might be much like the prior mini-session.  But then a car parked near us and the lady off-loaded a kid.  Gimme looooooves kids and even after they were gone she was still distracted by their having been there and the mere possibility of kids.  She did finally pull it together.  At Albertsons, it took her quite awhile to get focused, but once she did she did well.  At the fort before our walk, it took a long time, on par with how long it took after the kid distraction.

One interesting thing I notice is that toward the end of her 10 check-ins (around #7), she tends to move into heel position.  She looks around, then checks in, then looks around again, then checks in.  She's not really ready to go to work when she moves into heel, but this shows me that at some level she knows what comes next.  Quite astute.

My sense is that its too much for her to do her fruit training and distraction training so close in time (separated by about an hour) and maybe even too much to do them both on the same day.  The distraction training seems to be more taxing for her than is immediately apparent.  So in the future, I'll make sure that at the very least there is several hours between them, if not on different days entirely.

And so now we are off and running again.  I have promised to go help the 4H kids that I judged recently.  Its something I try to do every year before they go to state.  I join them for a training session and give each kid that qualified for state, a ten minute private in which they can address anything they want.  Its fun...