MDSA March workshop

The workshop for March was about combination moves and matching the dog's skills to line-dance moves.  It was a lot of fun.  On Wednesday, March 27th, I recorded some training in the carport.  My original plan was to share these because they were so cute the night before - where she kept flipping them over and then pivoting on them.  She was very deft in how she did it, pulling the flipping foot out at the last moment. 

Dish work tricks video - Gimme got more serious about it in this session, creating two potential new behavior chains. It fascinated me to see she used them both in the same way the night before and here she had two very different ideas for these two props.

• Blue dish - Gimme flips it over and then uses it as a base to pivot on.
• Red dish - She backs in and then pivots on her rear. Note how she backs up until a foot is touching the side of the dish, then neatly steps in. Teaching the pivot on her rear is going to be very challenging, but Gimme loves challenges and the treats that come with them. I saw I missed a lot of good clicks because her back feet were obscured by her body, so I will definitely have to use a mirror.

Pivot-in-a-bucket video - There is much of this we are repeated from the night before, but it was a change of location, so it's to be expected. Initially I was getting feet in as she was passing through. I focused on clicking really early to clarify it was front feet I wanted. I withheld clicks a couple of times for in-and-pop-out. Then when I had a stationary moment I treated several times while her feet were in the bucket. There were some badly timed clicks as she was stepping in with the rear and I just made sure the rear feet were out when she got the treat. After the front-feet-only idea was more solid, I started looking for pivot steps. There are moments when she starts to put her back feet in and then changes her mind - I love watching her think. Since she was stuck not wanting to turn her back to me, I used luring to encourage it a couple of times. Within 30 seconds of the second time I showed her, she offered the full pivot. Then just a bit later she did it again. One foot comes out of the bucket, but we can work on it later. We ended with this success...

In watching this video I see her boldly stepping on the prop as it rolls on its side. I really want to make a prop for her to roll like a barrel. I'm just not sure what to use and definitely want something she can control.

On Thursday, March 28th, during our RFE practice, I recorded these videos for the MDSA workshop.

Bits & pieces video - As I was doodling to come up with a short sequence for the end of this month's MDSA online workshop, I came up with these little segments I liked.

MDSA video segment video - This is the quick segment I made to show some of the steps we learned this month. It's still toooooo slow for Gimme. Bless her heart for trying so hard to stay with me.

MDSA March workshop video - As it turned out, they didn't use the segment above.  Instead she cut pieces from many of the videos I shared and edited them in with video from other participants.  The Gimme pieces are spaced here and there through the whole very long video (almost 14 minutes).  Be sure to watch through to the end where Gimme has the final "word". 

I also recorded and shared these training videos which were inspired by the workshop.

Freeshaping backward weaves video - I am using a clicker, but it's so quiet the camera isn't picking it up. I don't know what happened to the good one I had in the car. While these quiet clickers are great for noise sensitive dogs, in this environment it just isn't loud enough with all the background noise. Gimme is making really good progress. We got to the point where she was able to turn while backing up very quickly this time. I think we are almost ready to line the cones up straight.

Freeshaping pivot-in-a-bucket video - I followed pretty much the same process as I had the day before - I thought it went faster this time. As I was helping her with some lured full pivots, I was trying to do it in a way where she'd keep her feet in the bucket. The last "lure" was just my hand in the air over hear head. Gimme offers a lovely full pivot at the end, for which she gets dozens of treats.

This is all some really fun stuff.  We haven't done much freeshaping in the last couple of years because it's nearly impossible to get Gimme to give me stimulus control of anything she invented with freeshaping.  She enjoys freeshaping sooooo much, so I am just going to have to work harder on stimulus control so she can do more freeshaping.