Its been a full week.
About half an hour after my last entry, I got the beginnings of a migraine. Its still with me, though milder. I was unable to sleep Tuesday. Finally about 5:30 a.m. after a long hot bath, I was drugged enough and relaxed enough try again. Michael chose that exact time to get up and leave a pee trail from one end of the house to the other! Having pulled all the carpet, it didn't take long to clean up, yet enough to get me wide awake. I spent most of Wednesday taking drugs and laying around. Around noon fell asleep, but 90 minutes was all Gimme could stand. She thinks that since entertaining her makes her feel good, it should do the same for me. Got up, had lunch, took more drugs, played tug for awhile and even had a training session on apple.
Apple - back into a box, back feet only
I discovered toward the end of the session that Gimme does better about backing in if I'm careful how I treat her. If I throw the treat too far, then she turns and approaches the box head on - which means either walking through or turning and side stepping in. If I drop the treat between us, then she only takes a step or so forward and so just backs into the box. I'll do that each time for the next few sessions and see if we can get backing in more solid.
That night in nosework class, Gimme couldn't get focused during her first two runs, flitting around the room and having a devil of a time finding her hides. I'm sure being cooped up all day was the reason. Her buddy Grafton was the best overall that night; though all the dogs are improving. By her third session, she was back in the swing. We had three piles of boxes and the food was in one of the lower boxes, so the upper boxes were in the way. Gimme and Grafton found their goodies in equal time, but Gimme excelled in getting to hers. Grafton is a little timid about pushing into the boxes, whereas Gimme was more than happy to pounce on the pile and scatter them in all directions.
Thursday I ended up working my Wednesday stores and when I got done decided to get Gimme and me out to the fort for a walk. She was very quiet until we got on Rainier headed out there and then she fussed up a storm. Even though the rescue remedy has been wonderful for everything else (and since), she was just fit to be tied. I don't know what sets her off. I think she may have a little homing pigeon in her and somehow senses when we are approaching that area of the county. I'm going to try some different routes, but the last mile has to be on the same road. I'm thinking in the future when she starts in as we are going out there, if she doesn't settle fairly soon, then I'm just going to turn and head home. Even if it does take forever to get there, I can't help but think the behavior is still being rewarded.
Since it took so long to get there, by the time we walked and were heading home it was getting dark. I rounded the corner and just barely had time to slam on my breaks, there were cars scattered every which way and just at the last moment I swerved to miss the cause of this mayhem. Myself and another lady managed to catch the fattest Pug I've ever seen - wider than he was tall. Since I had crates in the car, I took him. Went to the nearest well lit home and after about an hour was able to figure out where he belonged and drive him home. The owner was a piece of work. He was more interested in making excuses for how Bob got out, than expressing appreciation for the efforts of those of us who saved his dog's life and for my bringing him home. Some people! Bob was just very lucky that he stopped traffic when he did, since minutes after I stopped it was pitch black and no one could have seen him in time to stop.
Thursday and Friday I did some parking lot sessions. I'm revising how I'm doing that. Gimme gets about a minute to look around and satisfy herself about the environment, then I'm pushing her more to get to work. Basically if she doesn't turn her attention to me, I just keep moving her around, so that she doesn't have time to look around. I think the behavior is too self-reinforcing. Naturally this requires me to accurately assess why she is looking around. If she has a real reason to be distracted that would be a different matter. If not, my plan is to interrupt the self-reinforcing aspect.
On the way home Friday we stopped by Home Depot to pick up something I needed. Took Gimme in for her usual cookies. She'd been doing so well with LLW that I didn't put her EasyWalk harness on her - 30 seconds after getting in the door we returned to the car to correct that oversight. HD is a great place and we get some nice training in. Plus, as luck would have it, they have some of the most dog savvy employees at my store. If they aren't busy, they are more than happy to work with her. She always gets lots of attention and is finally getting used to the bizarre concept that some people actually don't want to pet her. She turns her nose up and walks jauntily by when she realizes its one of those really aberrant types. She's just sure they need medical attention.
Peach - head under a chair
Friday after work I did another training session. Gimme is having a real difficulty getting the idea of waiting for the cue (stage three of learning). My thinking is either I'm doing something wrong or I'm doing something wrong. When I cue Gimme, its like she isn't really listening to me because she's only right about which behavior to give me out of the four I'm using (peach, sit, down, touch) about 60% of the time, whereas her accuracy is around 95% any other time. I swear she gets it in her head which one comes next (I'm working hard to keep it random) and then doesn't listen to what I'm actually saying. I've emailed Ursula and we may add this to our upcoming private lesson. She says that Gimme is just the type of girl she would expect this kind of problem and that she needs to improve her "listening skills". She mentioned having the same difficulty with two of her seven dogs. I re-checked my notes to see how to work on this part. I'd been doing a combination of extending the cue and the mixed sets. So I'm going to try clicking for waiting and see if that makes it clearer for her. And if not, we'll add it to our private lesson next week.
Gimme was less focused today in agility practice. So I'm making the same changes. She gets a few minutes to snoop around while I set up the exercise, then if she isn't ready to work I put her on leash and do the drill of moving her around, so that she doesn't have time to look or snoop around. Again I think the snooping is just too self-reinforcing, so I want to interrupt the self-reinforcing aspect. After I did that, she got right down to work and did some really good stuff.
I did some yard work today, pushing through the remaining migraine. What should have taken an hour, took twice as long with Gimme's "help". I've been unable to convince her that its not really helpful when she runs off with my tools, the weed eater line (while balling it up into a big knotted mess), and the big pieces of ivy I've been cutting down. She says she only does it to air them out. I maintain that since the ivy, the tools and the weed eater line have all been outside all along, they don't actually need airing out. She remains unconvinced.
Orange - sit on a small perch
Since this is her other behavior we're trying to get waiting for the cue, did this today. I selected this because its a little harder behavior than peach, so thought she might not leap right to it as readily. I started clicking for her not doing anything and at first thought it was working... but as we got into it, she went back to "not listening". She'd wait for me to give her a cue, but then about half the time give me some behavior other than the one I asked for. If I waited, then she'd give me the right one. So clearly this isn't going to be the magic fix. I did notice that when I did a rapid succession of cues in tertiary reinforcement style... then she gives me the right behavior almost every time. Curious thing and I'll be interested to see what Ursula says about it. When Gimme gets frustrated she gives me a nice bark fest.
Afterward I tried easy stuff. We got out the brick and did some "get in" (counter clockwise forehand pivot). Gimme didn't seem convinced that I wanted her front feet on it and kept backing on. I wonder if that's a carry over from apple or if its because of our playing with two small platforms for a stand. The other thing, once I got her doing it was that when I say the cue as she is doing the behavior trying to get this on cue, she breaks off the behavior. After I was done training it suddenly occurred to me why. I have always used "get it" for a tossed treat and now "get in" for this. They sound so much alike, no wonder she is having problems. Smack my forehead!!!
BTW at one point she started pushing the brick (octagonal 7" diameter board) around the floor with her nose. So I expect that next time we do melon, she'll be the push master queen...
I really want to use the "get in" for the forehand pivot because its in my head and the first thing that comes out of my mouth for that behavior. So will leave it alone for awhile and have a few sessions of just using "yours" for the tossed treats. Add to that all the times I'll use that when tossing her treats for resets, it should switch pretty quickly. Then in a few weeks will come back to this and see if she's able to accept the new meaning for the cue. It'll be a challenge and we'll just see. She's pretty smart, so I think she will. If not, I'll make the cue an elongated "innnnn" and then later start putting "get" in front of it. You know I'll let you know how it goes.
We also did some work with our single stand platform, ala Michele Pouliet. I need to go back and watch the video again to get clear in my head about how to teach it before I go any further.
You know, it occurs to me that she has so many behaviors that are well on their way. I think as soon as we get past the hump of "wait for the cue", she is really going to take off in her understanding. Training my little genius is such a fun adventure.
Well, drugs are wearing off, so must be time for the next dose and I'm sure I hear the couch calling me.
Melon - push cube with nose
Grape - dead bug (on back, feet in the air)
Not trained.
No comments:
Post a Comment