These were a very interesting group of searches. They were all paired and started out so simple. They had an intriguing way of folding the box lid, so it left a section for the treats.
Gimme found it very exciting and after the first search she would spend the whole time in the foyer whining. We weren't "supposed" to treat them, since the hides were all paired, but I did anyway. I've learned with Gimme she will take this as a change in procedure and next thing I know she'll start doing touch-n-go hides, not waiting for treats from me. I don't want to risk making her indications less clear.
Interior 1 video - All three hides were out in the open. It's hard to believe it took Gimme 22 seconds to find the first hide, but then she really went to town. Next second took 8 seconds and the last at the far end of the room took 15 seconds. Easy peasy.
Interior 2 video - This time the three hides were under something. This can be intimidating for inexperienced dogs - it never bothered Gimme. She came in really excited and was moving faster than she did during the first search. These "under somethings" were so easy and I don't think she even noticed. The first was the tightest, but it didn't slow her down, 16 seconds. Under the table was eeeeasy, 7 seconds. The last also took 7 seconds.
Interior 3 video - For the third search the hides were more challenging. The one at the front was a puzzle to find the entrance. Gimme had it in 13 seconds. The far hide was against the wall, two tables deep, and she had it in 10 seconds. And the last hide, in the smallest space, took her 11 seconds. The laughter was because, in my attempt to toss her another treat, it landed on the shelf above the hide and the table edge made it a very tight squeeze for her to get to it - but she certainly did.
The last three searches had just one hide each and were more challenging.
Interior 4 video - This hide under the center of two tables proved challenging for all the dogs. She pulled the tables apart by a couple inches, so we could deliver treats from above. I had Dino Chicken Nuggets, so just held one by the tail dangling through the track.
Interior 5 video - Gimme got this really fast. It was on the seat of the chair and under the table, which makes it an intimidating tight squeeze for some dogs. After the nugget-on-the-shelf fiasco, this was very easy.
Interior 6 video - It's hard to see them in the video, but there is an expen across the front and a bit down both sides, so the dogs had to find the channel and then get in for a tight squeeze. There was also a table across the back, to keep them from trying to stick their nose through from the back. Gimme had this in 19 seconds.
This class demonstrated really nice incrementing to teach the dogs a specific challenge. It's a non-challenge for Gimme and August, so they just had a lot of fun with easy searches - great motivation for them.
Showing posts with label Nosework. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nosework. Show all posts
Thursday, March 5, 2020
Sunday, November 5, 2017
UKC Nosework match
Again, blogging out of order, but by now you know I can't resist bragging about my brilliant girl. I learned of this UKC nosework match just over a week ago and was able to get into it. I haven't read their rules, but couldn't pass up the chance to try it. Rather than giving Gimme more chances to show us how well she remembers where the last hide was, I entered her in both containers and interiors at both levels, novice and advanced, instead of entering for reruns.
Today I drove to Graham in snow coming down like crazy. It was too warm to stick, so didn't have to worry about the road being icy, but at times it was hard to see. The site was nice, but brrrrrrr it was cold.
Novice Containers - It was twelve boxes with one hide (birch) and 3 minutes allotted for search time, which seems like a lot of time. Gimme had the hide in 17.75 seconds for 3rd place. 1st place dog had it in 7.21 and 2nd place had it in 10 seconds. I saw Gimme tip her nose toward the odor box on the way by, but she continued to the end of the row, then indicated on her way back down the row. Maybe I should have showed her the chicken nugget I had for her.
Novice Interiors - A tiny search area marked with tape, 1 hide (birch) and 3 minutes allotted search time. While Gimme dawdled for a couple seconds checking out a cone, she still had the hide in 22.1 seconds for first place. The second place dog was just short of a minute.
Novice Overall - Gimme took High in Match with 39.85 seconds overall time.
Advanced Containers - Twelve boxes, one hide (anise) and 3 minutes allotted search time. Gimme went up and down the row three times, but still had it in 23.5 seconds and came away with 2nd place.
Advanced Interiors - Larger search area, one hide (anise) and 4 minutes allotted search time. This was our first chance to go off leash. Gimme did a quick scan of the whole area, only leaving it briefly, then came back and quickly nailed the inaccessible hide. Her time was 33.03 seconds and she got 1st place. The judge for interiors said Gimme was the only dog to find it blind (other than the "white dog"). She said another handler, who ran two dogs, found it with her second dog, but she knew where the hide was and so tended to hang near the hide. The judge thought Gimme was awesome and I had to agree.
Advanced Overall - Gimme took High in Match again with 56.53 seconds overall time.
I know it was only a match, but clearly Gimme is ready to play in UKC nosework. This group is holding a trial next year, probably in May. There is another trial nearby the weekend after Thanksgiving, but that is the weekend when we'll be playing barn hunt and weight pull.
We drove home in even stronger snow most of the way. It started petering out as we got close to home, turning to rain. As luck would have it, it became a light drizzle as we approached Lacey. I drove by Lake Lois Park in hopes we could re-video one of our parkour behaviors. The drizzle stopped and we were able to get it done. Just as we were getting back in the van, the rain came back.
Now with the heat turned up and a hot soak behind me, I am feeling thawed and normal again. And Gimme may just get some steak I have thawing as we speak... just sayin'...
Today I drove to Graham in snow coming down like crazy. It was too warm to stick, so didn't have to worry about the road being icy, but at times it was hard to see. The site was nice, but brrrrrrr it was cold.
Novice Containers - It was twelve boxes with one hide (birch) and 3 minutes allotted for search time, which seems like a lot of time. Gimme had the hide in 17.75 seconds for 3rd place. 1st place dog had it in 7.21 and 2nd place had it in 10 seconds. I saw Gimme tip her nose toward the odor box on the way by, but she continued to the end of the row, then indicated on her way back down the row. Maybe I should have showed her the chicken nugget I had for her.
Novice Interiors - A tiny search area marked with tape, 1 hide (birch) and 3 minutes allotted search time. While Gimme dawdled for a couple seconds checking out a cone, she still had the hide in 22.1 seconds for first place. The second place dog was just short of a minute.
Novice Overall - Gimme took High in Match with 39.85 seconds overall time.
Advanced Containers - Twelve boxes, one hide (anise) and 3 minutes allotted search time. Gimme went up and down the row three times, but still had it in 23.5 seconds and came away with 2nd place.
Advanced Interiors - Larger search area, one hide (anise) and 4 minutes allotted search time. This was our first chance to go off leash. Gimme did a quick scan of the whole area, only leaving it briefly, then came back and quickly nailed the inaccessible hide. Her time was 33.03 seconds and she got 1st place. The judge for interiors said Gimme was the only dog to find it blind (other than the "white dog"). She said another handler, who ran two dogs, found it with her second dog, but she knew where the hide was and so tended to hang near the hide. The judge thought Gimme was awesome and I had to agree.
Advanced Overall - Gimme took High in Match again with 56.53 seconds overall time.
I know it was only a match, but clearly Gimme is ready to play in UKC nosework. This group is holding a trial next year, probably in May. There is another trial nearby the weekend after Thanksgiving, but that is the weekend when we'll be playing barn hunt and weight pull.
We drove home in even stronger snow most of the way. It started petering out as we got close to home, turning to rain. As luck would have it, it became a light drizzle as we approached Lacey. I drove by Lake Lois Park in hopes we could re-video one of our parkour behaviors. The drizzle stopped and we were able to get it done. Just as we were getting back in the van, the rain came back.
Now with the heat turned up and a hot soak behind me, I am feeling thawed and normal again. And Gimme may just get some steak I have thawing as we speak... just sayin'...
Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Nosework (5/17)
Class last night was very interesting. It started with the other instructor talking about what she learned in a recent Mental Management seminar, a mental training system developed by Olympic Champion Lanny Bassham. I have all his materials and actually went to a 3-day seminar with Lanny several years ago. Its a great system and has a lot of validity. However, it can be very hard to implement. Those who most need it have years of habitual negative/critical self-talk to overcome, which is far from easy.
Vehicle search video - (undisclosed number of hides, 3:00 minutes) I walked Gimme for several minutes before this search, but it was really clear she was about to use the grass for more, so I interrupted her. She remained distracted throughout this search, especially when we were on the grass. Early in the search she goes right to the hide on the rear tire of the middle vehicle, but doesn't indicate. Found the other hide on the front vehicle pretty quickly and gave me her pre-indication look and when I didn't call it, then she put her feet up on the bumper. This was all very weird, since putting feet up on the vehicles has never been a problem for us. It has happened on occasion, but never repeatedly in the same search. Gimme returns to the back tire hide and again doesn't indicate. I tried moving my hand lower on the leash to discourage going vertical and in this case it worked, though it is usually frustrating to her. You'll hear I tell her "good girl" when she brought her feet off the ground to sniff high, but without touching the vehicle. She did finally get the second hide
Clearly this instructor hasn't mastered the MM technique for providing constructive instruction without using a negative in the comment. "Don't let her" is negative and put in my head the image of Gimme with her feet on the vehicle. The positive comment would have been something along the lines of "encourage her to keep her feet on the ground." Since I believe animals have telepathic abilities, Gimme could have been reading that negative image and in her distracted state, trying to use it to make me happy. Of course, she didn't get rewarded on her first hide until after she put her feet on the bumper, so perhaps she concluded wrongly feet on vehicle was now okay. But, if this were the case, I would expect her to give it up after the first or second "off", unless she was getting a conflicting picture from my head.
Exterior search video - (undisclosed number of hides, 2:30 minutes) She was less distracted, possibly because we were on cement for most of this search. It didn't take her very long to find the hide, though I hadn't even noticed the little piece of scrap tubing on the ground. I really appreciated Dorothy's comment about me getting Gimme out to the edge of the search area, since it was a conscious decision on my part. Gimme didn't seem to be searching and was looking at me a lot, so I called "finish" and was right.
After these two searches I walked her more and she did poop. Possibly, the activity of moving quickly to the search area (75 yards at a fast trot) loosened up her need to do more than just pee. At least it certainly explains her distraction.
Interior search 1 video - (undisclosed number of hides) Gimme actually went right to the hide when she came in the room, but it wasn't caught on film because Dorothy had the camera and was shutting the door, and because I was in the way of the camera. There was shop-worthy stuff there, but Gimme was clearly looking for odor and not shopping. I can't tell you how I knew she was hunting and not shopping, I just knew. You will see her sniff the door to the other room and since I knew it was the next search area, I didn't get fooled into false alerting. Also Gimme wasn't fooled either. While she clearly knew there was odor through the door, she also knew there was something closer. She was very clear when she found the hide. Why did I call finish so quickly? I don't know, other than thinking it had taken her awhile to find it and she had checked the whole room, so it must be the only one. I admit I was thinking about calling clear when she indicated the hide on the shelf leg.
Interior search 2 video - (undisclosed number of hides) Dorothy comments about what a great video it will be and actually I think it is. Its clear from the video how full the area was: lots of stuff, three people and one very busy dog. It would have been very easy to crowd her, so I just focused on staying out of her way while still supporting her and watching what she was doing. I thought Gimme was brilliant in this search. After she found the first hide, can't tell you why, but I knew there was another hide. She was just too busy to be done.
Gimme was bored all day because I had a horrible cold. I was up and down a couple of times in the morning to talk to the windshield replacement guy, but otherwise slept as much as I could. Had to go to work for a couple of hours and when I got home I tried to take a nap before going to class. I had time for 1:15 nap, which ended after 30 minutes when Gimme proceeded to "entertain" me awake. Her entertainment consisted of repeatedly dropping a toy on my head. When this tactic didn't work she dropped the toy on my chest and pounced on it. When I rolled away from her hiding my face in the pillows, she then proceeded to lick my ear and chin and whatever face she could get to.
Since she'd been so bored, she was really disappointed to only have four searches and complained about her dissatisfaction all the way home. Loudly...
Vehicle search video - (undisclosed number of hides, 3:00 minutes) I walked Gimme for several minutes before this search, but it was really clear she was about to use the grass for more, so I interrupted her. She remained distracted throughout this search, especially when we were on the grass. Early in the search she goes right to the hide on the rear tire of the middle vehicle, but doesn't indicate. Found the other hide on the front vehicle pretty quickly and gave me her pre-indication look and when I didn't call it, then she put her feet up on the bumper. This was all very weird, since putting feet up on the vehicles has never been a problem for us. It has happened on occasion, but never repeatedly in the same search. Gimme returns to the back tire hide and again doesn't indicate. I tried moving my hand lower on the leash to discourage going vertical and in this case it worked, though it is usually frustrating to her. You'll hear I tell her "good girl" when she brought her feet off the ground to sniff high, but without touching the vehicle. She did finally get the second hide
Clearly this instructor hasn't mastered the MM technique for providing constructive instruction without using a negative in the comment. "Don't let her" is negative and put in my head the image of Gimme with her feet on the vehicle. The positive comment would have been something along the lines of "encourage her to keep her feet on the ground." Since I believe animals have telepathic abilities, Gimme could have been reading that negative image and in her distracted state, trying to use it to make me happy. Of course, she didn't get rewarded on her first hide until after she put her feet on the bumper, so perhaps she concluded wrongly feet on vehicle was now okay. But, if this were the case, I would expect her to give it up after the first or second "off", unless she was getting a conflicting picture from my head.
Exterior search video - (undisclosed number of hides, 2:30 minutes) She was less distracted, possibly because we were on cement for most of this search. It didn't take her very long to find the hide, though I hadn't even noticed the little piece of scrap tubing on the ground. I really appreciated Dorothy's comment about me getting Gimme out to the edge of the search area, since it was a conscious decision on my part. Gimme didn't seem to be searching and was looking at me a lot, so I called "finish" and was right.
After these two searches I walked her more and she did poop. Possibly, the activity of moving quickly to the search area (75 yards at a fast trot) loosened up her need to do more than just pee. At least it certainly explains her distraction.
Interior search 1 video - (undisclosed number of hides) Gimme actually went right to the hide when she came in the room, but it wasn't caught on film because Dorothy had the camera and was shutting the door, and because I was in the way of the camera. There was shop-worthy stuff there, but Gimme was clearly looking for odor and not shopping. I can't tell you how I knew she was hunting and not shopping, I just knew. You will see her sniff the door to the other room and since I knew it was the next search area, I didn't get fooled into false alerting. Also Gimme wasn't fooled either. While she clearly knew there was odor through the door, she also knew there was something closer. She was very clear when she found the hide. Why did I call finish so quickly? I don't know, other than thinking it had taken her awhile to find it and she had checked the whole room, so it must be the only one. I admit I was thinking about calling clear when she indicated the hide on the shelf leg.
Interior search 2 video - (undisclosed number of hides) Dorothy comments about what a great video it will be and actually I think it is. Its clear from the video how full the area was: lots of stuff, three people and one very busy dog. It would have been very easy to crowd her, so I just focused on staying out of her way while still supporting her and watching what she was doing. I thought Gimme was brilliant in this search. After she found the first hide, can't tell you why, but I knew there was another hide. She was just too busy to be done.
Gimme was bored all day because I had a horrible cold. I was up and down a couple of times in the morning to talk to the windshield replacement guy, but otherwise slept as much as I could. Had to go to work for a couple of hours and when I got home I tried to take a nap before going to class. I had time for 1:15 nap, which ended after 30 minutes when Gimme proceeded to "entertain" me awake. Her entertainment consisted of repeatedly dropping a toy on my head. When this tactic didn't work she dropped the toy on my chest and pounced on it. When I rolled away from her hiding my face in the pillows, she then proceeded to lick my ear and chin and whatever face she could get to.
Since she'd been so bored, she was really disappointed to only have four searches and complained about her dissatisfaction all the way home. Loudly...
Friday, October 24, 2014
Relaxing Day
Gimme and I are pretty much just hanging out. I am waiting for the full effect of her combined supplements and homeopathics to come together. She is doing well so far - still hasn't adopted a baby. Though she does want to be near me a lot, so much I dragged her dog bed into the bathroom so she could be comfortable and close.
I've just received word we are:
I've just received word we are:
- in the top 10 wait list for the level 1 Container element trial, and
- on the short wait list for the level 2 Interior element trial.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Agility (1/2)
Gimme has had quite the full day. We did nosework practice with our friend Susan. Overall there were 8 hides. Gimme didn't have any difficulty with any of them. I'm practicing seeing when she gets in odor and trying to define the behavior change I see. For now I would just say she gets very "busy" and more focused in an area, as opposed to loosely scanning, which she does the rest of the time. She sure loves getting peanut butter to reward every time she finds odor.
Afterwards we went walking and put in 4 miles. When we got home, I took a long nap and woke with a migraine, but it was time for class, so off we went.
Overall I was pleased with Gimme. Her first session started off unfocused, but I really think she was responding to how muzzy-headed I was. Once I was up and moving for a bit, my head cleared and magically, she was suddenly focused. For our second sequence, she did well the whole time.
Blynn had me do one section over a couple of times until my handling was sufficient to cue Gimme to collect. The first time she literally landed on my foot. The second time she missed my foot, but bumped my leg in finishing the turn. The third time I got it right and so did she. Its really cool to see how she responds so naturally to good APHS handling. Blynn also worked on the same segment with other students and it was interesting to see how much harder it was for their dog's to make the change. It sure makes a big difference how athletic Gimme is, as well as how body aware she is. I'm sure a lot of it comes from the body awareness exercises we did when she was a puppy.
William tapes many of our classes... so here's two...
This is from last week when Gimme started out so unfocused. She sure doesn't tolerate late handling. Frances always fixed my mistakes, Michael not so much, Gimme not at all. I can see I spend a lot of time "naming" what she's doing, like saying "jump" when she's in the air already.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxnl0qKNz2o
This second link is the second run of the same night when I totally couldn't remember the course. When my handling was clear (despite whether I was on course or not), Gimme did well. I hate it when people clap to get their dog's attention - had no idea I'd fallen into such an ugly habit. I gotta make it go away. I can also see where I'm crowding her space, which causes her to move out around the jumps. She really wants to handle at much more of a distance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeO7LZ-uOoY
From some of the other vids, I see...
Afterwards we went walking and put in 4 miles. When we got home, I took a long nap and woke with a migraine, but it was time for class, so off we went.
Overall I was pleased with Gimme. Her first session started off unfocused, but I really think she was responding to how muzzy-headed I was. Once I was up and moving for a bit, my head cleared and magically, she was suddenly focused. For our second sequence, she did well the whole time.
Blynn had me do one section over a couple of times until my handling was sufficient to cue Gimme to collect. The first time she literally landed on my foot. The second time she missed my foot, but bumped my leg in finishing the turn. The third time I got it right and so did she. Its really cool to see how she responds so naturally to good APHS handling. Blynn also worked on the same segment with other students and it was interesting to see how much harder it was for their dog's to make the change. It sure makes a big difference how athletic Gimme is, as well as how body aware she is. I'm sure a lot of it comes from the body awareness exercises we did when she was a puppy.
William tapes many of our classes... so here's two...
This is from last week when Gimme started out so unfocused. She sure doesn't tolerate late handling. Frances always fixed my mistakes, Michael not so much, Gimme not at all. I can see I spend a lot of time "naming" what she's doing, like saying "jump" when she's in the air already.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxnl0qKNz2o
This second link is the second run of the same night when I totally couldn't remember the course. When my handling was clear (despite whether I was on course or not), Gimme did well. I hate it when people clap to get their dog's attention - had no idea I'd fallen into such an ugly habit. I gotta make it go away. I can also see where I'm crowding her space, which causes her to move out around the jumps. She really wants to handle at much more of a distance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeO7LZ-uOoY
From some of the other vids, I see...
- Gimme really likes doing multiple hand touches and I want to try using it as I take her harness off, instead of after she takes a loop around the arena. It would be nice to just start off working, rather than recapturing her attention.
- I see I've been naming obstacles for quite awhile. I've emailed Blynn and asked her to help me focus on either being more timely with verbal cues or just shut up, eh.
- I also see the clapping at Gimme in a couple other videos and have asked Blynn to help me eliminate it.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Epiphanies
Epiphany = a sudden realization of great truth. I’ve had two this week.
I’ve been reading a book, Zoomility, and am using colored pens along with my highlighter, to say different things about why I highlight (it’s a take-off from an inductive Bible study I’m doing). By doing it this way, I am forced to slow down and give more thought to why I am highlighting a particular portion of the text and what it means to me – what I want to learn and remember from it.
(Epiphany #1) This week I was reading a section about least reinforcing stimulus (LRS) and was thinking about it. One of the training issues I’ve struggled with is trying to get a straight “front”. Gimme always angles her fanny to one side or the other – which I know is my fault and I’m sure I carefully, if unintentionally, shaped the angling behavior. I’ve also been trying to get her to come in closer. She is coming in close enough to not be faulted, but figuring on a behavior deteriorating under the stress/distraction at a trial… it could be close.
So the way LRS applies is the intentional application of 3 – 5 seconds on non-response. We always try to fix the dog’s mistakes, which unfortunately risks rewarding the behavior by paying attention to it. At the very least you create a dog who waits for you to give them the second cue before getting the behavior correct. In the case of a crooked front or one which isn’t close enough, my fix has been to take a step back. Over time it’s turned into me pushing my knees back, while not moving my feet (a nonverbal cue, eh).
I decided to use a small platform to give Gimme a physical target and one in which she feels when she’s not right, because she slips off the side. I was very conscious to do nothing if she wasn’t right. I also thought ahead about how and when I would reward her efforts. Assuming I am facing 12 o’clock… if her butt angles toward 1 o’clock, the treat comes from my right hand, which causes her to turn toward it, thus straightening her butt. If her butt angles toward 11 o’clock, the treat comes from my left hand, causing the same straightening. If she comes in straight, she gets treats from both hands. Note she gets a treat either way, whether she is straight or not, though she doesn’t actually get the crooked cookie until she has straightened some.
When she is close enough, she gets a treat spit out of my mouth, which just barely clears my body. If she is too far away, she has to move closer to catch it. So she quickly tended to come in closer. I was able to add the refinement where she got cookies from both hands if as she sat down from the catching, if she was straight.
Needless to say, it took very little for my little genius to figure out the pay differential. The difference was dramatic and in just two short sessions she was really working to be straight and close – taking responsibility for getting it right. You know this kid always works the angles…
(Epiphany #2) At nosework class Dorothy asked me how our trial went and what I learned. In the course of talking about it, I explained how frustrated Gimme got about not getting peanut butter when she thought she was supposed to and the disastrous consequences in containers.
Which led to Dorothy asking me, and discussing with the class, why I/we weren’t using our best motivators for nosework. (I always love how she uses examples from her own training too) An odor obedient dog is one who actively searches for and goes to source odor and odor obedience is only as strong as the association a dog has between odor and the reward for finding it. So… why wouldn’t a person use their dog’s highest value reward?
In my case, its been twofold. One, using peanut butter is time consuming. Gimme has to spend time licking the go toob and if she gets a blob, then she has to lick her leg to clear her mouth. This will cost us in nosework where placements are separated by just a few seconds. Two, I could use peanut butter cookies (as I do in agility), but if any crumbs drop on the floor, we’d be faulted. So, those are the reasons I had for not using peanut butter.
The next day I was thinking about it and pondered whether there were such a thing as peanut butter chips (like chocolate and butterscotch chips). A quick internet search and I discovered there are – they are made by the Reese’s division of Hershey’s. So today I checked my local grocery and found them. I tested Gimme when I got home. Given a choice between PB chips and garlic pork - chips won, paws down.
Gimme and I have already started working with them. I just did a quick session offering her two hands – one with odor and one with PB chips. She quickly learned mugging the hand with the PB chips got nothing, while paw-hold and multiple nose-bumps to the odor hand made PB chips land there. I was even able to really strengthen the concept by teasing her with the PB chips while she was doing the paw-hold/nose-bump to odor and she caught on to this distinction as well. Lo and behold, resisting the distraction/attraction of PB smell gets you PB chips. Who knew?
In class/training/practice I will mostly use peanut butter from the go toob (which isn’t going to result in a sugar high), because time isn’t a factor. I could even use PB cookies at those times because crumbs won’t cost me. But from time to time I’ll use the PB chips, so I can be practiced at using our highest value reward for a trial.
I’m really excited to see how Gimme’s nosework changes when she realizes she gets her all-time-favorite-number-one-highest-value goodie. She’s always been pretty solid at odor obedience, but I’ll be watching to see if it gets stronger. You know I’ll tell you when it does…
I’ve been reading a book, Zoomility, and am using colored pens along with my highlighter, to say different things about why I highlight (it’s a take-off from an inductive Bible study I’m doing). By doing it this way, I am forced to slow down and give more thought to why I am highlighting a particular portion of the text and what it means to me – what I want to learn and remember from it.
(Epiphany #1) This week I was reading a section about least reinforcing stimulus (LRS) and was thinking about it. One of the training issues I’ve struggled with is trying to get a straight “front”. Gimme always angles her fanny to one side or the other – which I know is my fault and I’m sure I carefully, if unintentionally, shaped the angling behavior. I’ve also been trying to get her to come in closer. She is coming in close enough to not be faulted, but figuring on a behavior deteriorating under the stress/distraction at a trial… it could be close.
So the way LRS applies is the intentional application of 3 – 5 seconds on non-response. We always try to fix the dog’s mistakes, which unfortunately risks rewarding the behavior by paying attention to it. At the very least you create a dog who waits for you to give them the second cue before getting the behavior correct. In the case of a crooked front or one which isn’t close enough, my fix has been to take a step back. Over time it’s turned into me pushing my knees back, while not moving my feet (a nonverbal cue, eh).
I decided to use a small platform to give Gimme a physical target and one in which she feels when she’s not right, because she slips off the side. I was very conscious to do nothing if she wasn’t right. I also thought ahead about how and when I would reward her efforts. Assuming I am facing 12 o’clock… if her butt angles toward 1 o’clock, the treat comes from my right hand, which causes her to turn toward it, thus straightening her butt. If her butt angles toward 11 o’clock, the treat comes from my left hand, causing the same straightening. If she comes in straight, she gets treats from both hands. Note she gets a treat either way, whether she is straight or not, though she doesn’t actually get the crooked cookie until she has straightened some.
When she is close enough, she gets a treat spit out of my mouth, which just barely clears my body. If she is too far away, she has to move closer to catch it. So she quickly tended to come in closer. I was able to add the refinement where she got cookies from both hands if as she sat down from the catching, if she was straight.
Needless to say, it took very little for my little genius to figure out the pay differential. The difference was dramatic and in just two short sessions she was really working to be straight and close – taking responsibility for getting it right. You know this kid always works the angles…
(Epiphany #2) At nosework class Dorothy asked me how our trial went and what I learned. In the course of talking about it, I explained how frustrated Gimme got about not getting peanut butter when she thought she was supposed to and the disastrous consequences in containers.
Which led to Dorothy asking me, and discussing with the class, why I/we weren’t using our best motivators for nosework. (I always love how she uses examples from her own training too) An odor obedient dog is one who actively searches for and goes to source odor and odor obedience is only as strong as the association a dog has between odor and the reward for finding it. So… why wouldn’t a person use their dog’s highest value reward?
In my case, its been twofold. One, using peanut butter is time consuming. Gimme has to spend time licking the go toob and if she gets a blob, then she has to lick her leg to clear her mouth. This will cost us in nosework where placements are separated by just a few seconds. Two, I could use peanut butter cookies (as I do in agility), but if any crumbs drop on the floor, we’d be faulted. So, those are the reasons I had for not using peanut butter.
The next day I was thinking about it and pondered whether there were such a thing as peanut butter chips (like chocolate and butterscotch chips). A quick internet search and I discovered there are – they are made by the Reese’s division of Hershey’s. So today I checked my local grocery and found them. I tested Gimme when I got home. Given a choice between PB chips and garlic pork - chips won, paws down.
Gimme and I have already started working with them. I just did a quick session offering her two hands – one with odor and one with PB chips. She quickly learned mugging the hand with the PB chips got nothing, while paw-hold and multiple nose-bumps to the odor hand made PB chips land there. I was even able to really strengthen the concept by teasing her with the PB chips while she was doing the paw-hold/nose-bump to odor and she caught on to this distinction as well. Lo and behold, resisting the distraction/attraction of PB smell gets you PB chips. Who knew?
In class/training/practice I will mostly use peanut butter from the go toob (which isn’t going to result in a sugar high), because time isn’t a factor. I could even use PB cookies at those times because crumbs won’t cost me. But from time to time I’ll use the PB chips, so I can be practiced at using our highest value reward for a trial.
I’m really excited to see how Gimme’s nosework changes when she realizes she gets her all-time-favorite-number-one-highest-value goodie. She’s always been pretty solid at odor obedience, but I’ll be watching to see if it gets stronger. You know I’ll tell you when it does…
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Busy Gimme, Agility (1/1)
While today was a day off for me, it turned out to be very busy for the two of us.
I got a message from the trial secretary for the Nooksack trial (Jan 19th) and learned that we are now 1st alternate for getting in the trial. So if anyone else drops out, we're in. Naturally we haven't done anything nosework for almost three weeks, so I sure appreciated the heads up. I'd planned to take Gimme for a walk on the fort, so stopped nearby and set 4 hides.
Then Gimme and I went to the fort and walked 3 miles. She had a great time and is getting really playful again. I think she's getting close to giving up psuedo-motherhood. She was playing a little with me last night... though later she went weird and couldn't even play because she had to have her baby. But then after that she brought me her new toy to play. She's leaving the baby more of the time. She checks where it is, but then may just leave it there. And, she didn't take it to bed last night - poor little baby slept on the hall floor all night.
After the walk we drove to where I'd set the hides and the instant I got there she started carrying on. She recognized where I'd set hides 90 minutes earlier - even though we've never done nosework there or a place remotely like that. I'd set four hides, in two pairs 8-10 feet apart and all low. She did a fabulous job finding them all in 2:39.23... Given the time it took me to reward her AND hold her back while picking up odor, I'm pretty pleased with that time.
When we got home from walking on the fort and nosework practice -- she just had to find baby... but then just left him there. Ninety minutes later we left for our first agility class at Rochester. Class didn't start until 7pm and its a full class, so by the time we got out of there... we didn't get home until almost 9:30.
I got a message from the trial secretary for the Nooksack trial (Jan 19th) and learned that we are now 1st alternate for getting in the trial. So if anyone else drops out, we're in. Naturally we haven't done anything nosework for almost three weeks, so I sure appreciated the heads up. I'd planned to take Gimme for a walk on the fort, so stopped nearby and set 4 hides.
Then Gimme and I went to the fort and walked 3 miles. She had a great time and is getting really playful again. I think she's getting close to giving up psuedo-motherhood. She was playing a little with me last night... though later she went weird and couldn't even play because she had to have her baby. But then after that she brought me her new toy to play. She's leaving the baby more of the time. She checks where it is, but then may just leave it there. And, she didn't take it to bed last night - poor little baby slept on the hall floor all night.
After the walk we drove to where I'd set the hides and the instant I got there she started carrying on. She recognized where I'd set hides 90 minutes earlier - even though we've never done nosework there or a place remotely like that. I'd set four hides, in two pairs 8-10 feet apart and all low. She did a fabulous job finding them all in 2:39.23... Given the time it took me to reward her AND hold her back while picking up odor, I'm pretty pleased with that time.
When we got home from walking on the fort and nosework practice -- she just had to find baby... but then just left him there. Ninety minutes later we left for our first agility class at Rochester. Class didn't start until 7pm and its a full class, so by the time we got out of there... we didn't get home until almost 9:30.
Gimme did very well for her first turn. She was distracted at first, but then got her focus going and was doing a lot of very nice stuff. My new classmates had very complimentary things to say about her. For our second turn, she started out more focused, but then halfway through lost her focus and I actually had to put her on leash to work with her a little bit to get her brain back. Then took her off leash and Blynn had us run a nice sequence to end on a good note.
It didn't help that I didn't have any peanut butter with me. The jar in the car is EMPTY! That's probably the first time that's ever happened - me being without PB. Though I did decide at the fun run that I want to bring her generic Nutter Butter cookies to agility, I just forgot them. She is almost as crazy about them as she is about real PB, but we won't have to wait for her to lick her leg after them.
I thought maybe her loss of focus reflected a need to potty, since she hadn't done anything before coming in the second time. However, when we went outside, it took awhile before she peed. Now that we are home, she has baby and is being clingy. So, now I'm thinking that even though she's getting close to giving him up, it was just too much time away from baby all on one day. I also think I may need to make it a point to give her evening supplements to her before leaving for class, even though its early. We'll just have to wait and see how she does next week.
So now its time for some couch time.
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Nosework (3/17), Agility and More
Gimme continues in her false pregnancy. For awhile I thought it was going to pass without any real affect, but then we ran out of one of the two homeopathic remedies. To make matters worse the store was out and it was 6 days before I found another place to get them. So Gimme got a little needier during that time, but now that we are back with both remedies she is steadily improving.
Nose work class was at a local Home Depot. The searches for the class were nothing special or even particularly challenging. One hide 8 foot from the start line Gimme found in under 2 seconds. To say she is fast is an understatement.
This was our last class with Joyce. I won't go into detail... just suffice it to say that the differences between her approach to training/instructing and what I would do is substantial in many ways. No one who was present for the actual situation can really figure it out what made this particularly troubling to her. I have my own thoughts, but they aren't really a proper topic for the blog.
In any case I have already found a class with another instructor and we start with her on January 6th. Both of Dorothy's nose work dogs are fast, enthusiastic and confident like Gimme. She has a number of students that are doing quite well and their dogs seem equally fast and confident. Dorothy is well known and well respected in the nose work community. Because she is used to working with faster dog, I think it will be a good match for us. The only downside is that because so many of her student's dogs are fast - Gimme won't stand out like she has in the past. She will just have to bring her game up to new levels, eh.
We also went to an agility fun run this week. Gimme was very distracted for the first run in this totally new location. The second run she was much better and the third run was nearly flawless. I don't know if I've mentioned that Blynn is going to be teaching classes here every other Thursday night. This will be wonderful for us and I'm very excited. We are currently going every other week AND class in this location will cut an hour off our drive (each way). I can hardly wait.
Plus Chris is going to start a two night a week agility handlers fitness drop in class. I'm going to go at least once a week. I think it will be good to have someone to be accountable for about fitness and weight loss.
Also after the first of the year I will be trying a new massage treatment for my foot called Gua Sha (pronounced gwa-shaw). This technique is used to break up scar tissue and reduce inflammation. While my plantar fasciitis has improved a lot with the new orthotics and better shoes, its not resolved and probably won't be until I lose some weight. I can't lose weight without more exercise and can't get more exercise while my foot is so bad. So I'm caught in a catch 22. My chiropractor and I hope that Gua Sha treatment will help enough for me to get back to exercising like I was before.
Also after the first of the year (its going to be a busy and change-filled January), Gimme and I will be trying Barn Hunt. We are going to Oregon on January 11th for a private lesson and group practice day. Then we'll be doing four trials the last weekend of January. I'll sign Gimme up for the instinct test both days, as well as two novice runs a day. She already has a strong interest in all things rodent as evidenced by her fascination with enlarging the entryways for all the mouse holes on the Weir prairie where we walk. So I'm sure we'll pass the instinct test. Amy is pretty certain that we'll be able to get a novice title that weekend as well... Gimme needs to qualify 3 out of 4 novice runs.
We are 12.3 miles from our annual walking goal. Gimme thinks we could/should do it all tomorrow. I think we need to spread it out over several days.
Nose work class was at a local Home Depot. The searches for the class were nothing special or even particularly challenging. One hide 8 foot from the start line Gimme found in under 2 seconds. To say she is fast is an understatement.
This was our last class with Joyce. I won't go into detail... just suffice it to say that the differences between her approach to training/instructing and what I would do is substantial in many ways. No one who was present for the actual situation can really figure it out what made this particularly troubling to her. I have my own thoughts, but they aren't really a proper topic for the blog.
In any case I have already found a class with another instructor and we start with her on January 6th. Both of Dorothy's nose work dogs are fast, enthusiastic and confident like Gimme. She has a number of students that are doing quite well and their dogs seem equally fast and confident. Dorothy is well known and well respected in the nose work community. Because she is used to working with faster dog, I think it will be a good match for us. The only downside is that because so many of her student's dogs are fast - Gimme won't stand out like she has in the past. She will just have to bring her game up to new levels, eh.
We also went to an agility fun run this week. Gimme was very distracted for the first run in this totally new location. The second run she was much better and the third run was nearly flawless. I don't know if I've mentioned that Blynn is going to be teaching classes here every other Thursday night. This will be wonderful for us and I'm very excited. We are currently going every other week AND class in this location will cut an hour off our drive (each way). I can hardly wait.
Plus Chris is going to start a two night a week agility handlers fitness drop in class. I'm going to go at least once a week. I think it will be good to have someone to be accountable for about fitness and weight loss.
Also after the first of the year I will be trying a new massage treatment for my foot called Gua Sha (pronounced gwa-shaw). This technique is used to break up scar tissue and reduce inflammation. While my plantar fasciitis has improved a lot with the new orthotics and better shoes, its not resolved and probably won't be until I lose some weight. I can't lose weight without more exercise and can't get more exercise while my foot is so bad. So I'm caught in a catch 22. My chiropractor and I hope that Gua Sha treatment will help enough for me to get back to exercising like I was before.
Also after the first of the year (its going to be a busy and change-filled January), Gimme and I will be trying Barn Hunt. We are going to Oregon on January 11th for a private lesson and group practice day. Then we'll be doing four trials the last weekend of January. I'll sign Gimme up for the instinct test both days, as well as two novice runs a day. She already has a strong interest in all things rodent as evidenced by her fascination with enlarging the entryways for all the mouse holes on the Weir prairie where we walk. So I'm sure we'll pass the instinct test. Amy is pretty certain that we'll be able to get a novice title that weekend as well... Gimme needs to qualify 3 out of 4 novice runs.
We are 12.3 miles from our annual walking goal. Gimme thinks we could/should do it all tomorrow. I think we need to spread it out over several days.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Helfers NW Seminar, part 4
The last part of the seminar talked about training. Fred has a four step approach to each training experience to ensure the dog has a successful and positive experience.
- Develop a Plan - You get greater consistency if you have a plan, short, medium and long range. Still, be prepared to be flexible when things don't go according to plan.
- Conduct a Safety Check - Check all areas/equipment/etc for hazards to both dog and person.
- Each environment has a potential to contain hazards, usually sharp or protruding objects. Also watch for things that could tip over. Remember vehicles could be dripping unsafe fluids, such as antifreeze.
- Also be aware that you don't put hides in places that will cause the dog discomfort, such as on a hot metal surface they might touch with the nose.
- Check the Environment - Check for air flow throughout the environment, air conditioning, temperature, distractions... which all combine to tell you what to do to make sure the search/training is successful.
- Air is always moving, even in interiors - kitchen & bathroom vents, doorways, windows, a/c, sun shining through windows, duct work, even switch plates and electrical outlets. Know the wind direction and strength so you can estimate how the odor will flow around buildings and other items during exteriors and how it will flow under and around vehicles. Whenever possible start from the downwind side - even if that means quickly passing straight through the search area to get there, though be prepared to follow the dog's lead.
- Temperature affects how much scent molecules disperse, humidity levels and how much water your dog needs before and after searches.
- Distractions are everywhere and not just for the dog - verbal and physical from other people, food, other animals, and new environments. Handlers can be distracted by their own dog and forget to cover all the things they identified in their plan.
- Have a Plan "B" - Fred says that training and testing are two distinctly different things. Always have a plan so that your training challenges don't unintentionally turn into testing. Always end on with success.
- hot vs. cold
- dry conditions vs. humidity
- different floor/ground surfaces
- food distractions
- use of heat from a wall heater to convect air up to curtains (like in a hotel room)
- in the rain and snow
- high wind, low wind and no wind
- buried source odor
- low quantities of odor, normal and super saturated odor
- on and off leash
- be aware of even tiny amounts of scent transfer
- NOTE: I often see this in practices where I try to stick a tin somewhere and it doesn't attach, so I place it elsewhere. Still even though the odor/oil is safely contained in the tin, the dogs ALWAYS pay extra attention to those spots.
- odor may be intensified when placed in a patch of sunlight
- odor pools in cool spots
Distractions in Training - always know the answers to the following:
- What are you trying to accomplish?
- Are you trying to fool the dog?
- Are you setting up challenge proofing?
- Are you conducting a test?
- Are you teaching the dog to work unfamiliar smells?
- ESSENTIAL - Are you training or are you testing?
Change of Behavior - Your job is to be able to tell when the dog is IN or OUT of odor. You must learn to identify what your dog's "tells" are for when he is in odor. There will be some change of behavior (COB). The COB occurs when the dog first gets in the area of odor, but is distinctly different from his detailing behavior to get to source. Some are readily observable, such as snap backs (don't we all love those easy ones). Some body language indications include: tail flag, tail wagging faster, tail stiffening, body stiffening, change in body carriage/posture, change in mouth (closed vs open). Know your own dog.
Handler Error - is defined as "verbal or physical communication by the handler which when interpreted by the canine will lead it to manipulate or not detect the odors for which it was trained". He gave numerous examples, including but not limited to:
- over detailing - guiding the dog too much so it learns to become handler dependent and only sniffs where the handler indicates
- handler belief creates subtle handler behavior that "sells" the dog
- insistence on working to a pattern and ignoring the dog's vote
- failure to work the pattern
- cuing the dog
- poor detailing/guiding skills
- unable to read the dog properly
- little to no search pattern
- belief that the dog should do all the work
- poor leash handling skills
- lack of knowledge of odor movement
- handler doesn't hold dog accountable
- preconceived idea that odor is or is not present
- preconceived idea that odor is or is not in a specific place in search area
REMEMBER ALWAYS - the dog is the EXPERT.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Helfers NW Seminar, part 2
Our dogs have a wonderful ability to identify and discriminate different odors. While humans smell in fruit salad style (all smells lumped together), dogs smell and recognize each smell individually even though they are presented together.
The other analogy he shared was that of entering a flower shop. Humans walk in and are overwhelmed by sweetness, a combination of all the flowers there. As we decide to buy one kind, such as roses, we hold it up to our nose to focus on that one flower. A dog would smell each of the flowers individually, as well as leaves, plastic basins, wood of the door, linoleum, the shop owner's clothes... and everything else that is present. If searching for one particular odor, dogs can focus and separate that one out of the potpourri.
This reminded me of something I had learned about watching/listening to an orchestra or band with singers. As humans, we mostly listen to the music and voices as a whole. What some people don't realize, is that if you focus your visual attention on one singer or one instrument, you will hear that singer or instrument over the rest of the performers. Likewise most people can pick one voice out of a melange of voices and background noise to listen to that person (this ability is lost with hearing aids).
Everything gives off molecules and in order for that thing to be smelled, the molecules must make it to the nose. Molecules come in three types:
As I mentioned yesterday, dogs process air in two ways, directly through the olfactory structures for scenting or in a curved path for simple breathing. Dogs actually have the ability to re-process air through the olfactory structures! Dogs often sniff more forcefully when they are focusing to find an odor and you can sometimes hear the difference. There are times that I can really hear Gimme make a huffing noise as she is searching, which sounds like a tiny cough to me.
Fred told us that scent memory is the strongest memory of all for dogs. This likely explains why imprinting a scent associated with feelings of calm and safety is so powerful. Gimme and I both sleep on large flat sachets of lavender, so I'll have that available as a scent cue for her to feel calm and safe in challenging environments. I asked about the practice of some handlers to re-scent a dog while tracking and he believes its completely unnecessary.
He also cautioned against the practice of some trainers to whack their dogs across the nose with the leash or cuff them on the side of the head by hand. The olfactory structures are located in the top part of the nose and any blows can damage those structures.
We watched a LOT of videos of dogs doing scent work (mostly from his time as a police canine trainer). Fred told us to watch the dogs' mouth and note when it is open and when it is closed. A dog with an open mouth is still taking in some scent information through the vomeronasal organ, but when they sense a smell that interests them, they will close the mouth (or partially close it) and start using the nose. Some of the videos were shown at regular speed and again at half speed. Once I understood about the importance of whether the mouth was open or closed, It was fascinating to see it in action.
In tracking and nosework, we are mostly behind our dogs and not able to really see this. One advantage to nosework is that we can move alongside or around the dog to take advantage of seeing the working end more clearly. This is an obvious clue as to when a dog is scanning versus when they've started detailing.
Our dogs are looking for a scent picture... that is "the combination of odors which are present that a detector dog identifies as a trained odor." He touched on the importance of making sure that we use many different types of odor containers in training, so we don't unintentionally teach our dogs that they are searching for birch+plastic or anise+tin. We need to vary the container so the dog understands its birch, anise or clove that is the odor picture they are looking for.
More to come...
The other analogy he shared was that of entering a flower shop. Humans walk in and are overwhelmed by sweetness, a combination of all the flowers there. As we decide to buy one kind, such as roses, we hold it up to our nose to focus on that one flower. A dog would smell each of the flowers individually, as well as leaves, plastic basins, wood of the door, linoleum, the shop owner's clothes... and everything else that is present. If searching for one particular odor, dogs can focus and separate that one out of the potpourri.
This reminded me of something I had learned about watching/listening to an orchestra or band with singers. As humans, we mostly listen to the music and voices as a whole. What some people don't realize, is that if you focus your visual attention on one singer or one instrument, you will hear that singer or instrument over the rest of the performers. Likewise most people can pick one voice out of a melange of voices and background noise to listen to that person (this ability is lost with hearing aids).
Everything gives off molecules and in order for that thing to be smelled, the molecules must make it to the nose. Molecules come in three types:
- lightweight - move in the air
- volatile - evaporate easily
- soluble - broken down by moisture
As I mentioned yesterday, dogs process air in two ways, directly through the olfactory structures for scenting or in a curved path for simple breathing. Dogs actually have the ability to re-process air through the olfactory structures! Dogs often sniff more forcefully when they are focusing to find an odor and you can sometimes hear the difference. There are times that I can really hear Gimme make a huffing noise as she is searching, which sounds like a tiny cough to me.
Fred told us that scent memory is the strongest memory of all for dogs. This likely explains why imprinting a scent associated with feelings of calm and safety is so powerful. Gimme and I both sleep on large flat sachets of lavender, so I'll have that available as a scent cue for her to feel calm and safe in challenging environments. I asked about the practice of some handlers to re-scent a dog while tracking and he believes its completely unnecessary.
He also cautioned against the practice of some trainers to whack their dogs across the nose with the leash or cuff them on the side of the head by hand. The olfactory structures are located in the top part of the nose and any blows can damage those structures.
We watched a LOT of videos of dogs doing scent work (mostly from his time as a police canine trainer). Fred told us to watch the dogs' mouth and note when it is open and when it is closed. A dog with an open mouth is still taking in some scent information through the vomeronasal organ, but when they sense a smell that interests them, they will close the mouth (or partially close it) and start using the nose. Some of the videos were shown at regular speed and again at half speed. Once I understood about the importance of whether the mouth was open or closed, It was fascinating to see it in action.
In tracking and nosework, we are mostly behind our dogs and not able to really see this. One advantage to nosework is that we can move alongside or around the dog to take advantage of seeing the working end more clearly. This is an obvious clue as to when a dog is scanning versus when they've started detailing.
Our dogs are looking for a scent picture... that is "the combination of odors which are present that a detector dog identifies as a trained odor." He touched on the importance of making sure that we use many different types of odor containers in training, so we don't unintentionally teach our dogs that they are searching for birch+plastic or anise+tin. We need to vary the container so the dog understands its birch, anise or clove that is the odor picture they are looking for.
More to come...
Sunday, June 23, 2013
The Weekend
We've been getting a little more exercise, though not as much as I'd hoped. Even though Friday was officially the first day of Summer, it started raining late yesterday and still hasn't stopped. Mary and I had big plans to take the kids, Gimme and Grafton, for a big walk tomorrow - since Mary has the day off. Unfortunately the forecast is for rain and lots of it, so that may not happen.
On the phantom pregnancy front - things are going well. I discovered the effect of Ignatia wasn't the same the second time around, which is when I realized that without intending to, I'd stopped giving her the Pulsatilla. That is the homeopathic I started with, because I had it on hand, so she'd been getting it for five days when I first tried the Ignatia. Now that I'm back to giving both of them, she is doing great.
Honestly she's being a big puppy girl, wanting to play all the time. She is constantly bringing me toys and trying to engage me in play. I've even put away the two babies and after a short while she stopped looking for them and transferred her attentions to her other toys. There have been no more emotional outbursts or unusual sensitivity episodes. Yesterday I took her to the park where the skateboarders are and she did much better with them. She did show concern about one guy on roller-blades, but both times he seemed to appear out of nowhere. I'll have to make sure to set that up properly.
We've also had two training sessions in the last 36 hours and she was completely focused and eager. I'm also seeing that her impulse control is returning. Of course, tomorrow's Public Dog class will be the big litmus test. I hope she does well; if so, we'll get back to walking around the lake. I'll also be eager to find where our loose leash walking has been hiding.
Yesterday we met Mary and Susan for a nosework practice; with containers, exterior and vehicle hides. Gimme was enthusiastic and 100% focused throughout. We have learned some very interesting things about these three dogs. Gimme will basically do the same kind of element over and over and over again. She doesn't get bored, though she may start showing some "creativity" as things go along - especially if she thinks she has been finding the hides too quickly. Both Tucker and Grafton are lower drive than Gimme. Tucker does best if we only do the same kind of hide a few times, then he wants to do another element. Grafton will do one or two searches and then loses interest - even if Mary has really good rewards. However, if we pair the hides, then he gets back into it -- so we'll be doing a lot more paired hides with him in the future.
I love nosework. It is so natural to the dogs and its one time when they get to do what comes naturally to them. It builds confidence in the dogs and teaches us humans to really carefully watch our dogs and go with what they are telling us.
On the phantom pregnancy front - things are going well. I discovered the effect of Ignatia wasn't the same the second time around, which is when I realized that without intending to, I'd stopped giving her the Pulsatilla. That is the homeopathic I started with, because I had it on hand, so she'd been getting it for five days when I first tried the Ignatia. Now that I'm back to giving both of them, she is doing great.
Honestly she's being a big puppy girl, wanting to play all the time. She is constantly bringing me toys and trying to engage me in play. I've even put away the two babies and after a short while she stopped looking for them and transferred her attentions to her other toys. There have been no more emotional outbursts or unusual sensitivity episodes. Yesterday I took her to the park where the skateboarders are and she did much better with them. She did show concern about one guy on roller-blades, but both times he seemed to appear out of nowhere. I'll have to make sure to set that up properly.
We've also had two training sessions in the last 36 hours and she was completely focused and eager. I'm also seeing that her impulse control is returning. Of course, tomorrow's Public Dog class will be the big litmus test. I hope she does well; if so, we'll get back to walking around the lake. I'll also be eager to find where our loose leash walking has been hiding.
Yesterday we met Mary and Susan for a nosework practice; with containers, exterior and vehicle hides. Gimme was enthusiastic and 100% focused throughout. We have learned some very interesting things about these three dogs. Gimme will basically do the same kind of element over and over and over again. She doesn't get bored, though she may start showing some "creativity" as things go along - especially if she thinks she has been finding the hides too quickly. Both Tucker and Grafton are lower drive than Gimme. Tucker does best if we only do the same kind of hide a few times, then he wants to do another element. Grafton will do one or two searches and then loses interest - even if Mary has really good rewards. However, if we pair the hides, then he gets back into it -- so we'll be doing a lot more paired hides with him in the future.
I love nosework. It is so natural to the dogs and its one time when they get to do what comes naturally to them. It builds confidence in the dogs and teaches us humans to really carefully watch our dogs and go with what they are telling us.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Public Dog (9)
Today we met at the park for class. I mistakenly thought Gimme would be completely okay with the skateboarders, since she'd seen so many when we were out walking without any sign of concern. What I didn't account for was how many different and unusual sounds they make on the ramps and the different way people move. Gimme did not think that was proper at all. It probably didn't help that the sidewalk we used to get to where class was being held was between the skateboard ramp area and the open basketball court where a game was in progress.
We worked on lots of "whazzat" with the skateboarders as we moved through. Later we worked on it some more during class from the other side where I could play with the distance more. Ursula coached me on some things I could do better in that respect. After class we took the long way around so she wouldn't be sandwiched between the skateboarders and the basketball players.
Interestingly I've found she is doing much better right now with simple impulse control games than she is with moving things (like LLW). And her stay test in class today was absolutely flawless.
Ursula is concerned about how much worse Gimme "seems" during this false pregnancy than before. I put that in quotes because after thinking about it, I believe it may not be an accurate assessment.
Throughout this time, Gimme
continues to do very well in nosework. Admittedly she is not quite as focused
as normal, but she's probably at 90-95% of normal. Nosework takes intense
concentration and can be hard work, but it doesn't challenge her on emotional
issues...
Also she is continuing to train well at home. Again with a little less focus and intensity than usual, but for the most part she is eager and enthusiastic. Tonight we worked on the perch trick again (getting on a little stool and turning around). She wasn't doing that well, so I put it aside, brought in and washed a milk crate that was outside. I'll probably cut a piece of carpet for it and zip-tie it on, but for tonight I used a folded towel. With that increase in size, Gimme was working nicely. I still wasn't getting the turn, so used a target stick to help her get the behavior and ten clicks later she was offering it. During this effort, she managed to kick the milk crate over a couple times getting on and off, but she was basically unconcerned and impatient to get back on (not always waiting for me to get the towel in place).
I would think that if she was really in that fragile of an emotional state, that kicking over the milk crate as she was dismounting would be upsetting. And this is all while having just whelped two "babies". Both are Dalmatians and neither will ever be show quality, but we love them both (though she does have a favorite).
Anyway, I've changed her to the another class on Thursday, since it'll be less chaotic. We'll continue to go to Public Dog on Mondays and will just plan to stay further away from the crowd until she is back to normal.
We worked on lots of "whazzat" with the skateboarders as we moved through. Later we worked on it some more during class from the other side where I could play with the distance more. Ursula coached me on some things I could do better in that respect. After class we took the long way around so she wouldn't be sandwiched between the skateboarders and the basketball players.
Interestingly I've found she is doing much better right now with simple impulse control games than she is with moving things (like LLW). And her stay test in class today was absolutely flawless.
Ursula is concerned about how much worse Gimme "seems" during this false pregnancy than before. I put that in quotes because after thinking about it, I believe it may not be an accurate assessment.
I'm wondering if her false pregnancy is really that
much worse this time around - or if its the nature of the Public Dog class and how much
more it "pushes" her. Before whenever she was in classes when her false
pregnancy came around - we were working on behaviors that might be a challenge
for her, but nothing that challenged the emotional side of things for her. In
fact the only notes I have in my blog related to her false pregnancy and
class was when we were working on the distraction of doing a stand for exam, even though we've been in class during her summer f.p. a couple times before. It
occurs to me that she probably also has a false pregnancy following winter
seasons (mid October), but I don't even notice them (which would be about mid
December) - probably because we aren't in any class other than maybe one agility class that month and nosework.
It also occurs to me that she isn't getting the amount of off leash recreation that she has in years past. I have plantar fasciitis and I have been trying to get some rest of my foot. And since she was acting more emotional, I thought it might be a good time to get that rest. Perhaps that is exactly the wrong approach for her - maybe she needs more opportunities to relax and be a dog, not less.
Also she is continuing to train well at home. Again with a little less focus and intensity than usual, but for the most part she is eager and enthusiastic. Tonight we worked on the perch trick again (getting on a little stool and turning around). She wasn't doing that well, so I put it aside, brought in and washed a milk crate that was outside. I'll probably cut a piece of carpet for it and zip-tie it on, but for tonight I used a folded towel. With that increase in size, Gimme was working nicely. I still wasn't getting the turn, so used a target stick to help her get the behavior and ten clicks later she was offering it. During this effort, she managed to kick the milk crate over a couple times getting on and off, but she was basically unconcerned and impatient to get back on (not always waiting for me to get the towel in place).
I would think that if she was really in that fragile of an emotional state, that kicking over the milk crate as she was dismounting would be upsetting. And this is all while having just whelped two "babies". Both are Dalmatians and neither will ever be show quality, but we love them both (though she does have a favorite).
Anyway, I've changed her to the another class on Thursday, since it'll be less chaotic. We'll continue to go to Public Dog on Mondays and will just plan to stay further away from the crowd until she is back to normal.
Friday, June 7, 2013
Public Dog (6) & NW Practice
I did get Gimme a bodywork treatment session yesterday and Tonya said she was better than before. She thinks the energy work I've been doing is helping. I was talking to my friend and she said they can start a false pregnancy well before the due date. So, since I've confirmed Gimme has "fluffy boobies" - I'm chalking her weirdness up to her delicate condition. I'm searching high and low for her baby lamb.
Yesterday in Public Dog class, she did not do well with the chaos of having 6 teams in that small space. We played Doggie Tic Tac Toe again. Gimme was mostly able to do her part - 5 out of 6 tries, but not to the standard we normally would do. There was a practice round that ended up a draw, then four rounds. They kept switching the teams around and even so, the team we were on won all four times. So between Monday and yesterday, Gimme and I were victors each time - Doggie Tic Tac Toe CHAMPIONS...
The rounds were: LLW into a square and sit in the square with luring; butler style LLW into a square and sit in the square with luring; LLW into a square and sit in the square with food on us but no luring; and butler style LLW into a square and sit in the square with food on us but no luring. The leash had to remain in a J shape the whole time and we did it 4 out of 5 times, but it required a lot of me talking and helping her hold her position. Once we were done and she got her treat, the moment I took one step toward our area - she was dragging me to get back to her sanctuary.
Tonight Susan and I met for a nosework practice on containers again. We did eight rounds of searches with gradually increasing difficulty. Gimme thoroughly enjoyed it - along with her marshmallow rewards. Being false preggers does not affect her nosework ability. She is contentedly snoozing as we speak.
Tucker did very nicely and I'll be eager to hear how he does this weekend - they are going to a match. I did talk to Susan about possibly not coming to any container class with Joyce between now and her trial. She didn't say whether she would or not. I explained to her my reasoning and now its up to her to make a decision.
Yesterday in Public Dog class, she did not do well with the chaos of having 6 teams in that small space. We played Doggie Tic Tac Toe again. Gimme was mostly able to do her part - 5 out of 6 tries, but not to the standard we normally would do. There was a practice round that ended up a draw, then four rounds. They kept switching the teams around and even so, the team we were on won all four times. So between Monday and yesterday, Gimme and I were victors each time - Doggie Tic Tac Toe CHAMPIONS...
The rounds were: LLW into a square and sit in the square with luring; butler style LLW into a square and sit in the square with luring; LLW into a square and sit in the square with food on us but no luring; and butler style LLW into a square and sit in the square with food on us but no luring. The leash had to remain in a J shape the whole time and we did it 4 out of 5 times, but it required a lot of me talking and helping her hold her position. Once we were done and she got her treat, the moment I took one step toward our area - she was dragging me to get back to her sanctuary.
Tonight Susan and I met for a nosework practice on containers again. We did eight rounds of searches with gradually increasing difficulty. Gimme thoroughly enjoyed it - along with her marshmallow rewards. Being false preggers does not affect her nosework ability. She is contentedly snoozing as we speak.
Tucker did very nicely and I'll be eager to hear how he does this weekend - they are going to a match. I did talk to Susan about possibly not coming to any container class with Joyce between now and her trial. She didn't say whether she would or not. I explained to her my reasoning and now its up to her to make a decision.
Friday, May 17, 2013
NW & LLW
Last night Mary and I met at a Home Depot to do a nosework practice. She and Susan couldn't meet on the same day this week, so Susan and I will get together Sunday afternoon.
Grafton did well, but he's so soft and needs more confidence. Mary and I have talked a lot about ways to boost his confidence and make rewards more meaningful. He likes food, but it doesn't completely excite him. He likes touch and "good boy" and playing, but won't tug much. We discovered he really likes the paper bag treat delivery method... and that really got his tail wagging. I've downloaded his video's to a different blog, so if you have a burning desire to see them, the link is: Grafton 051613 There's also other entries there for Grafton and Tucker at our last practice.
These are Gimme's videos:
Exterior 2: The breeze was coming from our left, blowing odor toward us. Yes, that blur was Gimme blasting by - there's a reason I don't want too short of a line. This bright green line is 12 foot and she almost ripped it out of my hand. There was a gust just as I told her "wherezit" and she just took off for the furthest hide and nailed it in eleven seconds. She had all three hides in 47 seconds, including the time it took to reward the first two. Personally, I think she's pretty darn efficient.
Exterior 3: This was a series of open sheds, only three of which had odor in them. The thing I was looking for was how Gimme would react to the sheds that were blanks. As we get to NW3, for interiors we could have a blank room and I need to know what she does. I have to admit, even though I set those hides and the sheds are all different colors, at the time I couldn't remember which had odor and which didn't. (Dark Tan, Lt Tan, and Green had odor) You'll note she totally ignored the red and light grey blank sheds. The tan shed she went by twice - the odor was waaaay at the back of the shed and had only had a few minutes to "cook" - whereas at a trial it would have an hour minimum and the first time she was moving pretty fast. I thought it was interesting that the second time she passed it, she went into the shed next to it and then came out and turned right to it. Who knows what they smell. I did note that after she's found a couple hides, if the search continues, she is more inclined to check out blank sheds...
Exterior 4: This starts with Gimme going to the grass intending to pee, but I saw it in time to interrupt her. Our routine is a pee-break before each search and we came from the sheds right to this one - so it was my bad. I was pleased that she was ready and able to get back to work The hide is tucked in the sod and Mary set it, so I didn't know exactly where it was. At 1:46 she paws right where the hide is, but in the course of moving in, I edged her out of the way and she ends up pawing on the next one over. When I asked her to "show me" at 2:04 she put her nose right on it. She's that good...
BTW that sound when I bumped into the shed was me catching my face on the edge of the corrugated roof - to which I have a shallow 1" cut right in front of my ear. Its the price I pay for keeping my eyes on my dog, eh.
Today we went to the lake and practiced loose leash walking again. I'm working on duration using a modified version of the 300 Peck method. The method is: take one step and click/stop/treat if she's in LLW position. Each trial you add one step (or one second if you are working on a timed behavior). Any time the dog fails, you stop and then start over back at one.
What I found is that Gimme found 1 thru 5 the hardest. I think it takes her that long to figure out what my pace is going to be and I'm just notoriously inconsistent in my walking speed. Once we got past that, she progressed to 10 steps very quickly and from there fairly quickly to 15 steps. However, any time we had to go back to 1, it was just so frustrating for us both. So once I saw the pattern, I only went back to 5 and worked forward from there. About halfway through the walk I moved the restart point up to 10. She stayed between 10 and 15 for a long time.
At one point we stopped and talked to a lady for awhile and Gimme got to veg out. After that she progressed again and by the end of the walk we were consistently up at 20, so clearly she had needed a break. The other modification I made to the 300 Peck method was to repeat certain iterations as much as I felt she needed to get solid on them. So we did a lot of repeats at 8, 10, 12, 15, 18, and 20. We ended with eleven 20's in a row, which I was happy with.
This is a substantial improvement in LLW duration from what we had been doing.
Grafton did well, but he's so soft and needs more confidence. Mary and I have talked a lot about ways to boost his confidence and make rewards more meaningful. He likes food, but it doesn't completely excite him. He likes touch and "good boy" and playing, but won't tug much. We discovered he really likes the paper bag treat delivery method... and that really got his tail wagging. I've downloaded his video's to a different blog, so if you have a burning desire to see them, the link is: Grafton 051613 There's also other entries there for Grafton and Tucker at our last practice.
These are Gimme's videos:
Exterior 1: The breeze was coming from our right as we entered the search area. Gimme did a great job finding the first hide in 30 seconds. (ignor the blips - camera person Mary is "trigger happy") The second hide she found was very hard. The dogs could only smell it low to the ground unless they were right on top of it and it was hard to source. Gimme did a nice job there. There was a nice change of behavior at 2:40 for the third hide and she sourced it in five seconds.
Exterior 3: This was a series of open sheds, only three of which had odor in them. The thing I was looking for was how Gimme would react to the sheds that were blanks. As we get to NW3, for interiors we could have a blank room and I need to know what she does. I have to admit, even though I set those hides and the sheds are all different colors, at the time I couldn't remember which had odor and which didn't. (Dark Tan, Lt Tan, and Green had odor) You'll note she totally ignored the red and light grey blank sheds. The tan shed she went by twice - the odor was waaaay at the back of the shed and had only had a few minutes to "cook" - whereas at a trial it would have an hour minimum and the first time she was moving pretty fast. I thought it was interesting that the second time she passed it, she went into the shed next to it and then came out and turned right to it. Who knows what they smell. I did note that after she's found a couple hides, if the search continues, she is more inclined to check out blank sheds...
Exterior 4: This starts with Gimme going to the grass intending to pee, but I saw it in time to interrupt her. Our routine is a pee-break before each search and we came from the sheds right to this one - so it was my bad. I was pleased that she was ready and able to get back to work The hide is tucked in the sod and Mary set it, so I didn't know exactly where it was. At 1:46 she paws right where the hide is, but in the course of moving in, I edged her out of the way and she ends up pawing on the next one over. When I asked her to "show me" at 2:04 she put her nose right on it. She's that good...
BTW that sound when I bumped into the shed was me catching my face on the edge of the corrugated roof - to which I have a shallow 1" cut right in front of my ear. Its the price I pay for keeping my eyes on my dog, eh.
Today we went to the lake and practiced loose leash walking again. I'm working on duration using a modified version of the 300 Peck method. The method is: take one step and click/stop/treat if she's in LLW position. Each trial you add one step (or one second if you are working on a timed behavior). Any time the dog fails, you stop and then start over back at one.
What I found is that Gimme found 1 thru 5 the hardest. I think it takes her that long to figure out what my pace is going to be and I'm just notoriously inconsistent in my walking speed. Once we got past that, she progressed to 10 steps very quickly and from there fairly quickly to 15 steps. However, any time we had to go back to 1, it was just so frustrating for us both. So once I saw the pattern, I only went back to 5 and worked forward from there. About halfway through the walk I moved the restart point up to 10. She stayed between 10 and 15 for a long time.
At one point we stopped and talked to a lady for awhile and Gimme got to veg out. After that she progressed again and by the end of the walk we were consistently up at 20, so clearly she had needed a break. The other modification I made to the 300 Peck method was to repeat certain iterations as much as I felt she needed to get solid on them. So we did a lot of repeats at 8, 10, 12, 15, 18, and 20. We ended with eleven 20's in a row, which I was happy with.
This is a substantial improvement in LLW duration from what we had been doing.
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Never Enuff NW
I meant to tell you, but figured yesterday's entry was long enough...
I have figured out how to read Gimme in containers when she is faced with food distractions. I know I said before that the big difference was with odor she sticks the container and with food distractions she doesn't stick. I also had noted that she was more nosey with food distraction and more pawing with odor.
Since then I have seen an evolution. She is sticking to food distractions and sometimes leaving odor. There are three things that she does when she has odor...
sniff intently
paw at source
look at me
With a food distraction, she certainly sniffs intently and sometimes paws, but doesn't look at me. The look is her "hey, pay up Mom" expression. When its distraction, she's just busy trying to get to it. I've been rewarding the look a bit more in containers and she's starting to do it before pawing part of the time.
I also discovered that her reaction to Anise is weaker than her reaction to Birch and that she doesn't stick Anise as well. If there is one of each, she almost always indicates the Birch first and then Anise. A recent exception would be the search I set up at Home Depot (see entry Damned Hard Hide). In that case, the Anise hide was the easiest of the three - so it makes sense that she would find/indicate it first.
I mentioned this preference for Birch to Joyce and she said that she'd been hearing that at instructor trainings over the last year and they think its because the dogs have a much longer reward history with Birch than with Anise. I can't believe she's been hearing this in instructor trainings for a year, but hasn't been watching for it in class, designing exercises to address it and hasn't even considered it important enough to cover for the two of us who are trialing. <sigh>
In any case, this becomes another thing I have to work on. My plan is during practices to set up mostly Anise hides and reward them heavily. At least for awhile, until we build up a good reward history. She'll get enough Birch in class. Later when we add Clove, I guess we'll have to do the same thing there.
Tonight I had to run to Target to get a battery for my new Jumbo Sport Watch, which had already died - fortunately the battery was indeed the issue (I'm writing to the sellers, since it certainly ought to last more than 2 weeks). I also bought a nice "cube" cooler, with a really tight fitting lid to keep my odor things in. I notice that when I pick up the box I've been keeping them in, that I can smell it. So I'm sure Gimme smells it too and pretty much all the time she is in the car - which can't be a good thing.
When I got home I set up two simple searches, with two sources and both Anise. Gimme found them very quickly and thoroughly enjoyed all the cheese and celebrating for her efforts. So much so that when I put it all away, she took to whining and fussing because the fun was over so quickly.
A funny thing happened - for the second search I put one of the hides in the bathroom trash, in a shotgun shell wad holder. Gimme went in and stuck her head in the trash but didn't indicate or stick to it. Then she kept going in and out of the bathroom, without paying attention to the trash again. She kept turning and looking at me like I was more-than-slightly-stupid. I cued her "show me" and she finally went over and paid some attention to the trash basket, so I rewarded her for that. Then I got the trash and started fishing around looking for the odor source to put it away. For the life of me I couldn't find it... until I turned around and saw it on the floor right where I'd been standing!!!
It seems she'd retrieved it for me and I had failed to notice. Poor Gimme, saddled with a person who is clearly more-than-slightly-stupid. I hope she knows how much I love her and sees that as a redeeming quality...
Cross your fingers for us...
I have figured out how to read Gimme in containers when she is faced with food distractions. I know I said before that the big difference was with odor she sticks the container and with food distractions she doesn't stick. I also had noted that she was more nosey with food distraction and more pawing with odor.
Since then I have seen an evolution. She is sticking to food distractions and sometimes leaving odor. There are three things that she does when she has odor...
sniff intently
paw at source
look at me
With a food distraction, she certainly sniffs intently and sometimes paws, but doesn't look at me. The look is her "hey, pay up Mom" expression. When its distraction, she's just busy trying to get to it. I've been rewarding the look a bit more in containers and she's starting to do it before pawing part of the time.
I also discovered that her reaction to Anise is weaker than her reaction to Birch and that she doesn't stick Anise as well. If there is one of each, she almost always indicates the Birch first and then Anise. A recent exception would be the search I set up at Home Depot (see entry Damned Hard Hide). In that case, the Anise hide was the easiest of the three - so it makes sense that she would find/indicate it first.
I mentioned this preference for Birch to Joyce and she said that she'd been hearing that at instructor trainings over the last year and they think its because the dogs have a much longer reward history with Birch than with Anise. I can't believe she's been hearing this in instructor trainings for a year, but hasn't been watching for it in class, designing exercises to address it and hasn't even considered it important enough to cover for the two of us who are trialing. <sigh>
In any case, this becomes another thing I have to work on. My plan is during practices to set up mostly Anise hides and reward them heavily. At least for awhile, until we build up a good reward history. She'll get enough Birch in class. Later when we add Clove, I guess we'll have to do the same thing there.
Tonight I had to run to Target to get a battery for my new Jumbo Sport Watch, which had already died - fortunately the battery was indeed the issue (I'm writing to the sellers, since it certainly ought to last more than 2 weeks). I also bought a nice "cube" cooler, with a really tight fitting lid to keep my odor things in. I notice that when I pick up the box I've been keeping them in, that I can smell it. So I'm sure Gimme smells it too and pretty much all the time she is in the car - which can't be a good thing.
When I got home I set up two simple searches, with two sources and both Anise. Gimme found them very quickly and thoroughly enjoyed all the cheese and celebrating for her efforts. So much so that when I put it all away, she took to whining and fussing because the fun was over so quickly.
A funny thing happened - for the second search I put one of the hides in the bathroom trash, in a shotgun shell wad holder. Gimme went in and stuck her head in the trash but didn't indicate or stick to it. Then she kept going in and out of the bathroom, without paying attention to the trash again. She kept turning and looking at me like I was more-than-slightly-stupid. I cued her "show me" and she finally went over and paid some attention to the trash basket, so I rewarded her for that. Then I got the trash and started fishing around looking for the odor source to put it away. For the life of me I couldn't find it... until I turned around and saw it on the floor right where I'd been standing!!!
It seems she'd retrieved it for me and I had failed to notice. Poor Gimme, saddled with a person who is clearly more-than-slightly-stupid. I hope she knows how much I love her and sees that as a redeeming quality...
Cross your fingers for us...
Monday, March 4, 2013
NW Comment
I have decided to answer Chris' comment in a separate blog entry, because I think there is a lot of information about the nature of the nosework sport that I can share in this discussion.
This 18 inch thing is just the latest thing Joyce heard about at an instructor's seminar. Every time she comes back she wants to make all these changes and try everything out on her students. I went through that with agility instructors who had to try out everything on every student every time they came home from a seminar -- all it ever did was mess up what my dog already knew. I'm not inclined to let her experiment on my dog. Besides she isn't even suggesting this to the other students in class, who run slower dogs where it would be more feasible, and most telling, doesn't do it with her own dog.
Working Gimme on an 18 inch leash would be too inhibiting for both of us. She'd have to drag me around to perform her search and I wouldn't be able to handle her in a way that keeps me from selling her on odor that isn't there. I'll have to get another video of Gimme working that gives you an idea of just how fast I'd have to move. Gimme changes direction a LOT and very fast as she is chasing odor to solve the puzzle. The mental picture of me chasing Gimme chasing odor - well its not pretty and its not something I could do effectively and not interfere with her searching.
I watched some handlers at the NW3 trial work fast dogs on a short line. It looked ridiculous as they were scurrying and scrambling around, trying to keep up and not give the dog a leash correction. Even more important than the looks though... is that as we handlers move through the area, we are disturbing and moving the odor around. At the converging odor seminar we saw video using a "dragon puffer" (a tiny smoke generator) that showed how a person moving past the source changes it in huge ways. Even dogs as they are searching and moving through the odor cone change the odor - they showed a Golden Retriever and its big plume of a tail scattered the odor every which way. The more odor is disturbed from its natural dispersal pattern, the harder the search puzzle is for the dog.
So as handlers, we don't want to be flailing around (moving erratically) in the search area, stirring up tiny breezes that scatter odor. Instead we want to move calmly and slowly to create as little disturbance as is possible. Always assuming that Gimme is working the odor and getting as close as she can, I want to be further away, never between her and odor, not moving in a way that disturbs odor or sells her on odor that isn't there.
I've practiced my line handling, so that I can gradually increase tension on the line as it slides through my guiding hand when she moves away and that way she can feel that more tension means she is getting toward the end. She doesn't hit the end any more; probably not in almost a year.
In any case, you just made my point... I can't give Gimme her "head" on a 6 foot lead, much less an 18 inch lead. With a 6 foot lead she would hit the end in one stride - certainly not much of a "head". An 18 inch lead she would always be at the end. At the start line, I hold the line at 12 inches from her harness. Sometimes I walk her on that 12 inches to the nearest vehicle or container if she's not already focused and straining toward it.
The dog is the one with the nose, so she is in charge. We are not supposed to be guiding them. So teaching her to "gently lead off" would be the opposite of that fundamental idea of the dog being in charge. Even for threshold hides, we don't restrain the dog near the threshold. Instead we do a lot of those hides, so the dog learns to check the threshold. That's also why we use the allowed 10 seconds behind the start line to let the dog get a scent inventory and potentially identify any odor near the threshold.
An 18 inch lead is so weird, my gut reaction is that we might as well just heel around the vehicles and give up the pretense that the dog is in charge.
Besides, having watched a lot of handlers in matches, trials, classes and seminars - handler interference is THE single most common error that causes a team to fail a search. With a dog as fast moving as Gimme, there is no way an ultra short lead would not cause interference.
- Try anything once twice if you like it. Nothing says that you need to stay with the short line.
This 18 inch thing is just the latest thing Joyce heard about at an instructor's seminar. Every time she comes back she wants to make all these changes and try everything out on her students. I went through that with agility instructors who had to try out everything on every student every time they came home from a seminar -- all it ever did was mess up what my dog already knew. I'm not inclined to let her experiment on my dog. Besides she isn't even suggesting this to the other students in class, who run slower dogs where it would be more feasible, and most telling, doesn't do it with her own dog.
Working Gimme on an 18 inch leash would be too inhibiting for both of us. She'd have to drag me around to perform her search and I wouldn't be able to handle her in a way that keeps me from selling her on odor that isn't there. I'll have to get another video of Gimme working that gives you an idea of just how fast I'd have to move. Gimme changes direction a LOT and very fast as she is chasing odor to solve the puzzle. The mental picture of me chasing Gimme chasing odor - well its not pretty and its not something I could do effectively and not interfere with her searching.
I watched some handlers at the NW3 trial work fast dogs on a short line. It looked ridiculous as they were scurrying and scrambling around, trying to keep up and not give the dog a leash correction. Even more important than the looks though... is that as we handlers move through the area, we are disturbing and moving the odor around. At the converging odor seminar we saw video using a "dragon puffer" (a tiny smoke generator) that showed how a person moving past the source changes it in huge ways. Even dogs as they are searching and moving through the odor cone change the odor - they showed a Golden Retriever and its big plume of a tail scattered the odor every which way. The more odor is disturbed from its natural dispersal pattern, the harder the search puzzle is for the dog.
So as handlers, we don't want to be flailing around (moving erratically) in the search area, stirring up tiny breezes that scatter odor. Instead we want to move calmly and slowly to create as little disturbance as is possible. Always assuming that Gimme is working the odor and getting as close as she can, I want to be further away, never between her and odor, not moving in a way that disturbs odor or sells her on odor that isn't there.
- How about a bungee cord for a lead. You cam buy that by the foot until you decide to get one.
- The correction you keep talking about. What happens when she gets to the end of the twenty foot line?
I've practiced my line handling, so that I can gradually increase tension on the line as it slides through my guiding hand when she moves away and that way she can feel that more tension means she is getting toward the end. She doesn't hit the end any more; probably not in almost a year.
- There will be times that having the versatility to use any length of lead will be important. I am only basing that on what I have seen of videos on tracking dogs. Some time they give the dog its "head" by a long line and other times they keep it close.
In any case, you just made my point... I can't give Gimme her "head" on a 6 foot lead, much less an 18 inch lead. With a 6 foot lead she would hit the end in one stride - certainly not much of a "head". An 18 inch lead she would always be at the end. At the start line, I hold the line at 12 inches from her harness. Sometimes I walk her on that 12 inches to the nearest vehicle or container if she's not already focused and straining toward it.
- I know you can come up with an idea to get Gimme to gently lead off, but time is the issue. You are trying to beat the time. Joyce may only be focusing on completing the search.
The dog is the one with the nose, so she is in charge. We are not supposed to be guiding them. So teaching her to "gently lead off" would be the opposite of that fundamental idea of the dog being in charge. Even for threshold hides, we don't restrain the dog near the threshold. Instead we do a lot of those hides, so the dog learns to check the threshold. That's also why we use the allowed 10 seconds behind the start line to let the dog get a scent inventory and potentially identify any odor near the threshold.
An 18 inch lead is so weird, my gut reaction is that we might as well just heel around the vehicles and give up the pretense that the dog is in charge.
Besides, having watched a lot of handlers in matches, trials, classes and seminars - handler interference is THE single most common error that causes a team to fail a search. With a dog as fast moving as Gimme, there is no way an ultra short lead would not cause interference.
- Glad to see you and Gimme are having fun.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Doing Nails II
I made this quick video of Gimme doing her nails. Early in the video, the board developed a split down its length. I'll have to screw a couple 1x2 across the back to fix that. In the meantime, used one of our platforms to support it.
I think I edited it out, but there was a spot where she was catching the top edge of the sticky back tread texture stuff and peeling it up. If/when I make another, I would wrap the stuff over the ends to the back and tack it down. In any case, you can see Gimme likes doing her own nails - since her tail just never stops wagging.
BTW I forgot to mention yesterday that our little game during the walk where Gimme was learning to sniff out bread I dropped during our walk... it seemed to pay off during nosework class. She did indeed bring her head down during her searches.
I'm sure it helped that Joyce kept all the hides at or below her usual nose level. I'll have to watch in the future and make sure to do a session of low hides any time Joyce does a bunch of high ones during class...
I think I edited it out, but there was a spot where she was catching the top edge of the sticky back tread texture stuff and peeling it up. If/when I make another, I would wrap the stuff over the ends to the back and tack it down. In any case, you can see Gimme likes doing her own nails - since her tail just never stops wagging.
BTW I forgot to mention yesterday that our little game during the walk where Gimme was learning to sniff out bread I dropped during our walk... it seemed to pay off during nosework class. She did indeed bring her head down during her searches.
I'm sure it helped that Joyce kept all the hides at or below her usual nose level. I'll have to watch in the future and make sure to do a session of low hides any time Joyce does a bunch of high ones during class...
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Agility Evening
We started the day with a nice 4 mile walk. Both of us had a fun time. I dropped chunks of bread behind me on the walk out and Gimme had fun finding them on the way back. I did it just as a fun diversion for her, but it seemed to have the added advantage of getting her nose down. We'll see how/if that carries over for nosework class tomorrow.
My day was hectic and I was running late leaving for class - caused by the inventory folk. I was fretting and wondering if I'd make it anywhere near to time. There were also traffic snafu's and I was kinda agitated. I'm not sure if that affected Gimme; I'm sure it didn't help. As it turned out we were only 15 minutes late for a 90 minute class.
I'd brought an expen so we would have a nice safe space to do some work having Gimme watch the other dogs/teams and learn to stay in her right mind. I didn't have time to set them up before we needed to come in. Blynn has given me space to store it with the agility equipment, so it'll be there and available whenever I want to use it.
As we came in, I got her started settling down in the space where we usually do our mental connecting/focus work, but then the person before us went waaaaay over the top loudly celebrating with her dog and that really seemed to bug the heck out of Gimme. So we spent our first turn working being calm, controlled and connected. I was soooooo glad that I remembered what I'd learned from our last class about being clear on where Gimme is in her agility learning and keeping the training and challenges realistic for where she is, as well as very rewarding. So, we got to some real nice moments at the end of that turn.
Gimme was trying when we came in for our second turn, but she was still clearly very wired. I can only imagine what it would have been like if we hadn't gotten the walk earlier. Again we got to some really nice sequences, about mid way through that turn and through to the end.
Even as far off as we were from what I hoped to be working on tonight, its clear that Gimme is really learning to love this game, and man-oh-man, is she ever going to be fast. There was one straightaway sequence of three jumps coming out of a tunnel, which forced me to really race to be in position for the last jump. Even with the ability to get well ahead while she was in the tunnel, this kid had no problem catching and passing me. Running that fast felt so unnatural, it seemed like I should have body parts flinging off me.
My day was hectic and I was running late leaving for class - caused by the inventory folk. I was fretting and wondering if I'd make it anywhere near to time. There were also traffic snafu's and I was kinda agitated. I'm not sure if that affected Gimme; I'm sure it didn't help. As it turned out we were only 15 minutes late for a 90 minute class.
I'd brought an expen so we would have a nice safe space to do some work having Gimme watch the other dogs/teams and learn to stay in her right mind. I didn't have time to set them up before we needed to come in. Blynn has given me space to store it with the agility equipment, so it'll be there and available whenever I want to use it.
As we came in, I got her started settling down in the space where we usually do our mental connecting/focus work, but then the person before us went waaaaay over the top loudly celebrating with her dog and that really seemed to bug the heck out of Gimme. So we spent our first turn working being calm, controlled and connected. I was soooooo glad that I remembered what I'd learned from our last class about being clear on where Gimme is in her agility learning and keeping the training and challenges realistic for where she is, as well as very rewarding. So, we got to some real nice moments at the end of that turn.
Gimme was trying when we came in for our second turn, but she was still clearly very wired. I can only imagine what it would have been like if we hadn't gotten the walk earlier. Again we got to some really nice sequences, about mid way through that turn and through to the end.
Even as far off as we were from what I hoped to be working on tonight, its clear that Gimme is really learning to love this game, and man-oh-man, is she ever going to be fast. There was one straightaway sequence of three jumps coming out of a tunnel, which forced me to really race to be in position for the last jump. Even with the ability to get well ahead while she was in the tunnel, this kid had no problem catching and passing me. Running that fast felt so unnatural, it seemed like I should have body parts flinging off me.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Watching NW3
I got up before dawn cracked and drove to Enumclaw to watch a NW3 trial. I was hoping to bring luck to my friend Cindy and her Bulldog, Rigel and friend Paula and her GSD, Grace. Sadly neither team was successful... and I only know for sure of one team that was. Though there may have been another in the other group.
NW3 is much more complicated and while the dog's searches aren't really any more difficult than they are in NW2, the handler's job is significantly harder. There is a saying that, given good training and decent natural ability:
I love the camaraderie of nosework. The vast majority of people are very friendly. When I wasn't watching searches, I hung out with Cindy and friends, toasting marshmallows over a "campfire in a can", talking and absorbing info and just generally having a great time. I hope the nosework community always stays this way.
Gimme was cooped up in the car most of the day, so when I got home, I set up some hides in the house: two in the living room, and one each in the office, bedroom and bathroom. They were all set at ground/floor level to counteract a hole in her training that I discovered at last weekend's seminar. She found them all very quickly, except the one in the bathroom. In fact she left the bathroom a couple times to bang on the bedroom door, wanting to get in there for that one.
I think the one in the bathroom was challenging for a couple reasons. First, I put it under the corner of the bathmat, in an open ended odor holder - so the odor wasn't wafting out as strongly as the others. Second it was in a corner in that room, where there isn't much air current. Third it was in the space between the toilet and tub... so when she'd go into that space, every time by the time she got her head down, she'd already turned her back on it.
I tried shutting the door and letting it "cook" for thirty minutes, but that didn't help. She was more interested, but just couldn't get the job done. So I brought her out and paired that hide. Then she was able to find it.
So in addition to doing a lot more ground/floor level hides, I'm also going to do a lot more corners, the edge of a wall at floor level and some floor level threshold hides. She's contentedly snoozing now. For awhile anyway...
NW3 is much more complicated and while the dog's searches aren't really any more difficult than they are in NW2, the handler's job is significantly harder. There is a saying that, given good training and decent natural ability:
- In NW1, the dog is 95% responsible for success,
- In NW2, its 50/50, and
- In NW3, the handler bears 95% of the responsibility...
I love the camaraderie of nosework. The vast majority of people are very friendly. When I wasn't watching searches, I hung out with Cindy and friends, toasting marshmallows over a "campfire in a can", talking and absorbing info and just generally having a great time. I hope the nosework community always stays this way.
Gimme was cooped up in the car most of the day, so when I got home, I set up some hides in the house: two in the living room, and one each in the office, bedroom and bathroom. They were all set at ground/floor level to counteract a hole in her training that I discovered at last weekend's seminar. She found them all very quickly, except the one in the bathroom. In fact she left the bathroom a couple times to bang on the bedroom door, wanting to get in there for that one.
I think the one in the bathroom was challenging for a couple reasons. First, I put it under the corner of the bathmat, in an open ended odor holder - so the odor wasn't wafting out as strongly as the others. Second it was in a corner in that room, where there isn't much air current. Third it was in the space between the toilet and tub... so when she'd go into that space, every time by the time she got her head down, she'd already turned her back on it.
I tried shutting the door and letting it "cook" for thirty minutes, but that didn't help. She was more interested, but just couldn't get the job done. So I brought her out and paired that hide. Then she was able to find it.
So in addition to doing a lot more ground/floor level hides, I'm also going to do a lot more corners, the edge of a wall at floor level and some floor level threshold hides. She's contentedly snoozing now. For awhile anyway...
Monday, February 4, 2013
NW News
Meant to mention that Gimme and I are slated for a three day seminar on converging odor this weekend (Sat-Sun-Mon). The first day is all theory and lecture and we got working slots for two days. Now that I know how to manage her off duty time, I'm sure she'll do great for both days. The money I got from that part time job means Gimme and I can stay at a motel.
Also, just got word that we were the seventh team selected in the draw for the NW2 trial I entered. That is April 28th - feel free to start crossing body parts now. I guess its time for me to get back in the groove doing field trips.
As of yet, there are no Dalmatians with a Nosework 2 title... so we are still in the running. Not that I'm competitive or anything... Nooooooo, not meeeeeee...
Also, just got word that we were the seventh team selected in the draw for the NW2 trial I entered. That is April 28th - feel free to start crossing body parts now. I guess its time for me to get back in the groove doing field trips.
As of yet, there are no Dalmatians with a Nosework 2 title... so we are still in the running. Not that I'm competitive or anything... Nooooooo, not meeeeeee...
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