The Project - Day 13

What a busy day this was. I had to do a store transition and be sure I was done in time to get to the 4H practice early to teach a private lesson. We didn't get there as early as I'd hoped, cuz I wanted to do a short distraction session with Gimme. We just had time for the ten check-ins before the private client arrived.

The session with my student and her baby Golden was very good. Biddable dogs are so much fun. She's put a pretty decent set of basics on the dog and for the time being, she's very focused. Of course, she is still at that age, so things could change in a few months. Then my 4H students showed up and had several nice sessions with the kids (I give them 10 minutes a piece privately to work on whatever they want). Most had made good progress since last week and I managed to get through this practice without annoying my bad knee.

Afterward I tried to use Gimme to demonstrate something, but even though she got through her check-ins and indicated she was ready to work, she didn't seem to be actually able to follow through. In her defense, she'd been cooped up the vast majority of the day from 10 in the morning until what was now 8pm, with only a couple short potty breaks. When we got home we did some training and she did a good job.

And just so you know, I wondered how consistently I'd been training each of the different behaviors, so I made a matrix (I love charts) and went back through the blog entries and added dates for each of the different behaviors. Don't want to neglect anything. Overall I was pretty close, but did need to catch up on a couple that I hadn't worked as often when we were sometimes training in class.

Peach - head under a chair
There are still some holes in her understanding I think, even though this is on cue. She doesn't seem sure in some places of what is expected. Also, I find that even her well known behaviors are less reliable now as we are working on phase 3, wait for the cue. Its almost as if she doesn't listen closely and just assumes she knows what I'm asking for.

Do note, she offered extra behaviors at phases where she was more frustrated (including the usual grape) and that one of the extra behaviors she offered twice was to side step her rear toward the chair and step under it with one back foot. Clearly this is requiring her to really think and she finds this the more frustrating phase of learning.  She's also doing a fair amount of mugging for treats - another sign of her frustration.  It almost seems that the offering of extra behaviors is an effort to wrest away from me control of the process, but perhaps I'm anthropomorphizing. Remember, this is the phase the Ursula said is "true obedience". 

Grape - dead bug (on back, feet in the air)
As always, she is six kinds of cute when she does her Grape behavior. Nobody does it cuter. Sometimes she gets to flipping quickly and rolling over other times she stops and holds her position on her back.  I also noticed as I started adding the cue, she has a tendency to hear the cue and flip back looking for a treat - as if the cue was the marker.  It seemed to sort out toward the end, but it was an interesting process to see.  I also wonder if I'm adding the cue too soon, since some of the time when I said the cue, she then just flipped over without holding on her back at all - as if she doesn't have a well-defined idea of what the behavior is.
 

Apple - back into a box, back feet only
Orange - get onto a small perch with all four feet
Melon - push cube with nose

Not trained today.

New Peanut Butter Tube

You'd think I'd be better at it by now, but such is not the case.  Michael is about as senile as I think possible.  This is more than the usual "I'm old so I can be naughty if I wanna" that so many elderly Dalmatians get (okay, all my elderly Dals get it).  He requires more monitoring than Gimme ever did.  If I leave the room for more than 2 minutes I have to either:

• take him with me
• crate him
• or put him outside

Otherwise by the time I get back he will be into something, destroying something, making a mess of something or peeing/pooping.  The latest victim to fall to his destructive tendencies was Gimme's peanut butter tube (the toothpaste tube I showed you in a much earlier blog entry).  Naturally my current tube of toothpaste isn't anywhere near ready to be re-purposed. 

So I went to Cabela's and checked out their Go Toob.  Its really kinda nice.  The smallest model fits in the palm of your hand.  The opening to refill it is a good size, though, of course, at just 1.25 ounces it'll need to be filled more often.  The toothpaste tube was great, but sometimes messy in my pocket and not as handy in size.  The Go Toob top screws off and the bottom puncture resistant part can be pulled out of the white base ring for easier cleaning.  It was just $7.99, plus tax.

Tonight we went down to Capitol Lake and walked the circuit, which is 1.5 miles.  Every time I saw someone with a dog, I stuck the tube in Gimme's face and let her suck on it while she watched them.  Overall she was much calmer about the presence of the dogs and about people.  About halfway through the walk she'd see a dog and turn toward me for peanut butter.  It worked with horses to get her over her fear, worked to teach her an automatic bicycle-recall behavior, so I'm hoping it will help her to be calmer when she sees other dogs.

What kills me is that it took ninety minutes to walk 1.5 miles.  So that was 30 minutes walking and 60 minutes answering questions about Gimme, liver spotted Dalmatians, dog training, clicker training, peanut butter tubes, etc.  Its a nice walk, but was pitch black by the time we got back to the car.  Hopefully I don't have too many mosquito bites.

Well, Michael just got up and went in the other room - I better go...

The Project - Day 12

Labor day turned into a labor of aggravation. Gimme was outside and barking incessantly, which is not the norm. Looked outside to discover that a passerby was sitting next to my fence with her fear reactive dog. So I called my dogs in and went out to talk with her. I understand she was trying to use the environment to get her dog used to the barking-dog stimuli, but I really don't need to have Gimme practicing that behavior and besides, she was doing it all wrong. I gave her pointers on how to do it better and a referral to a local trainer that can help her.

Then as I tried to go in the house, discovered Gimme had jumped against the front door from inside the house, slamming it shut. That's the door that can't be opened from outside (yet - still trying to fix it). Naturally I hadn't unlatched the back door. So ended up crawling in the window where I'd installed the window fan last night and hadn't yet put in a jimmy bar to keep it from being burgled. Bought 3 new keys today and set two in hiding outside, keeping one for when I have a house-sitter. That blew an hour in the morning and another hour in the evening. After that I went to work.

When I got home, I did a quick refresher course with Gimme on the eye contact game, planning to use it in our distraction training. I teach it the way Chris Bach teaches it, without a verbal cue to start it, rather your posture and attention to the dog is the cue. I used the eye contact game a lot in Michael’s distraction/anxiety training when he was young. I was thinking that it might work well for Gimme. I taught it to her when she was about three months old, but we didn’t get very far with it. She learned just the basic concept and wasn’t really ready for more. During this refresher, she picked up right where she left off and advanced very quickly. So I figured we were right on track to take it on the road.

Not long after that session my Mom called. The plumbing fix I installed last time I was there has been "broken". She admits she was probably yanking on it. I'm betting it wasn't completely seated. They had to shut the water off cuz it was spilling in the house. So between the 1:15 drive each way and at least 2 hours to do the repair the evening was shot to heck and back.

At least Gimme enjoyed the ride - in particular seeing her Grampy, my dad. We also managed a quick eye contact game session while there.

Enter Tuesday. I briefly went to work for just an hour. Then Gimme and I did the distraction training in two different spots in the Albertson’s parking lot. Using the eye contact game went better and faster than using known behaviors. I continue to use ten treats for check-in to warm her up to her environment and continue for the ten even if she indicates she’s ready to work sooner. I’ve found when I start working before the tenth check-in treat, I don’t seem to have her best attention, she’s not as focused.

After that we headed across town to where my chiropractor is and arrived half an hour before my appointment. So I got the safe place crate out and set in up in the shade of a little tree, with her Dalmatian spotted rug inside. I started with the crate because she seemed to need the additional visual barrier to do the relaxation protocol when I first taught it. I’ve decided to teach her to associate the rug with a place to do relaxation protocol. I’ll use it in the crate and then gradually pull it further out until we don’t need the crate.

Naturally right after we set up, the landscaping crew showed up. So we moved a few feet to the sidewalk and she got lots and lots treats for watching them work with their noisy landscaping tools, sometimes pretty close to us. A couple guys stopped and petted her and commented on how beautiful she is. You wouldn’t believe how many people think she can’t be a Dalmatian because of the "brown" spots. Gimme did really well with the lawn equipment and wasn’t much concerned. After they moved further away, we did a brief session of relaxation protocol, then she went back in the car as I went in for my appointment.

After that we headed out to the fort for our Tuesday walk. Gimme did better there with our getting out of the car routine using the eye contact game than she has in the past using known behaviors. Right as we were doing eye contact, a Blackhawk helicopter came in for a short field landing, passing overhead and about 30 feet to one side. Gimme only glanced at it and then went right back to work. If we ever go to an obedience trial on a helicopter glide path, we’ll be set to win our classes. I’m just saying…

Grape - dead bug (on back, feet in the air)
She made good progress holding herself on her back. I give her one or two to get started, then hold out for the better ones. She continues to offer this when she wants my attention or wants to change the subject. What a goof…

Melon - push cube with nose
We trained this first. It takes Gimme quite awhile to get past her foot interaction, but once she does she quite consistently pushes with her nose. I’m rewarding that with big jackpots and it seems to help. She has built in a down and then low-crawl up to push it with her nose, much of the time. For now I’m ignoring that and hoping it will go away when she is more consistently using her nose earlier in the session, since the down only shows up toward the end of the sessions. I’ll make sure it isn’t part of the iterations that I put a cue on.

Apple - back into a box, back feet only
Orange - get onto a small perch with all four feet
Peach - head under a chair
Not trained today.

Sunny day, Sunday...

After church today, as soon as the service was over I got Gimme out of the car, to take advantage of the people coming out and leaving.  My plan was that she would just have the experience of watching people go by.  Of course, when making that plan I didn't factor in little Miss People-Magnet Gimme.  About half the people that came out had to come and meet her. 

First was Marley and then her brother.  This family are all obsessive animal lovers.  They have so many animal species in their family and I've heard about a number of their adoptees over the years.  Marley was telling me about their latest rescue, a Chihuahua.  Its a little hard to imagine such a tiny dog in their large dog and large critter menagerie, but they always seem to make it work.  Anyway, Gimme's first interaction was with these two experienced kids, so they were very helpful in getting the edge off.

After that was a stream of other friends.  Naturally Gimme wanted to jump up and get in their face, so as quickly as possible I coached them as they were approaching to please take her collar and help her to not jump because "even though you might not care about her jumping on you, children and older people need her to be more polite."  So she got plenty of interactions with people that did not include greeting-by-assault.  Even though she didn't start out with four on the floor under her own power, it ended up that way.  She was getting lots of attention and petting for four on the floor and I was sometimes clicking/treating and other times just treating.

Then as the exodus thinned out, I put her back in the car and went inside to talk to friends who hadn't left yet.  I ran into pastor's wife on the way in and got an update on their rescue schnauzer that she'd called me about on Friday.  He's doing much better and she thanked me profusely for reassuring her during the call.

After I got inside I joined my friends and apologized for rushing away, explaining that I was busy using the church members as training props.  These friends are dog people too and thoroughly understood.  One couple were busy talking about how their police officer son in Texas is so excited about finally getting his canine partner to train after waiting three years (dad is a local cop).  The other couple are dear friends who adopted a breeder return Red Bone Coonhound with major fear and anxiety issues.  I'd spent a lot of time teaching them how to help her overcome her issues and now she is a fabulous, loving and very friendly dog. 

I am so blessed to go to a church with so many animal lovers in the congregation...

When we finished gabbing and headed out, they all had to come see Gimme, since it had been a couple months.  So she got even more interactions, starting with help to get it right and then just (mostly) getting it right on her own.  She's a smart cookie.

After everyone left, Gimme and I went and walked in the a park across the street, logging 2.25 miles.  She remembered her loose leash walking from yesterday and for the most part did really well.  At one point we went by some condos and a pair of Papillions on a second floor balcony were barking at her.  She stopped briefly to look and see where the barking was coming from, got some metronome treats and "whazzat" a few times and then we moved on. 

I noticed, even though she seemed not to pay much attention to the Paps, her loose leash got sloppy after that for awhile.  And she just couldn't seem to wrap her mind around sitting before crossing the street - so I resorted to luring and then copious treats for holding the sit.  So again, she shows her stress not with overt signs, but rather with degrading performance.  Partly I thought it was just that she was tired and it was fairly hot, but as we passed a really shady place where it was cool, she was still intent on pulling.  When we are walking without a leash and its hot, she will run ahead and lay all stretched out in a shady spot, so I thought she would be inclined to lay down there if it was just heat. 

About 90 minutes later we tried a short track on brick, but she didn't do so well.  We've done it when it was hotter than that, so I think she was still mentally fatigued.  Next time we'll do the tracking and then come back to town and find a place for a shorter walk and see if that works better.

After that we came home and watched a western.  This girl just loves anything with cows in it.  She doesn't care that much about horses, except that she sees them as a predictor of cows.  We were watching Lonesome Dove and it also had pigs and goats, which she was verrrrry interested in.  When the chickens were on the screen making noise, she rolled her eyes, sighed and laid her head on the armrest (even though she was sitting straight up). 

And no, I am not going to buy her a cow, a pig or a goat.  Though I would consider getting her one of those cute cowboys!

The Project - Day 11

Our day has been an on-again off-again sort of day.  My students were dying to see Gimme, so I took her in after class and ran her through her paces.  It took a few minutes to get her mind in gear, but once I did, she ran the sequence quite nicely (bars on the ground).   

Distraction training
After I taught this morning I took her to a place where we could have a nice walk.  Before we even started walking, we did ten check-ins by the car.  She got focused very quickly.  Where I'd chosen to walk is along a busy street, but much of it is part of a green swath and is about 20 feet back from the road.  We walked 2 miles.  The other reason I picked this place to have a nice stable surface to walk on, since I'd strained my bad knee training with the 4H-ers Thursday night  and I want to make sure it has a few more days before I risk a rougher surface. 

I've known before, but have been ignoring that reality, that I've been neglecting walking her on leash and teaching her loose leash walking.  I just really enjoy walking with Gimme off lead where she can explore and romp at will and I'm so blessed to have a number of nice places to do just that.  So today I picked a place where we could have a long walk without huge amounts of distractions, though I knew some would show up all the same. 

The walk started off nice enough and when I forced myself to concentrate on using the EasyWalk to train her, instead of just using it for management, she got a lot better pretty quickly.  Amazing what happens when you actually take a little time to train your dog, eh.  It was shaping into a nice walk.  We had a couple bikers pass us and she just ignores them.  We had to cross a couple streets, so she's starting to learn to sit and wait for permission to go forward. 

She was doing well and we stopped twice to do a couple behaviors.  Just before the turn around point, we passed a home with two small terriers and a bulldog in their yard.  Naturally the terriers were barking fools.  They were about fifty feet away from us, so I spent some time with metronome feeding.  When she was more relaxed about them, we played "whazzat", my cue for the Control Unleashed "look at that" game.  Then we moved on.  It was interesting that even though she seemed to be relaxed, her loose leash walking suffered.  Oftentimes she doesn't show her stress overtly and you only know its happening because of how her performance changes.

We went about another block and had to come back by.  I would have preferred to not go past them again on the return trip, but it just wasn't possible.  And the street we were on is so busy that I wouldn't have considered crossing the road to increase our distance.  However, when we went by them, she paid them little notice... and then sort of stuck her nose up in the air and moved on.  It would have been more effective demonstration of 'tude if we hadn't had to stop in five feet to sit and wait for the light! 

Also interesting... after that her loose leash walking came right back.  So going back past those foolish barkers seemed to work to her advantage.  I'm guessing because it gave her the opportunity to deal with them on her terms.  Then again I may be anthropomorphizing.

Apple - back into a box, back feet only
Not trained today.

Orange - get onto a small perch with all four feet

Not trained today.
 

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

I trained this after melon...  it is rapidly becoming Gimme's favorite thing to offer.  She is likely to throw it in at the oddest times.  Probably because I always end up laughing at her shenanigans and that pleases her inner-clown.

She is exhibiting a tendency to wiggle ever so briefly and then continue rolling over.  Even though I'm confident the vast majority of my clicks are hitting when she's momentarily stable on her back, I think that her continuing to roll is getting rewarded along with what I want.  So, first off, I've backed off naming this.  And I'm also beginning to withhold the click until she holds her on-the-back position a little more.  I plan to wait until she will hold in position for a strong 1-2 seconds before putting the name on it.

Peach - head under a chair

Not trained today.

Melon - push cube with nose
She still likes to bat at the cube with her feet and bite it.  I have been unsuccessful in deterring that.  I'd been trying to give her the hint by picking it up whenever she used her feet or bit the cube, but it wasn't working.  So I tried a different tactic.  

But before I did, there was a point halfway through this session where she was getting a bit frustrated by my obtuse insistence on not clicking her creative ideas, so she increased the level of wonderfulness.  She threw herself on the floor and grabbed the cube with her feet while doing grape.  Or she'd throw herself onto the cube, trying to do grape on it.  And a couple times she threw herself down next to it and while doing grape, would push the cube with her cheek or the side of her muzzle.  In her not-so-humble opine, a good grape variation is always worthwhile.  You have to know I really regretted not getting this on video.  I've always loved her ideas and often wish I could use more of them.

After that is when I decided to change my approach.  Rather than trying to discourage what I didn't want (pawing and mouthing), I upped the reward with a multi-treat jackpot, for nose pushes.  And to make the nose pushes more obvious for both of us, I tried setting the cube on one of the small ends (its about half an inch longer in one direction).  Then when she nose touches it, it rocks or falls over.   This seemed to work and toward the end she was giving me a lot of nose touches and pushes.  It really seemed to finally sink in for her. 

Hmmmm focus on rewarding what you do want while ignoring everything else.  Now where have I heard that before?

We also today got started on our long platforms ala Michelle Pouliet.  As always, I was astonished by how quickly Gimme picked this up.  Her brilliance makes training so much fun.  At one point, she did try many other variations.  She just never quite believes that I'm going to be happy with the simple and boring ideas I come up with.  She did lots of forehand pivots, spins, dancing in place and, of course, several grapes...

She is the funny one...

PSDC Picture

Wow, that was fast.  The picture is here from PSDC.  Unfortunately my scanner has officially croaked.  There is something wrong with the software.  I'll look around and see if I can find the original disk. 

Meanwhile I did my best to photograph the photograph - with the obvious result of poor quality.  Naturally, Gimme still looks adorable.

The Project - Day 10

This was a busy day, with much on our agenda.  As the holiday season approaches (I already have Halloween on display in three of my four accounts), I am trying to make the most of my days off.  I decided since it had been a week since we last worked on The Project, that it might be a good idea to do a baseline and figure out where we are on things.  Thus, my plan was to just do 10 click/treats on each behavior and see where they were after the week away. 

I'll try to get things set up for better quality videos next time. 

Apple - back into a box, back feet only

First, you can see the modifications that I made to her apple box.  It stays nicely out from the wall and no longer tips when her foot hits the sides.

Interestingly, the front feet returned with a vengeance the first time around.  I was careful to not do any extraneous clicks, but it seems its a behavior that is pretty firm in her mind.  I'm sure that is my fault.  Waiting for her to take her back feet out and then return them to get a click/treat didn't seem to be affecting her tendency to start with her front feet.  Its a distinction that I don't think was clear to her, so instead I was seeing a lot of unproductive frustration.  

So even though my plan was to baseline each behavior, I decided to try something and do another 10 treat session to see how it went.  I put her on leash, keeping it loose.  She "could" have pulled to get the front feet in, but never even tried.  In class our work was always on leash, so that may explain why she tended toward no front feet more often there than at home.  I think I will continue with the leash a few more times and then gradually fade its influence.

Orange - get onto a small perch with all four feet

This went well.  We are at the stage of teaching her the concept of waiting for the cue.  So that is what you are seeing here.  There's a little bit of extinction, a little bit of clicks for waiting (carefully extending the time) and some of the mixed sets.  I think she was beginning to get the concept toward the end. 

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

Its really very funny how much she loves this behavior.  She'd make a very good clown.  You can see based on just the time it takes to get ten click/treats with this versus the other behaviors.  I'm still giving her a click when she gets into down, just to get her started since this behavior has no prop.  She's also getting a click for rolling over at the start.  Once the name goes on the behavior, those clicks will go away.  I am just starting to add the name in this session.

Peach - head under a chair

When we left off, this behavior was on cue.  It becomes very clear in the beginning of this clip that Gimme thinks the cue only applies to the chair we were using at class, where we added the cue.  Interesting thing to see - so clearly I need to get the behavior better generalized BEFORE adding the cue, possibly adding the cue over different sessions using different chairs.  In any case, once I got her started putting her head under this chair, it only took a couple repeats of the cue for her to understand that it applies to this chair too.  That's because she's such a smarty pants.

Melon - push cube with nose
This is the behavior that needs the most work I think.  Her tendency to bat at or bite the cube is still very strong.  It's just going to take awhile for her to understand and accept the behavior I want.  At this stage where I have to still have one hand on the cube most of the time, I find I'm all thumbs.  Its just so hard to manage the cube, clicker and treats.  I am continuing to pick up the cube briefly if she paws at it.  And of course, if all else fails, offer The Grape.

Distraction training
I had several errands to run, so did the parking lot thing. 

At Topfoods she did exceptionally well and really got to training quickly - only 8 check-ins before she was ready.  We were at the far end of the lot and it was quiet.  The only challenge being that it was a place she'd never been before.  At Target, it started out well and I thought it might be much like the prior mini-session.  But then a car parked near us and the lady off-loaded a kid.  Gimme looooooves kids and even after they were gone she was still distracted by their having been there and the mere possibility of kids.  She did finally pull it together.  At Albertsons, it took her quite awhile to get focused, but once she did she did well.  At the fort before our walk, it took a long time, on par with how long it took after the kid distraction.

One interesting thing I notice is that toward the end of her 10 check-ins (around #7), she tends to move into heel position.  She looks around, then checks in, then looks around again, then checks in.  She's not really ready to go to work when she moves into heel, but this shows me that at some level she knows what comes next.  Quite astute.

My sense is that its too much for her to do her fruit training and distraction training so close in time (separated by about an hour) and maybe even too much to do them both on the same day.  The distraction training seems to be more taxing for her than is immediately apparent.  So in the future, I'll make sure that at the very least there is several hours between them, if not on different days entirely.

And so now we are off and running again.  I have promised to go help the 4H kids that I judged recently.  Its something I try to do every year before they go to state.  I join them for a training session and give each kid that qualified for state, a ten minute private in which they can address anything they want.  Its fun...