Ya Gotta Love It

I've been remiss about keeping notes since before letting Michael go and decided tonight to get a baseline on behaviors I'd been tracking in my journal.  There are other behaviors we've worked on, but this was enough for now.  So averaging 10 click/treats per behavior and 12 behaviors... that was an hour long session as it was.  I'm happy to report that even without focus on my part, the plinking around to keep Gimme from getting too bored has still produced credible progress.  Some of her behaviors are coming along very nicely.

Gimme clearly wanted more and so we did a quick shaping session of 25 click/treats to get a very nice bow (which we call "take-a", short for "take a bow - I don't use "bow" because it sounds too much like down).  I had to really fine tune my timing, because her start of the grape behavior is very much like a bow - she goes down in front and then rolls on one shoulder and its QUICK.  So I had to catch the very beginnings of the head and shoulder duck to isolate it and keep the grape from happening.  Once I got my timing right, she figured it out pretty quickly.

NOTE:  During the plinking, one day last week Gimme suddenly "got" the cue for Grape.  That has been one of the slowest cue attachments we have had.  There is something about that behavior that seemed to use all her focus.  I've tested it a couple times since then, outside training sessions, and while slow, she is doing the behavior.

So why do I say "Ya Gotta Love It".... because at the end of all that, while I was mentally wiped, Gimme didn't want to quit.  She again went into this whole glued to my side in heel, "you can't get rid of me" routine.  I had to lean down and encourage her to climb into my arms - that was the only way to get her out of heel position.  Then I carried her into the office and she knows we don't train in here, so now she is sound asleep.   I think the little booger was more tired than she realized - a bit like a kid that doesn't want to quit playing.  Granted I don't normally train that long, but its interesting that by going from one behavior to another to another, I can. 

The other reason to say "Ya Gotta Love It" is that I've somehow created a dog that simply loves to heel.  Given how little I know about formal obedience and not having a positive trainer in the area to rely on - I'm verrrrrry pleased with that outcome. 

Gimme is really quite happy to train a LOT and would train a lot more if I would.  By her way of thinking, its all play, she's got my undivided attention and I'm giving her treats for playing...  What better deal could a little spotted girl have?  I suspect, especially given her control issues, that she thinks she has trained me and is verrrrrry pleased with the results.

BTW Gimme is not convinced that the bathroom couldn't be a training space - especially once I'm a captive audience in the tub.  What a kid!!!

And just so you know... we are out and about now, even despite the snow.  Got out the first time on Saturday.  Between Saturday and Sunday I serviced all of my accounts.  Also did some shopping, so I never actually had to resort to drinking water.  Thank God. 

Sadly Snowy disappeared the very next day.  Gimme ran out first thing in the morning to check on her, sniffing all over where she had been.  She was disappointed to see that Snowy was gone, leaving only a snowball to remember her by.  Its probably just as well that she didn't have more time to get attached to her.  Most of my friends and family have their power, internet and TV back.  One friend and maybe my brother are still among those without power.  Hopefully they will rejoin us in the 21st century real soon.

Busy Girl

I've come to the realization that I'm just going to have to keep a separate calendar for Gimme's schedule.  I keep running into conflicts between what I have planned and what I want to do.  I feel like a soccer mom who is desperately trying to keep up.  All Gimme wants to know is whether her new purple leash is in the car and do I have enough cheese.

We've been keeping busy lately with a little bit of plinking here and there on different training things.  A lot of focus is going into nosework... which is how I discovered the calendar double booking.  The trial I planned to go to in April is on the same weekend as the Sdao/Pouliot seminar we are signed up for.  So now am looking at a couple others - March or June, both in Oregon.

We are playing with the Project behaviors again - which we haven't done since October.  I have been working off and on with the target stick "wait for the cue" and its coming along.   I still haven't fixed the "apple" box, so that will have to wait. 

Grape - dead bug (on back, feet in the air)

I wanted to do this since I now have interlocking floor matting to cushion Gimme from the hard floor (and provide better traction for other things). Since we haven’t trained this for three months and since it wasn’t on cue when we left off, it took awhile to get Gimme back to offering it. Even though she has been doing the Grape in my lap when she wants attention (which started 4 days after we let Michael go). She offered me a lot of "pretty" instead (we’ve been free shaping this), got frustrated and barked some. I kept clicking a "down" and when she was solid on that, I started clicking for movement while she was down. Finally in frustration she did a movement that was almost a grape and she got two treats. Next thing I knew she was throwing a LOT of  grape behaviors at me. I started putting it on cue and will continue in the next session. She sure is cute.

Melon - push cube with nose

Again a project behavior we haven’t done in three months. Gimme knew what to do the moment she saw her cube. There was a short bit of skiing on the cube and batting it, but she settled down to using her nose very quickly.  I started putting it on cue and following our earlier Grape session, she seemed to understand what I meant. She was even pushing it with her paw or using her mouth to get it out of corners and away from the walls so she could then push it with her nose AFTER I’d cued "melon". Smart cookie.

My friend loves to alter pictures and such and add sayings and stuff... so I usually get things from her that have pictures of Gimme that she's taken before.  Just got this one...

Private Lesson & Target Stick

I wanted to do one of the exercises we did in our private lesson, but needed to attach the cue to the target stick behavior first.  Silly me, I thought Gimme would remember how to do her target stick behavior, even if we haven't done it for at least six months.  Whereas Gimme thought it was really nice of me to bring a stick in for her to chew on. 

So I quickly dropped the idea of attaching a cue to the biting-the-stick behavior.  I basically had to free-shape it from the start.  By the time we finished she was doing really nice nose touches on the end.  So if she does that again next time from the start, I will attach a cue to it.

PRIVATE LESSON...

We started with some discussions, based on some questions I had been thinking about. 

Q1a.  Are we complicating the wait-for-the-cue process by using her two default behaviors (sit and down) in the mixed sets?   When we did so much work on her relaxation protocol in classes, the down turned into a second default.

• Maybe we shouldn't use them in the mixed sets for wait for the cue training.  Its possible we'd get better stimulus control, but lose them as default behaviors.
• However, just because they are defaults, doesn't mean we shouldn't expect some level of stimulus control, we just may not get all four elements.
• If I cue sit or down, she only gets click/treat/reward if she does what I cued.
• If she offers either default I don't have to click/treat it, but could do so randomly.  I can also reward in other ways.
• If she offers a default in place of the behavior I cued, no reward.

Q1b.  (based on the last question) What are the four elements for stimulus control?

• If I cue X, you do X
• If I cue X, you don't do Z (or others)
• If I cue Z (or others), you don't do X
• If I don't cue X, you don't do X (doesn't apply to defaults or naturally occurring behaviors)

Q2.  Are there times when we should change the training order for the last three of the six stages of learning?

• Yes, there are times when we would.  Actually the last four stages are what makes up stimulus control. 
• Those last four are usually on a circular cycle where they are each being taught over and over, or in random order, as understanding and difficulty of behavior increase.  Its important to specify, that when I say random here... that doesn't mean within one training session.  It merely means that between different sessions, these don't have to be in a specific order.
• Different behaviors have a different logical order for teaching.
• Plus, some dogs do better with a different order.  For instance, a dog as smart and active as Gimme will be bored with most duration work, so it works better to teach her distraction and/or distance first.  Then the duration develops along the way without boring her.
• And, which "stage" you are working on may depend on the environment in which you are working at any given moment.  IE. What I train and expect in the living room will be different than what I can train and expect in a parking lot.  I would be more likely to train for distance or duration in a familiar environment, while distraction is present in a strange environment, so initially that is what you are training for.

Q3.  In classes we discovered that stopping after 5 good repetitions gave us the best results. Am I doing too many reps at a time and is that undermining the process?

• Probably yes – even though the sessions are still relatively short, 3-5 minutes, there may be too many reps in a set.  It's better to focus on repetitions rather than time.
• We did a plan for this private lesson, where for the most part, after 5 reps we'd break off that set and let Gimme relax and refresh.  Then after a minute come back for another set. In this way Gimme was able to stay with us for a session that lasted 30 minutes, even despite the distraction of a new location (never been in that room before), despite her knowing that nosework was happening elsewhere in the building, despite the brain intensive nature of some of the work and despite the fact of her being in season.  Woohoo Gimme…

Q4.  Does Gimme know the behaviors (peach and orange), does she simply believe she should do whatever prop she is looking at, or is it still a listening skills issue?

• We didn't really address this issue in depth, rather went into training and working on listening skills.  We initially found she couldn't do a number of well known behaviors, as well as the two fruit behaviors, in that distracting environment, so we had to show her that it still applied there too.  Then she did much better.
• When we set up a different chair (folding no less), after just a moment of attaching the cue to that chair, Gimme went right to work, if slowly, so she does know the cue.  Initially the quality was lower, nose under instead of head under.  Then as the lesson progressed she went back to putting her whole head under the chair.

In other blog entries I'll talk more about the exercises we did.  There is much to do and it has become quite a fascinating process.  Gimme always keeps me on my toes.

All Fruits Look The Same

I thought I might try something different today and got results that cause me to question whether Gimme actually knows the cues for peach (head under chair) and orange (sit on perch) as individual behaviors or whether she has a different understanding.

I set both of them up and tried randomly cueing between those two and sit and down.  The first issue was where I was standing and whichever I cued she went to the closest one.  Once I moved to where I was an equal distance from them she was giving me both of them. 

For a bit I thought she just wasn't in listening mode.  When she gave a wrong answer, I turned and walked a few steps away, as far as needed to get her to abandon the incorrect behavior.  But as the session went on - her responses to sit and down got more and more correct.  Still the peach and orange behaviors were really variable.  I thought for awhile that she was simply giving me the one of those two that she did last.  However, as I closely watched her, it became clear that she was giving me the one that she was looking at when I gave the cue.

This makes me wonder... is it still a listening skills issue or does she not know those two cues.  Is it possible she believes those two cues both mean interact with whichever prop is present, so that when two props are there she takes the cue to mean interact with the prop that is in her line of vision.  I just don't know the answer and Gimme isn't talking.

I had already scheduled a private lesson with Ursula for before our nosework class this coming Wednesday.  So am not going to train these two in the meantime.  Ursula says she has another listening skills exercise that will help Gimme to understand when she should and when she should not be offering behaviors.  I'll send her an email and let her know about what I saw today and we can perhaps add that to the session.

This has been an intriguing training process.  At times its very frustrating, but I know in the end it will be very valuable.  I know Gimme is a canine genius, but there is clearly a hump of understanding that we aren't getting past.  I wonder if her being so super smart isn't a bit of a liability in this situation.  I've always said no one ever needs help training a dumb dog and obviously the opposite is also true.  Clearly I need to raise my game - sure am thankful to have Ursula to train with.

Not Sure Who's Winning

Peach - head under a chair
We just did another session.

While Gimme's listening is improving (her accuracy in actually giving me what I asked for is up quite a bit from before our private lesson), she is still unwilling to give up offering.  I want to give her more cues to do things and earn rewards, but she won't stop offering long enough for me to get in a cue.  The idea of stop-do-nothing is just not in her plan of action.  With her its all about a plan of ACTION.  We got four shorter extinction bursts, but they were still there - two to five minutes each.

Upon Ursula's suggestion I tried clicking any time she was still for even the tiniest moment.  And for a couple of minutes I thought I was getting somewhere, until I realized what little Miss Smarty Pants was doing.  Every time after getting a treat, she was returning to exactly where she was when I last clicked.  She was trying to turn it into a free-shaping game.  I probably wouldn't have caught on, except one time she happened to be under the table when I clicked, so when she returned to that spot under the table, it was pretty obvious what she was up to.  

Makes me wonder if I should put free shaping on some kind of cue.  Maybe that would make it clearer to her when we are and when we aren't playing that game.  She loves free-shaping with a passion and I'm happy to do it with her, but we need to get over this hump in understanding as well.

While I'm fiddling with some projects tonight, I'm going to try something with her.  I'm going to put a bowl of treats where I can reach to it on the kitchen counter, so its not where I am and thus not an obvious cue for training time.  Then occasionally will give her a cue and if she does it, she'll get click/treat. 

I can also give her the occasional click/treat when she isn't doing anything.  That doesn't happen very often if I'm up and about, she's either trying to work me or laying on the couch waiting and watching for an opportunity to start working me.  (good Lord, I think I just described a Border Collie!)  If she thinks I'm working on a project, she may settle in a bit more.

She's a pistol...

Nosework (5/1)

As is my usual Wednesday plan, we got in two short training sessions between accounts.  The first one was behind Shopko, where we practiced some heeling and sit stays.  The heeling went well, but she's still popping up out of those sits.  I just need to work the plan on that more consistently.  I was pretty pleased with her sit stay, once I set appropriate criteria.  The other thing we need to work on with stays is her holding position when I return.  We had that, but haven't been working this enough and lost it.  In the next session we worked on pretty much the same thing.

Gimme is getting on board with the new plan of not doing the check-in clicks.  I give her about 3 minutes of walking around after my first account and a little less after the second account.  When I think she should be satisfied/comfortable with her environment, then I cue "ready" which only means "time to work".  I've noticed if she really is ready, she moves into heel.  Smarty pants.

When we got home we did a couple sessions with her fruit stuff.  Since we have class later I didn't work the two fruit cues that I'm trying to get stimulus control of.  That I feel is a little brain taxing right now.  Later when she's done that process a few times and "gets" it, then it shouldn't be so hard.

Melon - push cube with nose
Today she went back to skiing across the room on it and a lot of foot action.  For the most part I ignored those and only click/treat for nose pushes.  She got jackpots for the best pushes.  By the end of the session, she was really doing some nice pushes.  I think this behavior will start to come together soon. 

Apple - back into a box, back feet only
She was certainly enthusiastic about this.  I've decided that I have to fix the box.  The sides are too soft and when she hits them with her foot, they fold over.  So its not clear to me when that is "back feet in the box" and when it isn't.  Thus, I'm sure I'm not consistent with my clicking.  If it isn't clear to me, it can't be clear to her either.  As much as she loves to back her feet into/onto things, we should be further along on this.  Sooooo, I'm going to modify the box to reinforce the sides with thin plywood.  Then her foot will be in or out and nothing in between.  I think that will make a big difference.

BTW Gimme is so funny when she gets frustrated with my obtuse refusal to click what she thinks is surely a clickable moment.  If all else fails, turn and bite the box.

Nosework class
As always it was fun.  Since Gimme just came in season, she had to wear drawers and wasn't too pleased about it.  During her first run I could see she was very distracted by them.  She still found her hides in good time though.  During her second and third runs she paid no more attention to them.  Please do not construe this as any suggestion that she was cooperative about having them put on her - she is not!  I'm sure they offend her fashion sense, though they are nicely patriotic in red-white-blue stripes.

Tonight's challenge was having the hide in things other than boxes.  During the first run they were set up around the perimeter of the room.  During the second and third runs they were clustered in piles.  For the third run, one of the treats was hidden in a crack in the floor and the instructor tried to use treats that blended in.  Also there was a cone with a treat under it, where the dog could smell it through the hole in the top, but not get to it unless they knocked the cone over.

Gimme continues to show great enthusiasm.  I hope she moderates it a bit and develops some patience as the finds get harder to detect.  I believe she will.  She's pretty funny when she's pinging off in one direction and suddenly catches the scent and then skids to a stop to turn and get back to the source. 

E.Bursting Away

Peach - head under a chair
I started with a session of peach.  Gimme did well enough for the first couple of cues, but then went into doing her own thing, which got a big fat nothing from me.  So then we had another extinction burst.  The first time was 8 minutes, then 5, then 1.  That's a huge improvement over what she did Saturday evening where it was a solid 24 minutes.

At one point she was headed toward the chair when I said "sit" and just a moment before getting there, registered what I said and turned to sit instead.  I thought that showed she is developing some understanding of this new criteria.  Good girl Gimme...

She's lessened the insistent tone of her burst, while adding two new features:

• She apparently wondered if opening a crate door and going in to lay down might restore me to my prior functionality.  She pulls the door open with her paw and walks in - never saw her do that before.  She did it once each with the two different crates in the living room.
• She also tried more barking, but not at me.  She'd sit or stand in front of me, turn her face about 60-90 degrees away from me and bark several times really loudly.  Meanwhile she has her eyes cranked toward me, so she was watching for my response, but not facing me.  Another thing she's never done before.  Apparently she thought I might be offended by her barking at me.  She does get funny ideas.  

I also decided that when she does a peach that is better quality, with her head (not just the nose) under the chair, that she'll get a jackpot of two pieces of peanut butter toast.  Decided that close to the end of the session, so it's too soon to see if I got results.  Also noticed that if I cue peach and she only gives me nose-under, if I wait she'll offer head under.  Tells me that the concept is in her brain.  She's a peach, eh...

Orange - sit on a small perch
Gimme continues to believe that backing on or side-stepping on is a better option... she does that about 75% of the time.  This went well, we got three short bursts, a 4 minute and two at 2 minutes. 

Her clarity in responding to "sit" and "down" dropped off a little during this session, but overall it was still an improvement over a few days ago.  I may have confused her by also working on the limited hold of her down during this session. 

Her new offering for the burst this time was, naturally, very clever:

• She discovered that when you jump on and immediately off the perch while kicking it with your back feet, it'll tip over.  The first two times I righted the perch.  Then decided that she might be getting some reinforcement from me fixing the perch.  So then I didn't and she still jumped on it, actually from the other side and when she kicked off, that kick pushed the perch right side up.  Given how unstable the perch is when she does this, I'm amazed she'd do it more than once... no one ever said she lacked confidence.

Her eyes are bright and she clearly wants to train-train-train.  She'd do it much of the day if she could.  Even this mentally challenging stuff, she's eager to get to it.  She'd like to train a LOT more, but I am trying to stop before she gets confused or mentally fatigued. 

Later, just to keep her happy, I may do a short session on some simple behavior.  She is the Empress of the Cosmos, doncha know.  Its my duty as her human to accede to her wishes...

Peach Extinction Burst

As I said I would, I did a training session using peanut butter to increase the value of the peach behavior.  I made some toast, put PB on it and then cut it to crouton sizes, making 20 pieces.  I had cheese and steak bits for anything else I wanted to reward.

Gimme quickly decided that peach was THE behavior of the century.  I spent a little time refining it and asking for better peaches.  Sometimes she only puts her nose under and other times her whole head goes under, the whole head is what I want.  I didn't want to belabor the point though, since I think my click timing is part of the problem. 

When I had 6 toast treats left, I started asking for other behaviors.  That is when the extinction burst for peach happened.  Twenty-four minutes later... 

I defined the extinction burst as finished when she was no longer:

• offering any form of peach
• walking around the peach chair
• sitting as demand
• barking
• whining
• cooing
• talking
• screaming
• putting her paws on the table to see if there was any toast left
• nose bumping my hand
• stomping her paws around the room
• pouncing on the couch
• sitting at heel
• mouthing my hand
• licking my fingers
• trying to steal leftover toast
• whomping into a down
• stomping her feet while down
• anything designed to get my attention

Needless to say, that was one impressive extinction burst.  Too bad I didn't get that on tape.

Once it was done, she didn't offer me the peach behavior except when I cued it.  I did have to help her the first two times, but after that, she was right on it.  A surprising side benefit, suddenly the sit responses tightened up a lot as well.  I'm sure we'll go through this again, but right now I'm leaving her to percolate on what just happened.  I'm sure she thinks there is something seriously wrong with her person.

Private Lesson

Our lesson didn't turn out quite as expected, since Ursula got distracted by late arriving guests and forgot to bring her dogs.  So, she gave me a free lesson on the "wait for the cue" issue we've been struggling with.  Remember, this is the third stage of learning - the one referred to as true obedience.  Ursula sees it very much as a listening skill, one that very smart and very confident dogs often have difficulty with.

We first discussed what the consequences should be for a wrong response.  I knew I didnt' want to give a no-reward-marker because of the overall behavior suppressing affect of NRMs.  Still I wasn't clear on what to do that wouldn't be an NRM.  Ursula said to just calmly walk away until Gimme gives up the behavior and joins me, then turn back and give her a new chance to be right by repeating the cue.

Something Gimme had been doing and I'd been rewarding was - I'd say "sit", she'd give me a down (her new favorite behavior) and I'd wait, then she'd ponder and say, "hmmmm that's not getting a treat, now what did she say, oh yeah it was 'sit', I'll do that".  By rewarding that, she is still getting rewarded for a) not listening, b) not giving me what I asked for and c) poor latency.  So from now on I'll do the turn and walk away until she joins me - which will make it clearer and won't reward stuff I don't want.

Ursula suggested that I sometimes play a listening game with Gimme -- in particular when she is not in training mode.  I can give her a cue for a behavior she knows well without any other prompting (i.e. not saying her name to get her attention first) and then if she does it, say "good" and give her a treat, petting or some other reward.  I won't use a clicker since that gets her in training mode and I can't have the treats on or near me.  So, if I want to reward with a treat, I can repeat "good" on the way to where there are some treats.  BTW we are using "good" specifically because it is not our click-word (ours is "yes"), so if my timing is bad, I'm under no obligation to pay up.  For instance, I told her sit and when I said "good" she had started to lay down.  I didn't want to reward that so she got nothing and it wasn't a case of breaking the click=reward bargain.  (obviously you won't muddy the water with this approach for a dog that was a clicker novice)

Then the second thing we worked on was to get Gimme to give me a behavior only when I cue for it.  Ursula suggested that I might get better results if I tried the extinction approach, with a bit of the mixed sets.  I had worried about using extinction, since I didn't want to risk weakening the behavior.  In reality, using extinction won't weaken the behavior.  The moment she stops offering the behavior, then I'll cue it and she'll get rewarded for it.  At that time, its essentially on a variable schedule of reward, which makes the strongest behaviors of all.  Well duh...

We tried this with her orange behavior (get on a box and sit) and it worked well.  We were starting to get some good results.  We tried it with peach (head under a chair) and it didn't work as well.  Although Gimme clearly knows peach, she doesn't seem to be that fond of it.  I think that's because its not a particularly active behavior, which is Gimme's preference.  So before we work on that again, I'm going to train the behavior and raise its value by using Gimme's favorite reward.  You know the one - peanut butter. 

So that's some work cut out for us in the next few weeks.  Ursula agreed with me that Gimme has difficulty with this because its not on her agenda.  Gimme's agenda is "its all about Gimme-me-me-me".  We talked a bit about this, because Urs wanted to be clear that we aren't talking about dominance stuff - which she and I both agree has nothing to do with dogs. 

Rather, its about giving up control, which has to do with all species.  A dog that wasn't clicker trained or lacked confidence won't have as much of an issue because they've never really had any control, so there isn't much to give up.  THAT certainly doesn't describe Gimme.

Nosework (3/1) & The Project - Day 19+

Its been a full week.

About half an hour after my last entry, I got the beginnings of a migraine.  Its still with me, though milder.  I was unable to sleep Tuesday.  Finally about 5:30 a.m. after a long hot bath, I was drugged enough and relaxed enough try again.  Michael chose that exact time to get up and leave a pee trail from one end of the house to the other!  Having pulled all the carpet, it didn't take long to clean up, yet enough to get me wide awake.  I spent most of Wednesday taking drugs and laying around.  Around noon fell asleep, but 90 minutes was all Gimme could stand.  She thinks that since entertaining her makes her feel good, it should do the same for me.   Got up, had lunch, took more drugs, played tug for awhile and even had a training session on apple.

Apple - back into a box, back feet only
I discovered toward the end of the session that Gimme does better about backing in if I'm careful how I treat her.  If I throw the treat too far, then she turns and approaches the box head on - which means either walking through or turning and side stepping in.  If I drop the treat between us, then she only takes a step or so forward and so just backs into the box.  I'll do that each time for the next few sessions and see if we can get backing in more solid.

That night in nosework class, Gimme couldn't get focused during her first two runs, flitting around the room and having a devil of a time finding her hides.  I'm sure being cooped up all day was the reason.  Her buddy Grafton was the best overall that night; though all the dogs are improving.  By her third session, she was back in the swing.  We had three piles of boxes and the food was in one of the lower boxes, so the upper boxes were in the way.  Gimme and Grafton found their goodies in equal time, but Gimme excelled in getting to hers.  Grafton is a little timid about pushing into the boxes, whereas Gimme was more than happy to pounce on the pile and scatter them in all directions.

Thursday I ended up working my Wednesday stores and when I got done decided to get Gimme and me out to the fort for a walk.  She was very quiet until we got on Rainier headed out there and then she fussed up a storm.  Even though the rescue remedy has been wonderful for everything else (and since), she was just fit to be tied.  I don't know what sets her off.  I think she may have a little homing pigeon in her and somehow senses when we are approaching that area of the county.  I'm going to try some different routes, but the last mile has to be on the same road.  I'm thinking in the future when she starts in as we are going out there, if she doesn't settle fairly soon, then I'm just going to turn and head home.  Even if it does take forever to get there, I can't help but think the behavior is still being rewarded.

Since it took so long to get there, by the time we walked and were heading home it was getting dark.  I rounded the corner and just barely had time to slam on my breaks, there were cars scattered every which way and just at the last moment I swerved to miss the cause of this mayhem.  Myself and another lady managed to catch the fattest Pug I've ever seen - wider than he was tall.  Since I had crates in the car, I took him.  Went to the nearest well lit home and after about an hour was able to figure out where he belonged and drive him home.  The owner was a piece of work.  He was more interested in making excuses for how Bob got out, than expressing appreciation for the efforts of those of us who saved his dog's life and for my bringing him home.  Some people!  Bob was just very lucky that he stopped traffic when he did, since minutes after I stopped it was pitch black and no one could have seen him in time to stop.

Thursday and Friday I did some parking lot sessions.  I'm revising how I'm doing that.  Gimme gets about a minute to look around and satisfy herself about the environment, then I'm pushing her more to get to work.  Basically if she doesn't turn her attention to me, I just keep moving her around, so that she doesn't have time to look around.  I think the behavior is too self-reinforcing.  Naturally this requires me to accurately assess why she is looking around.  If she has a real reason to be distracted that would be a different matter.  If not, my plan is to interrupt the self-reinforcing aspect.

On the way home Friday we stopped by Home Depot to pick up something I needed.  Took Gimme in for her usual cookies.  She'd been doing so well with LLW that I didn't put her EasyWalk harness on her - 30 seconds after getting in the door we returned to the car to correct that oversight.  HD is a great place and we get some nice training in.  Plus, as luck would have it, they have some of the most dog savvy employees at my store.  If they aren't busy, they are more than happy to work with her.  She always gets lots of attention and is finally getting used to the bizarre concept that some people actually don't want to pet her.  She turns her nose up and walks jauntily by when she realizes its one of those really aberrant types.  She's just sure they need medical attention.

Peach - head under a chair
Friday after work I did another training session.  Gimme is having a real difficulty getting the idea of waiting for the cue (stage three of learning).  My thinking is either I'm doing something wrong or I'm doing something wrong.  When I cue Gimme, its like she isn't really listening to me because she's only right about which behavior to give me out of the four I'm using (peach, sit, down, touch) about 60% of the time, whereas her accuracy is around 95% any other time.  I swear she gets it in her head which one comes next (I'm working hard to keep it random) and then doesn't listen to what I'm actually saying.  I've emailed Ursula and we may add this to our upcoming private lesson.  She says that Gimme is just the type of girl she would expect this kind of problem and that she needs to improve her "listening skills".  She mentioned having the same difficulty with two of her seven dogs.  I re-checked my notes to see how to work on this part.  I'd been doing a combination of extending the cue and the mixed sets.  So I'm going to try clicking for waiting and see if that makes it clearer for her.  And if not, we'll add it to our private lesson next week.

Gimme was less focused today in agility practice.  So I'm making the same changes.  She gets a few minutes to snoop around while I set up the exercise, then if she isn't ready to work I put her on leash and do the drill of moving her around, so that she doesn't have time to look or snoop around.  Again I think the snooping is just too self-reinforcing, so I want to interrupt the self-reinforcing aspect.  After I did that, she got right down to work and did some really good stuff.

I did some yard work today, pushing through the remaining migraine.  What should have taken an hour, took twice as long with Gimme's "help".  I've been unable to convince her that its not really helpful when she runs off with my tools, the weed eater line (while balling it up into a big knotted mess), and the big pieces of ivy I've been cutting down.  She says she only does it to air them out.  I maintain that since the ivy, the tools and the weed eater line have all been outside all along, they don't actually need airing out.  She remains unconvinced.

Orange - sit on a small perch
Since this is her other behavior we're trying to get waiting for the cue, did this today.  I selected this because its a little harder behavior than peach, so thought she might not leap right to it as readily.  I started clicking for her not doing anything and at first thought it was working... but as we got into it, she went back to "not listening".  She'd wait for me to give her a cue, but then about half the time give me some behavior other than the one I asked for.  If I waited, then she'd give me the right one.  So clearly this isn't going to be the magic fix.  I did notice that when I did a rapid succession of cues in tertiary reinforcement style... then she gives me the right behavior almost every time.  Curious thing and I'll be interested to see what Ursula says about it.  When Gimme gets frustrated she gives me a nice bark fest.

Afterward I tried easy stuff.  We got out the brick and did some "get in" (counter clockwise forehand pivot).  Gimme didn't seem convinced that I wanted her front feet on it and kept backing on.  I wonder if that's a carry over from apple or if its because of our playing with two small platforms for a stand.  The other thing, once I got her doing it was that when I say the cue as she is doing the behavior trying to get this on cue, she breaks off the behavior.  After I was done training it suddenly occurred to me why.  I have always used "get it" for a tossed treat and now "get in" for this.  They sound so much alike, no wonder she is having problems.  Smack my forehead!!!

BTW at one point she started pushing the brick (octagonal 7" diameter board) around the floor with her nose.  So I expect that next time we do melon, she'll be the push master queen...

I really want to use the "get in" for the forehand pivot because its in my head and the first thing that comes out of my mouth for that behavior.  So will leave it alone for awhile and have a few sessions of just using "yours" for the tossed treats.  Add to that all the times I'll use that when tossing her treats for resets, it should switch pretty quickly.  Then in a few weeks will come back to this and see if she's able to accept the new meaning for the cue.  It'll be a challenge and we'll just see.  She's pretty smart, so I think she will.  If not, I'll make the cue an elongated "innnnn" and then later start putting "get" in front of it.  You know I'll let you know how it goes.

We also did some work with our single stand platform, ala Michele Pouliet.  I need to go back and watch the video again to get clear in my head about how to teach it before I go any further.

You know, it occurs to me that she has so many behaviors that are well on their way.  I think as soon as we get past the hump of "wait for the cue", she is really going to take off in her understanding.  Training my little genius is such a fun adventure.

Well, drugs are wearing off, so must be time for the next dose and I'm sure I hear the couch calling me.

Melon - push cube with nose
Grape - dead bug (on back, feet in the air)
Not trained. 

Still in Class & The Project - Day 18

Yesterday was kind of a quiet day overall.  It was a bad day for whining, so I decided to pick up and try Rescue Remedy.  I've also done what I said I would, to block Gimme's view outside the car.  So far it seems to be going well.  I'm still doing the thing of stopping the car if there is active whining.  Once or twice of that and then she settles in for the rest of the drive.  Not sure at this point whether its the Rescue Remedy or blocking her view that is helping, but either or both is fine with me.  What an interesting process this has been - especially since I can't figure out any consistent pattern.

After work today, we went through all our fruit training... Gimme was happy as a clam.  I think she'd like to do all of them almost every day.  Today she was quite barky.  The only-on-cue part really frustrates her.  She was also throwing other behaviors at me that weren't part of the fruit grouping, so that seems different.  As soon as I get the last strip of carpet pulled up then we'll be able to train more consistently again - since its raining almost every day now, we absolutely have to have an indoor space.

Melon - push cube with nose

We started with this and boyoh was she giving me some really good pushes.  She was rolling or pushing the cube about 2 feet most of the time.  Occasionally she'd get her feet into it, but I just ignored that.  She tends to get it pushed up against something and that definitely brings the feet into play.

Peach - head under a chair

I just did the white chair and was waiting out her insistence on doing it on her terms.  That's where the barking started.  She seemed to be getting the idea of waiting for the cue by the end of 20 treats.

Grape - dead bug (on back, feet in the air)

Gimme doesn't really like doing this on the hardwood floor.  I got some once I threw the comforter on the floor, but by then she was already frustrated.  I think I'll back up and encourage her to do this on a spare couch cushion or other soft surface.  Its still every bit as cute, when she stops barking at me long enough to do it.

Apple - back into a box, back feet only

This was the first time I didn't use the leash and it went really well.  She only stepped through twice.  Did about 25% sidestep and mostly backing in.  She has decided now that she can put one foot in and then have the other resting on the edge (smashing the edge is more like it) and that I should just accept that.  Not!  That really pushed her barking button.

Orange - get onto a small perch with all four feet

This went well as before.  She still hasn't made the connection that she only gets clicked for it when I cue it, so more barking.  She was quite the little jabberwocky today, but she was having fun telling me off.

When I got to class Mr. Dinosaur said he needed to talk to me.  He "reminded" me that I'm not his employee (duh) and that as such I can't give instruction or help the other students (because of insurance concerns).  Seems he didn't know I gave that other lady a card.  I think he is referring to when I was talking to the owners of the fearful Sheltie who is barking any time other dogs get too close.  It was a continuation of a conversation that started outside about 45 minutes before class.

The lady with the black poodle wasn't in class tonight.  I don't know if that is just coincidence or if she has decided not to come back.  Hope she goes to Ursula.  The GSD in the prong collar is getting more aggressive acting and tried to fight with another dog.  His owner got special instruction after class so basically he's on 10" of leash and a constantly tight prong collar.  That should do wonders for his disposition.  Two more dogs are in prong collars that weren't last week.  One is the dog that whines all the way through class, which he still does even with the new way of correcting him.  After class two students were telling the Dinosaur that he really knows his dogs and how amazed they are at how much calmer their dogs are in their new collars (prong).  I resisted the urge to run over, throw myself down on the floor and do the grape.

The Dinosaur made it a point to tell the class how much he hates clicker training.  That is, of course, right after Gimme did some of her best work in the class.  The next time we heeled I went right back to clicking and heard an audible sigh from him.  Oh darn.  For me and mine, the clicker stays.

For Gimme's part, she did better tonight - with moments of sheer brilliance.  Working in the alcove for much of class is a big improvement.  The office we'd been using was occupied, so we couldn't use it, but still did well.  Gimme is sound asleep as we speak.

'Nother Trial to Watch & The Project - Day 17

Thursday we walked on the fort's training areas. That may be our last walk there for several weeks as they close off the training areas for hunters. We almost didn't go, since it had been raining all morning and I didn't have gear in the car for a long walk in the rain. Guess its time to get out my winter wear. Fortunately we had a nice sun break for our walk. We didn't do any training on Thursday.

Friday, we went for a drive after work and Gimme is back to being whiny. Her behavior remains inconsistent and unpredictable. Sometimes she is really bad, other times she is really good and the rest somewhere in between. Overall, I do think the behavior is reducing. I am going to screen off the back of the car as I do find that sometimes she seems to be doing really well and then seems to see something and suddenly is whiny again. I never would have thought of doing that, but Victoria Stillwell uses it to great effectiveness on It's Me or the Dog.

Since we couldn't use the fort Saturday, we went to a USDAA agility trial near where my folks live. Stayed there about 90 minutes. It was good to watch agility again - didn't realize how much I missed it. Gimme did pretty good overall. She was showing some good self control around all the people and the dogs going by. However, dogs running on course was a bit much for her. So when I brought her back in the second time, I brought lots of peanut butter and she got to watch and eat PB. She did much better that way. She was clearly noticing the moving dogs, but more interested in the PB. Toward the end of that 20 minute session, I was able to let her watch the dogs when they were on the far side of the course and then just give her PB when the got in the 1/3 of the course closest to where we sat. She was able to keep in her thinking brain throughout. I was happy with that.

After that we went to my parents' and despite my prayers for rain, it was dry enough to mow. So that's what I did. I figure I walked 3 miles behind that mower. Ordinarily it isn't that bad but it was just wet enough that the driving wheels were slipping, so I did a lot more pushing of that heavy thing than usual. That left me really tired and sore.

Thus Sunday I didn't do much of anything. About mid-afternoon I finally got in gear. Took Gimme down to Capitol Lake for a walk. I've decided not to do that walk for awhile. I notice Gimme spends the whole time scanning the horizon for dogs. Our worst loose leash walking happens there. This is particularly noticeable after seeing how much better she does at the show and trial. She tends to have her focus out-there somewhere and we need to practice having it closer to where we are. I think that site just promotes the wrong thing for her. 

It very much like what I've seen with fearful dogs working in distracting places. One Tervuren I worked with was a complete angel at a trial or show. She acted so normal (only showing the most subtle of calming signals) that it was hard to believe that she was a real basket case. Anywhere else and her hyper-alert fearful behaviors were in full swing. When a dog is faced with a lot of what scares them, all their behavior tends to be suppressed. In that case, its like they are trying not to attract attention to themselves. I've seen similar behavior in anxious dogs at seminars when a dog or person leaves the area and then comes back, an anxious dog will react about them all over again. There's a technical name for this, its called Sudden Environmental Change.

In Gimme's case, she certainly isn't fearful or anxious. But she does tend to be hyper-vigilant in watching for dogs. When she only has to watch in one direction, like at Capitol Lake, then she can really obsess about watching ahead of us for the first sign of a dog. Whereas at shows/trials, they are everywhere, so since she can't watch in every direction, she ends up more settled. Anyway, that's my theory and I'm sticking with it.

So will probably do more shows/trials and leave Capitol Lake walks off our itinerary for awhile (though I could walk the boardwalk, since there are seldom dogs there). I could go down to the park on one side and just sit with her, clicking/treating for attention. There is a place that I think would be suitable for that and so I may try that.

Another reason to not go there is that people are S-T-U-U-U-P-I-D.... What part of the picture of someone with a dog moving well off the side of the trail with their dog and giving it a constant stream of treats as you approach in the opposite direction is an indicator that you should bring your friendly dog up to them, saying, "she's a puppy and loves to play" or "she's friendly and wants to say hello". The idiot gene is alive and well... Good grief!

Peach - head under a chair
We did a short session of this Sunday afternoon. First with the white plastic chair and then with my kitchen chair - 15 treats each. You may remember that last time, Gimme didn't think the cue applied to a different chair. This time Gimme got into this so fast and did so well. She started right off doing better than we ended with the last time. What a good example of latent learning.

Apple - back into a box, back feet only
Orange - get onto a small perch with all four feet
Grape - dead bug (on back, feet in the air)
Melon - push cube with nose
Not trained today.

I'll Probably be Kicked Out of Class -- The Project - Day 17

First, the good news.  My plan for Gimme to get better benefit from the class worked very well.  I had planned to prop the door open so I could work in the hallway, but the instructor objected.  As it turned out, the room we use has a door that adjoins to a small conference room, and the connecting door is right there in the alcove where I set up tonight.  So I propped that door open and Gimme and I spent much time in there.  I kept her in the car until all the dogs had settled down and stopped their barking and growling and such.  Then after she came in the only dog noise she had to contend with was the one that whined through the whole class (the owner has been training with this instructor [Mr. Dinosaur] for over a year, her dog knows almost nothing and is not a happy worker by any stretch of the imagination).

Gimme was able to do a lot of work in the conference room and was showing me some of her best stuff.  Then we'd come out into the alcove just off the main room and work.  Gimme got some peanut butter bones, but didn't need as much as before.  She was able to do some relaxation protocol.  And she was able to play tug with me, which she couldn't do last week.  At one point, we even took one turn heeling around the room "with" the class.  I hugged the wall where I could and was very careful not to get too close to the other dogs (mostly stressed out and handled by clueless people).  When they did fast heeling, we sought a corner and practiced one-step-sit heeling.  Gimme did pretty good.  Overall I was very pleased with how she did.

So, why am I gonna get kicked out of class?  Tonight was problem solving night. 

The instructor is, at best a dinosaur - and I'm only there to take advantage of the opportunity to train in that environment.  I wouldn't use his methods for anything.  I hate that I'm supporting him financially, but I need the environment and there is no place else to go. 

The instructor thinks because he no longer trains using the strict Koehler method that he's a gentle trainer.  He promotes himself as a reward-based trainer, but then on the first night of class said that a prong collar is the original "gentle leader".  He used his 15yo limping dog in a prong collar as the standard to which the class should aspire.  He taught the class how to do a "motivational leash pop", again using his old dog to demo the technique (my heart breaks for poor old Eddie).  Of course, the instructor is completely clueless about how stressed his dog is and makes excuses for his dog aggression problem. 

I've told him before that I thought a "motivational leash pop" makes about as much sense as a "motivational face slap" --- "here, let me demonstrate".  But it doesn't sink in.  He's so far behind the times it would be funny if he wasn't screwing up the relationship between so many people and their poor innocent dogs.  He's been teaching for the City of Olympia parks and recreation for 20 years and hasn't changed a thing.  I keep hoping he'll retire...

I managed to stay silent through all the stupid advice he gave out.  Even though some of it gives the owners a 50-50 chance of getting bitten.  Even though one very young GSD who came to class just out of control, is now coming on a prong collar (upon Mr. Dinosaur's advice), is still out of control, dragging the owner and is now exhibiting the beginnings of aggressive behavior.  I have to admit I almost lost it when he told the woman with the 5 month old miniature poodle, that nips her children when they try to pick it up that, "You should get rid of him and get another dog.  That's inappropriate behavior for a poodle and can never be tolerated.  I'm serious, you should get rid of him."  The kids that are trying to pick the dog up are 5 and 6, so you can imagine the picture of what being "picked up" is like for the dog.

Anyway, I hung around a bit longer after class than I needed to and gave the poodle owner one of Ursula's business cards and suggested she contact her.  Unfortunately the owner of the whiny dog saw me talking to her and will likely report back to Mr. Dinosaur.  I know that's a fo-paw to refer his students to other people, but I'm willing to take my licks.    Actually he probably won't even say anything to me, since he's been enamored of me for years.  I think I could kill someone in class, leave a dead body laying in a pool of blood in the middle of the room and provided I cleaned up the mess at the end of class, he wouldn't say anything.  Honestly I'm not going to test that theory...  <eg>

We walked on the fort today, which Gimme thoroughly enjoyed, not having gotten any walks over the weekend.  Since we got to class earlier than necessary, we took a short walk on the boardwalk before class.

Peach - head under a chair
Gimme still didnt' think the cue for this behavior applied to my white plastic chair.  So we shaped it over again and went through the drill of putting it on cue again.  Then I switched to another chair and started over.  It went a little faster this time, but I realize in hindsight that I didn't go through the drill of putting that chair on cue.  Also I think the session may have lasted too long, because she was acting confused when I tried mixing in other behaviors.  I do know that I sometimes push forward too fast.  So will drop back a bit next time I work this.  Take my time if shaping is needed and re-attach cues to each of them. 

Its good that I get to re-learn this stuff on behaviors where it doesn't matter.

Apple - back into a box, back feet only
Orange - get onto a small perch with all four feet
Grape - dead bug (on back, feet in the air)
Melon - push cube with nose
Not trained today.

The Project - Day 16 and Dog Show for Distraction

My plan had been to go to the Gig Harbor Kennel Club show after church.  We had a church membership meeting and by the time that ended it was pouring rain in Dupont. I know most of the Gig Harbor show is outdoors, so I didn't think we'd be going.  However when I got near home where I'd have to take the exit, the sun was out and the sky almost clear, so headed for Shelton.  Naturally, right before we got there it started raining again.  As we arrived it was drizzling, but I decided to get out and at least do ten check-ins and some other stuff so it wasn't a total waste of gas.

When we got there it was already 2:15, so many people had already left.  We took our time wandering in to the grounds.  We watched the last of the Basenjis from a distance of about 30 feet.  Then sat and watched a couple groups from about 60 feet.  Gimme was excited and interested in all the goings-on, but not out of her head excited.  She couldn't work, but did give me check-ins and the occasional offered sit.  Then the tear down crew came and removed the gates between us and the group ring, so we moved a bit closer. 

We started at about 30 feet from the group ring and Gimme was doing really well.  Even when the whole group would run around the ring together, she didn't get too distracted by it.  She'd watch it quietly and then turn to me and say, "well aren't you going to give me peanut butter or something?"  We moved around several times and by the time the terrier group was in the ring, we were within 5 feet of the ring's corner.  

Gimme did really well.  The only time she expressed concern was when someone walked by with an English Setter that was pulling on its lead and seemed to be trying to hack up a lung.  There were other dogs she took an interest in, watching them intently.  A very young pointer held her interest for quite awhile - she was just certain it would play with her if she could just catch its eye. 

From time to time she would get bored and then would pester me to work with her.  So she'd get a few cues to respond to and be treated.  There were times she'd lay on her belly with her legs stretched out behind her and calmly watching some activity or another.  I was very pleased to see her be bored - that's a good thing in my book.  I think it made a big difference that most of the dogs she was seeing were experienced show dogs, so they were really well behaved and fairly calm.  The ones that didn't fit that category were much further away.

The funniest thing was that Gimme really does believe that the whole world revolves around her, of this, she has no doubt.  So every time the group winners were selected and the spectators erupted in applause, Gimme would leap to her feet and strike a pose, the better to be admired, doncha know.  She has the most wonderful natural stack I've ever seen - at least 90% of the time her poses are ring ready.  She'd be ring ready 100% of the time with just a hint of training on that. 

After we got home and I was working in the yard... Gimme was just sure there must be local people who would need to admire her.  So she spent quite a bit of time striking a pose on the baby dogwalk in the front yard.  She's always done that when people walk by, but tonight she was just doing it and then holding it for several minutes without pedestrians.  I'm going to have to stop wearing sweats when I do yard work so I'll have pockets to put the camera in.

As we left the grounds heading to parking, we practiced some heeling and overall she did a really nice job.  Since we'd been there 2:30, I wouldn't have been surprised to have her be too tired to work.  She loves to work and she loves to be admired.  Once she realizes that the Rally and Obedience rings all have spectators, there'll be no stopping her.

Apple - back into a box, back feet only
After finishing the yard work, I did a short session (20 repetitions) of the apple behavior.  I've been doing this on leash to help her "get" the concept of backing in.  I decided tonight to not use the leash (okay, really I couldn't find it with the mess my living room is in as I'm reorganizing and ripping up carpet).  Instead, I took a page from what I'd decided before, I think on Melon, to:

• ignore bad attempts - stepping through front feet first
• minimum reward - side-stepping in
• jackpot - backing in

Naturally, she very quickly figured out which efforts paid the most and soon the vast majority of the attempts were backing in.  It seems she has also figured out that the base board tells her when she is aligned with our little box.  She will then back up until she feels the side of the box with her hocks then neatly step her feet in - most of the time.  Once doing this, she hopped both feet in together.  I love that and if I see it again, she'll get the biggest jackpot she's ever seen.  I'll make sure to have a big piece of chicken ready just in case we need that super jackpot. 

Right now she is sound asleep.  Its been a pretty full day for the little munchkin.

Orange - get onto a small perch with all four feet
Grape - dead bug (on back, feet in the air)
Peach - head under a chair
Melon - push cube with nose
Not trained today.

The Project - Day 15 and Horses...

Our day started with a short training session at the arena (after a completely quiet ride over).  Gimme took a little longer than last time to get focused, but I'm sure that was because the two barn dogs kept hanging out by the arena gate.  On a positive note, even though she was frustrated by the gate keeping her from them, she didn't act as frustrated, so that shows some improvement. 

When we did get to work, she did nicely.  I decided to get started teaching her to rear cross.  I've taught her to spin away from me on both sides before and she'd done well with it stationary.  When I tried to do it with some movement today, well lets just say my hands took quite a beating.  She's always loved to be mouthy with me and is so good and gentle about it, that I've let her continue (especially since she isn't mouthy with others).  Something about the movement and the hand signal (like the hitchhiker thumb) I was using, she took as an invitation to jump up and play with my hands.  It took awhile to sort it out.  Once she was doing better, we added in a jump (bar on the ground still), approached at a slice and she did well.  For some reason, when we added the jump she stopped trying to get my hands.  I have no explanation for that change. 

Toward the end of the session I lost her attention and focus altogether.  I was pretty certain we had simply used up her baby brain.  I waited for her to choose to re-engage.  She tried a couple times and just couldn't pull it together.  Since she wasn't stressed, I waited some more.  The next time she came, we got through the simple exercise one more time and I jackpotted her with every treat I had.  She thought that was waaaay cool.

My plan for the day had been to go to the Shelton Kennel Club show, which is only 25 miles from here, and do some training and counter-conditioning there.  But, as I was headed to find the barn manager, one of the ladies who has just started as an agility student (lovely GSD) told me she was about to work her young horse in the round pen and I was welcome to bring Gimme over to train her near the pen.  That was an offer I couldn't pass up.

Gimme has only seen horses that were standing or walking.  Seeing one trot and canter was LOT for her to take in.  We basically stood there and watched and she got lots of peanut butter.  Her eyes were HUGE for most of the time.  At times she would leap away during the cantering approaches or bark and lunge toward the horse.  This told me I needed to adjust how close we were and when we were a bit farther away she was able to watch and suck peanut butter.

Then Anine came over and just stood there and petted Gimme and gave her treats, while her horse was right there too (through the fence).  We've been unable to convince Gimme that a horse snorting isn't a death threat and she barked back her, "you and who's Army" response.  I may have to get the horse snort on tape so I can get her used to it.  They just don't do it often enough, so if I had it looped on tape I could work with the sound a bit better to get her used to it. 

When she was standing there with her horse, Gimme went into this cycle of barking at the horse and so Anine was cuing her to sit and then would reward her with the treats I'd given her.  Very quickly the barking got worse.  In the past I would have called this I'll Be Bad So I Can Be Good And Get Rewarded syndrome.  I'll probably still call it that, but I realized very quickly that this was a perfect example of the flip side of tertiary reinforcement.  We stopped cuing the sit when Gimme was barking and quickly the barking went away.

Tertiary Reinforcement is when a cue for a known behavior acts as a reinforcement for whatever behavior came before it.  We are using this a lot in agility, where cuing the next jump reinforces completion of what came before.  It is the opportunity to continue on course and get closer to the reward at the end that makes the next cue reinforcing.  Likewise, what Ursula wanted me to get to is the point where I can have a series of multiple behaviors on cue and use them in much the same way where:

• the reward for behavior one is the cue for behavior two
• the reward for behavior two is the cue for behavior three
• the reward for behavior three is the cue for behavior four
• the reward for behavior four is the cue for behavior five
• the reward for behavior five is click/treats

I did this a little in class and it was clear that Gimme thought it was a lot of fun; her eyes got very bright.

Anyway to continue, in the case of barking at the horse, cuing a sit was essentially rewarding the barking by giving her an opportunity to do something for which she would be rewarded.  Hence the name I'll Be Bad So I Can Be Good And Get Rewarded syndrome, and thus the barking behavior increased.  Once we waited out the barking and only cued the sit when she chose to be quiet, the barking rapidly went away.  That was such a cool example of tertiary reinforcement, as well as a perfect example of how people unintentionally reward undesirable behaviors.

After Gimme was completely calm with the horse just standing near by, Anine did some more trotting and cantering in the round pen and Gimme did a lot better.  We were able to be much closer and she didn't need the peanut butter, though she still got some.  So we made some good progress.  Which, by the way, Anine got training value with her young gelding who showed quite a bit of concern about the strange dog in the beginning.

Since that was a lot of mental/emotional work for Gimme, I decided not to go to Shelton.  We may go after church tomorrow.  After a few errands, we came home and goofed off for most of the day. 

In recent re-reading of some of my Project entries, I could see where I have sometimes repeated "learning something" related to one or another of the fruit behaviors.  So I copied the entries all into a word file and cleaned them up.  I'm reorganizing them under the individual behaviors, so I can quickly check the last couple of entries about training a particular behavior and know what I decided last time.  That's one of the things I have loved about blogging, is how it works for me as a training journal.  I am much more inclined to blather on endlessly about what we did to share Gimme with the world, than I ever would be to take notes in a private journal.

Melon - push cube with nose
We have not trained any of the fruits in 2.5 weeks, so I started today with Melon because its our weakest behavior of the five.  I sat on the floor and each time reset the cube on its smaller end.  I also was tossing the treats more, which gave me a moment to reset the cube and it also meant that Gimme did a bit less of the pushes while laying down.  We had at least 60 treats and one large chunk of freshly boiled chicken.  I've found Gimme finds it very, Very, VERY reinforcing to bite off a piece chicken.

She actually did very well.  I saw a lot less foot action and when we did see it, it always followed an accidental foot touch.  For instance, if she nose touched and I clicked and tossed the treat, if she happened to hit the cube with a foot when she dived after a treat most of the time she would come back and bat at it with her foot right away.  I figured out this pattern toward the end of our session, so didn't have time to deal with it, but next time I think when she accidentally hits it with her foot, I'll pick it up and pause so she sees me resetting it and see if that resets more than just the cube. 

When she did good nose pushes I gave her several treats tossed one at a time.  A few times I held out for multiple touches and when i got those, again she got several treats tossed one at a time.  Her best efforts were rewarded with nibbling the chicken.  At the very end, she did a very nice push tumbling the box more than a foot, so she got all the treats I had, one at a time, and then got to nibble the rest of the chicken out of my hand.  Hopefully that will be a big reinforcement that percolates in her little doggie mind. 

This has been our best session on Melon thus far.  And I have to add, the container I was fishing the treats out of was sitting next to me on the floor.  Gimme never tried to help herself... there's that great work ethic again.

Apple - back into a box, back feet only
Orange - get onto a small perch with all four feet
Grape - dead bug (on back, feet in the air)
Peach - head under a chair
Not trained today.

Capitol Lake again

We walked around Capitol Lake again.  We didn't talk to very many people, but those we did talk to were longer conversations.  Gimme was quicker about reading the pee mail and I'm starting to introduce the idea that you don't have to read every drop, "let's go" and I start walking.  She's mostly okay with it.  There were a LOT more dogs today... at least twenty.  So by the time we stop for a peanut butter break, that eats up a lot of time.  Thus our 1.5 mile walk took 1:23...

Came home to do a session of just sit, down and touch - trying to tighten up her responses.  I'm really convinced now that she doesn't listen that closely and often just throws one at me, guessing and hoping it is right.  Either the verbal cues were never strongly in place or they've become lost along the way.  The "touch" is probably the most accurate.  However, since that is accompanied by my hand moving into position, she may be responding to a hand signal rather than a verbal.  Her accuracy on sit and down was only about 60%.  That really surprised me.

In my living room with no distractions to speak of, she should be very close to 100% on those three.  Granted we just came from a walk and she may have been a little mentally fatigued, but I still think she should have been more accurate than 60%.  I will try it tomorrow morning when she is "fresh" to establish a baseline. 

Obviously we are going to do a lot more with this before I go back to using it for the wait for the cue phase of learning on the two fruit Project behaviors that are on cue. 

Tomorrow night we start the class downtown.  Its a CGC class and so we should come out of class with that certificate.  Though, of course, my main goal is for her to be able to work in that setting.

The Project - Day 14

Today we walked around Capitol Lake much earlier and found there were actually less people there. It was just before 6pm and I imagine a lot of people were heading home for supper. Gimme continues to do well with the peanut butter tube and is not as excited when she sees other dogs. She looks at them with interest, but no tension in her posture, and then turns to me for the peanut butter.

We only answered two questions and lo and behold, my wish came true. Not the exact words, but a lady did recognize her as a Dalmatian and said she thought the brown spotting was "lovely". Clearly an astute grasp of the obvious. Our walk only took 45 minutes tonight. It would be quicker, but as long as Gimme isn't pulling, I let her read all the pee-mail. She's a slow reader, though I'm sure it will speed up as she becomes more used to it.

By the way, the Go Toob has a little rubber "thing" in the opening that is supposed to prevent it from sucking contaminated food back inside when you stop squeezing. I found last night that Gimme got her teeth into it and had it half torn out. It probably wouldn't hurt her to swallow it, but just the same I cut it out when I got home.

Another thing I did differently tonight, that worked well, was to connect two leashes together by slipping the handles through each other (makes a single 10 ft leash with a clip at each end) and use them TTouch style. I clipped one end to her EasyWalk harness and the other to her collar. It takes a little getting used to, but it is very effective. The biggest advantage is that it keeps her from pivoting the wrong way and ending up with the leash on the wrong side of her. Its a lot like reins on a horse and gives the dog a lot more information. Gimme was a lot better about walking without pulling.

I find I have trouble with the time on my training sessions. I'm often surprised to look at the videos and discover what I thought was 3 minutes, was 5 or 6 minutes. Partly that is because the Adult ADD skews my time perception. So today I bought a little digital timer. I've set it for 2:45, so that it gives me warning when I'm getting close on time and I can have a better idea of when to stop. I am also setting it off from time to time so Gimme doesn't connect the beeping with the end of a session. I clearly need to clip it to my waistband where I can push the button to silence the beeping after it goes off.

Apple - back into a box, back feet only
Using the leash really helped her to not walk her front feet through the box. We’ll do that one more time and then try fading it. I’ll let her drag it a time or two, then try it without.

Another thing I started doing was to make a distinction in how I rewarded the way she put her feet in the box. If she side-steps in, she gets clicked and a thrown treat. If she backs in, she gets a click, then jackpot of two or three treats, followed by a thrown treat. It seems to me that she really caught the distinction I was trying to make.

 

Orange - get onto a small perch with all four feet

This is the other behavior that we are working on phase 3, wait for the cue. Again, you see the frustration returning, especially compared to apple that we just worked on. One thing I will do before working on this or peach, is a session or two practicing and sharpening her responses to "sit", "touch" and "down". It may be because we are working on phase 3, but it also occurred to me that those are the behaviors I was using in our distraction training, so perhaps that is also part of the apparent deterioration. I haven’t really trained them, focusing on the 6 phases of learning, so it wouldn’t hurt to address that.

At 1:10 when she kicks the box, she actually stepped on a phalange that sticks out and is I’m sure a bit of a rough edge. You can see her turn around and check it out and then she seems uncertain, checking it out for 10 seconds before getting on it again. I’m going to see if there is a way to cut off and smooth away the point there, so it doesn’t happen again.

Grape - dead bug (on back, feet in the air)
Peach - head under a chair
Melon - push cube with nose
Not trained today.