RFE practice (60)

This practice was almost 2 weeks ago. Gimme did well, especially considering her approaching false pregnancy. I wasn't feeling up to par myself, so we didn't work as much as usual.

Free-shaping with a ball video - J'Anna has been teaching her dogs to roll a small barrel and I was curious to see what I could get Gimme to do with something that moved. In parkour she is used to putting her feet on things that move. She clearly had no issue with the ball moving. If I were to work on this for real, I'd want her to use her feet to move the ball toward me. So I think I'd need to stabilize it and/or limit its movement, then it would be easier to isolate when she stepped back on the ball. Might be fun.

"Away" with special bowl video - At first I was rewarding for her standing square on the platform and looking at the bowl - trying to use it as a visual target. Watching the video I see I was mostly lumping, waiting for her to look directly at the bowl, when I should have shaped a head turn in bowl direction. I did better as the session progressed. It's really hard for her to stay on the platform when her tail is wagging vigorously. I can't explain why I clicked so many times as she was running-to or eating-from the bowl. I think I was clicking secondary to "bowl" which is a reward marker itself - I don't know what my rationale was.

"Can" with "pivot" & "tivo" video - I have decided to go ahead and use the can for "pivot" and "tivo" (forehand pivots) and will use another prop to get back to the "spin" and "turn".

Pivot dog-inside video - J'Anna got caught up watching us and didn't turn the camera, so you miss about a minute of me rewarding wait-for-a-cue. J'Anna's  idea to use the guides makes no sense to me.  I think it might be helpful to have Gimme on a short tab leash when we are trying this off the brick. She understands the process on the brick... now I just need to make some more props out of thin board and sandpaper, to start fading the brick (2" thick wooden prop). I don't blame Gimme for the problems we are having nailing this down because I'd taught her a reverse pivot before I ever knew we needed this, so she has a long history of doing it different than this.  It's possible we'll end up losing points on this behavior as RFE defines it.

"Otto" and "izzy" video - Gimme's "otto" behavior degraded a bit from the various attempts to learn backward weaves. J'Anna had her guides set up for something she's doing, so I couldn't miss taking advantage of them to tune up "otto" and practice a couple "izzy". You can see how much faster she is with "izzy" and initially it wasn't the stronger behavior. We'll get it back, it's just going to take time.

Back around prop with platform - I saw a video a long time ago demonstrating how to teach a dog to back around a prop by having them back onto a platform and then gradually move the platform relative to the prop until the dog is backing around the prop to get on the platform. I always thought it would be a great way to teach the behavior. For us it wasn't effective. I think it could work, but I'd have to put a lot of focus on tuning up Gimme's platform behavior, so she aligns herself with it. I'd do it if I had to, but then I decided to try the guides and it went well.

Back around prop with guides video - This went much faster. My goal will be to have Gimme start in "center" position, back around a prop and then continue backing into "heel". I think I want to set up using two sets of guides, in a big "U" shape, where she can't cross over the middle. I also want to use a prop that isn't wobbly and also isn't wider at the top than the bottom. This has a lot of potential and it's also a behavior I want to use in parkour.

Distance spin - I was trying to use a combination of the special bowl and a carpet square to encourage Gimme to hold some distance from me. She acted like she thought the carpet square was our "mark" target, so I set it aside. There also seemed to be some avoidance of the special bowl, but its hard to tell because J'Anna was too focused on us and not on the camera, so we ended up out of view so often it's not clear what was going on. Next time I want to use guides as a barrier, to give her a place to stay and I'll have the special bowl further away, so it's a place to run for a reward, but not so close as to create pressure. As I said above, Gimme was close to the end of her "pregnancy" and almost ready to be a pseudo-Mom, so this may also have been a factor.

Sidepass in "center" video - I had to start with some wait-for-the-cue treats just to get her to be still for a few moments. Once I got her settled down, then she did nicely. I want to get to the point where she can smoothly do several steps at a time. Still what we are getting right now is a good place to start.

Sidepass dog at side video - This is coming along, slowly. I need to think about my footwork and have a clear distinction between when I'm moving closer to her and when I'm moving away.

I learned a lot about what I need to do to make our training more effective.  We have another practice in 2 days.  Because of her condition, I'll have to keep things fairly simple.