RFE practice (65)

Thankfully the screechy dog wasn't in daycare this time.  There was still distraction, just not a distraction that was stressful.

Warm-up video - I started with a little bit of warm-up on the course, including some simple behaviors. My goal was to click randomly when she was heeling. When she got distracted enough, I gently took her by the collar and led her back into position. This is somewhere between a very mild correction and information. I see I'm missing a lot of good opportunities to click. The spot mid-course where I throw my hands out a little bit, is my realization that I failed to arrive with her on my right so I could do this behavior, i.e. nothing she did wrong. Both times I remembered to take a step forward before crossing on the alternating front cross, so Gimme was steady for her part. She gets distracted at the sign in the corner, so misses the "spin" cue. She was tending to come off the brick during the "pivot", so we did a couple extra, feeding her in place. She loves behaviors with props, so she had a little difficulty leaving it. I do think I should have used a different method to get her back in heel, like using "around" to have her circle me. This would have created a better heel position and made the draw toward the brick less of an issue.

Heeling video - This time I wanted to do heeling without the other behaviors. Gimme gets distracted in the corner, so I take some time to work through it. Working through distraction always gets her super focused - maybe I should set up a distraction and work through it first thing in every session. The first click was just as she happened to turn her head a little more toward me - it seemed to get her into the game.

Pivot dog-inside video - Gimme really does this nicely. It's clearly time to start fading the brick. I need to create a thinner prop - I'm thinking painted sandpaper.

"Beep" video - Gimme was a little sensitive about this, so I slowed it waaaay down. We just did the one and then moved on.

"Fanny" video - I started with building value in position. Then moved her out of position and cued it. This set her up nicely to get in "fanny" and get rewarded. This worked well, so I want to do more of it.

Down-Stand video - I know it looks like I'm clicking late, but I was waiting for her elbows to touch the floor. The other thing I was working on was alignment, since she tends to down with her butt angled away. Gimme immediately starts anticipating, so I give her some wait-for-the-cue cookies. The cleaning crew is a group of young people with handicaps and they can sometimes be boisterous, giving us another chance to work through it with some "whazzat". Gimme's alignment in "heel" needed a special emphasis. Once I get "near" and "close" on cue, it'll be easier to work on this - though you can see she responds well anyway.

Spins & Circles video - This was just a quick little sequence to get in some spins and circles. It's easy to forget about the beginner behaviors as we work on more advanced stuff.

Figure-8 & Center video - Just a quick bit of doodling between figure-8's, finding "center" and then following in center position as I back up.

Center-front pivot video - Gimme does these nicely. She's faster and smoother as we turn CCW, but it's always been her better direction. She's gotten so much better going CW, really a lot of improvement.

Sidepass in center video - She's actually getting a little bit better as we've been practicing "near", to take a step or two CW. It was most evident at the end. I really haven't even started on "close", but she does so well CCW, it doesn't hurt to start using the cue when I know she'll do the behavior.

Sidepass at heel/side video - She's really making progress here. I think I need to take smaller steps, to make it reasonable for her to be successful. There were a couple of places where she was really smooth and coordinated and not always in her best direction.

Backing in heel video - There was an interesting challenge to start - Gimme was stuck on moving her back feet sideways, since our last two behaviors were sideways movements. So it took a few tries to convince her we were now backing up. I see I need to be more careful with my reward delivery, since I'm rewarding her too often well behind heel/side positions. I'll need to clean this position issue up at some point, but to start with I'll just work on rewarding in position.

I thought this was a more productive training session than usual. I created a Word file and started tracking what I'd been doing in training sessions, lessons learned, ideas for what to try next, training plan, etc. So now I have that information and can quickly review it. I think it keeps me more focused and organized and thus, Gimme is getting better training. She sure seems to be enjoying it and making faster progress.