Come Fido! class grads

Here are photos of four of the six dogs who graduated from the most recent Come Fido! class, just before Easter.

We've chuckled at what a mouthful it was to try to keep track of the names of these dogs...try saying this in rapid succession: Kiska, Tess, Jazz, Ezzy, Sass, Jess!
And how is it possible that three dogs; Jazz, Jess and Tess end up in the same group :-) It's like a tongue twister from a children's book.

We've worked on everything Recall-related. My own favourite part has been to see the dog's play skills - namely retrieve and tug - develop and build. 
A high percentage of dog owners that I have in classes report that "my dog only retrieves so so - and likely won;t bring the toy back even if he will chase it first". There is a really simple two-toy trick that I absolutely love to get these dogs thinking otherwise and actually doing a full retrieve. For the majority of dogs, it works really, really well and is quite fast, too. 


And why is retrieve or tug important in a Recall class, you ask?
Well, there are many different ways to approach recall training. The old school methods (sadly still in use) are very heavy-handed and heavily rely on physical punishment and trying to show the dog what is "wrong" and that the dog must obey, or else. People who turn to the use of electric shock collars often feel very justified doing so (he must obey) and say things like "it's for the dog's own good. It's shock collar or the dog can't ever be let off leash. I HAVE TO KNOW that when I call, my dog comes." etc...justifications go on.

To me, the most important question in choosing what route to take with any training is to consider what kind of relationship it is you want to have with your dog. That little piece "MUST obey, or else" just really does not sit well with me. What God-given right do we have to say something like that? Amazingly enough, I find many people have never even reflected over this?! We're still, in many ways living in the dark ages, overshadowed by this mentality of "dogs must, or else"...but have not really even considered what that means or why we would have the right to say that?!


Where play fits in nicely is in a program where we do care about the relationship between human and dog and start to look for 'why should the dog care about where you are to begin with?' and this is where play can be a phenomenal tool. When YOU play with your dog, you are developing a relationship and saying to your dog that you can facilitate his pleasure and desire to play - you thus start to become a fun and reinforcing person to be around! The whole training process becomes less about "Why should the dog HAVE to come to you when you call?" and more about the realization that you've invested so much joy and fun into playing together with your dog - that, when eventually you do need to call him to you: "Why WOULDN'T the dog want to come to you when you call?" It's a completely different starting point and different mind-set.
One that I think pays off in dividends. 
Every time you play with your dog, as long as the play is honest, sincere and fun for both of you - you are investing in your relationship and putting "money in the bank".. that when you need to call him - the investment will pay off; he'll happily come bounding to you! 
Teaching an older dog to play tug or retrieve with a human can be a journey...for some it will be a fast track to success, for others it will require more time. I've written about this topic before if you're interested to search through archives for ideas on How To - but bottom line is: the time invested in teaching good and solid play skills is worth it! If your dog will play with you any time, anywhere - you have a powerful reward, but also; more than likely - you have a happy partner who has learned just how much fun it is to hang out close to you! 


The dog is not living in fear of when and what punishment will happen next - but instead the sparkle in his eyes will tell you his mind is on the "game": Another game is just around the corner...any moment now...any moment now...


and THAT you can do a lot with as the trainer/ handler!

"My dog will not play with me!"

I wish I could share all of this through video. But some moments just happen too spontaneously. So my video camera was not part of this process sadly. Instead I'll try to illustrate through words...

I am realizing Pinot has reliable play when outside, and in the context of agility...but I need to work on also getting play
more reliably as a break when we've been working with food. There are huge benefits to having a dog who will go back and forth between food and toys with cheer. 

This is a story about my own challenge over the last three days to figure out a plan how to get my lovely Pinot to play tug with me in situations when I am taking a break from reinforcing with food! It has been a long journey to get her to Tug, period....it took about 9 months to build her desire to actually tug. Now we have it...it seems - outside and in highly arousing situations, such as in the context of agility or outside on walks or in combination with retrieving. But what I just discovered is that we don;t have reliable play everywhere! ...for example, here at home, if I have been working on behaviours using food first/ and her expectation seems to be to get FOOD.


So, I set out yesterday with a plan. I had a hungry dog, clicker, her breakfast (small piece of chicken back cut into small tiny training size pieces) and a tug toy. We started shaping, super short and absolutely sweet. Big steps forward with each click. After only a few repetitions, I felt it was time for a big celebration-reward with a tugging break. Only now we encountered a new dilemma. She saw the tug toy and left the room! No amount of silly, goofy play-talk could convince her that playing with me was going to be fun! Oh bother...now what?


So, I proceeded to do some shaping with Maggio instead. Pinot of course heard us working and immediately came into the room, offering what had just been rewarded. I decided to let her go on while ignoring her and just focusing on Maggio. (Sometimes this has had fantastic results...training the OTHER dog can bring about great results sometimes). When Maggio's turn was up, I called Pinot to me and presented the toy again -- the plan was to immediately go back to food if she decided she could play first. But she clearly felt the answer was a simple: NO WAY! And again left the room...


So Maggio got another turn at working and the same thing happened again. When Pinot's turn rolled around again - she saw the toy and left.
Three failures in a row. Absolutely no sense continuing, I had to give my plan a re-think and try to come up with a way to work through this.


I know how much she loves her raw chicken and had a feeling that having the open container of chicken right in front of her while presented with a tug toy was probably a huge conflict for her; chicken really trumps any toy. Ideally, of course, I'd like to have her be able to go back and forth between any reinforcer as "I please", but reality is, I realize (now) I have not been diligent in building and maintaining this -- especially here at home - so I have to start with a step by step process. So, my thought was: what if I would make it a bit easier by putting the chicken away (in the fridge) and just bring it out after she has tugged a bit?
Other options included to change the food to a lower value food...go to boring kibble or something else less exciting than chicken. Or...another thought...I know how sensitive Pinot is to "feeling pressure"...maybe I am overwhelming her in my deep desire to get her to play? (I know this has happened before...)


Here is what I did: the chicken went into the fridge and Pinot got a short break. I summoned my 9 year old daughter and asked if she would help. She is a great little helper and definitely plays tug without any "social pressure" whatsoever. And because of Pinot's smaller (than Maggio) size - and ability to understand rules of play they are wonderfully compatible play-mates when tugging. So we gathered in the kitchen and the toy came out..in my daughter's hand this time. YEEY! SUCCESS!!! Pinot happily hopped on to the end of the sheep skin toy and started tugging...first a little softly, but then with 85% of her usual gusto! Success! We marked the tugging and grip with a "YES!" and ran over to the fridge to pull out some chicken for her. 
We then took a small break again to let Pinot "think about it" for a few minutes...and then repeated. Success again! Play first = then you get food! After my daughter had, this way, fed her about 3/4 of her breakfast, and Pinot's usual tugging had returned, I asked for a turn and tried the same. Success! We were still not doing sessions back-to-back and I didn't even want to try to go back to tugging immediately after feeding a couple of pieces of chicken, but felt that this was great success and indeed progress. For the rest of the day we did no more training.


Fast forward 24 hours. Breakfast again. Now her breakfast was going to be "boring kibble" and the tug toy was with me again. Again I wanted to start with the toy and the plan was to immediately go on to training with food if she only played some tug first. BUT it did not go that way....Pinot AGAIN left me as soon as I presented the toy to her  :-( So I gave it about 30 minutes while I re-organized my thoughts. What if I just tried to start with a session of shaping (using the kibble) and then after a few reps tried to take a break playing with the toy?


It went against all logic of "do what I want you to do first" but I also knew it would take all potential frustration out of that first session and would also reduce the unwanted social pressure. I try so hard to be relaxed and not put pressure on her, but she is a remarkably sensitive little girl and just not able or willing to work when she feels pressured. Many times it is beyond the conscious level: I want something from her and she feels Pressured.


So, we started with a shaping session using kibble. She was a willing and happy worker! When I broke out the toy to play, she clearly said NO. I remained sitting on the floor and just played goofy games involving some petting and mostly my voice....and to my surprise she engaged and loosened up and started bouncing up and down with joy. Allright, I thought - I'll take that. Maybe I can't get play with a toy right now but maybe I can get happy bouncing? So we did happy bouncing, with the toy parked beside me on the floor. And then continued shaping. Another play-break...more happy bouncing. I didn't even touch the toy, just left it beside me on the floor.
A third shaping session...then break for play...and wonder of all wonders...Pinot went over to the sheep skin toy and put her open mouth over it playfully growling. YEEY!!! I totally praised her up and grabbed the other end to give it some movement: she grabbed! AND TUGGED back! SUCCESS!!!


I only kept her engaged on the toy for maybe 10-15 seconds, asked for a "give!" and immediately went into another super-short shaping session with food. Back to the toy....back to shaping...back to the toy. What a great feeling! And how happily Pinot was participating in the games!


I don;t think the whole dilemma is resolved by any means. I am prepared for a journey yet again, but at least I think I have a sense of where to start/ or continue. And now I also know that transitioning between food and toy is not something I must ever take for granted with this girl. With Maggio I did have to go through a similar process/ in reverse (please take food also if there is an exciting toy) but once we worked through that, it has not come back to give me issues again. I THOUGHT I had established this with Pinot, but clearly I was mistaken. So - I have just added ANOTHER thing to my List of Behaviours to Train in 2012. 
I know with time, patience and practise we can do it :-)

"This puppy can't do it!" or do we need to find better motivation?

Last night in Puppy Foundation Skills class we worked on a variety of Attention games and Focus. There were five pups in the group and for most of them it was week two or three in a very distracting environment! Quite often we'll have this conversation about the need to find something (usually food or toy) that Puppy really likes that we can use to reinforce (reward) the behaviors we like and are working on. Without something that the puppy truly cares about, the "training" can easily become an exercise in frustration and can understandably seem like a battle that can't be won. It can totally seem like "This puppy can't or won't do it!" I've often heard people sigh in frustration and say "My puppy is just too distracted!"

If that seems to be the case - (usually) there is nothing wrong with the puppy. There is just an imbalance between what the owner is using as a "reward" and a very stimulating environment that seems very enticing and inviting (puppy mates to potentially get to play with?!!!) Unless we really take care too look for something that the puppy TRULY values - why would a baby animal automatically "know" what is wanted or asked of him and choose to turn to a person with "mediocre" rewards?

Quite often we have this idea that any food should do - any puppy should work for any kind of cookie or any kind of toy in any kind of environment. After all - we gave the puppy SOMETHING, right? Shouldn't that be enough?

Something pretty cool happened last night that illustrates just how big a difference the choice of reinforcement (reward) can make.

I had been keeping an eye on one of our newest members of the class, observing and hearing from the handler how distracted her puppy was; unable to focus. I was sensing some frustration growing. I asked if I could borrow the puppy for a moment to demonstrate the next exercise (a baby heeling/ attentive leash walking exercise).

After quickly establishing that the puppy was comfortable being with me, I held the leash handle in my hand and simply waited for the puppy to acknowledge me. After a short moment, the puppy offered a quick head turn in my direction...I praised her up and said "YES!" and smiling warmly at the puppy I pulled out some string cheese to reward this voluntary check-in. She ate her cheese slowly as if wondering about it - and went out to the end of the leash to strain toward another puppy and see if she would get to go play. I didn't let her get to the puppy but stood still again waiting for her to check back with me...waited a little longer this time...and eventually she looked back in my direction. I again told her "YES!" and offered another piece of string cheese. Same lukewarm reaction from her. She ate the cheese but not with the kind of gusto that comes from true enjoyment. A few more repetitions of the same....each time it seemed to take a little longer before she checked back with me and between each repeptition there seemed to be more straining away and more sniffing of the floor. I was now looking for plan B as I was running out of cheese and thinking "This is not really working".

After the on-leash version (described in text) is well established,
it is not such a big step to remove the leash and continue to
work the puppy off-leash. By giving the rewards right next to your body
you start to convince the puppy that this is indeed a "magical
place" and they start to show up beside your leg more and
more and more...

So I re-loaded my pocket with some freeze dried liver instead. My demo-Puppy could immediately smell the difference and what a shift in attitude we got to witness! All of a sudden I had a puppy looking up to me, offering gorgeous attention, and when praised and told "YES!" she was snarfing up her liver with GUSTO!  and very quickly re-orienting to me yet again and again... as if continually asking "Is this what you want? This? What about this? And this too?"
We started exactly the same as before. I stood still, just waiting for her to look in my direction. When she did, I told her "YES!" smiling and offering her a piece of liver or two. It only took seconds before she simply would not look away, she would not leave my side! She just stood there beside me looking into my face and eyes. That is the first step. When that was established, I would start to move. One or two steps. Was puppy following? YES! she was! So again I would verbally praise her up, tell her YES! and pull out a piece of liver and reward right next to my pant leg (in the location I want the dog to walk for nice polite walking-beside). It was a beautiful sight and this puppy had in a matter of minutes transformed from "too distracted to focus" to a focus-machine...looking for ways to earn more reinforcement!

There was no magic to this - the importance lies in Understanding what happened and how it impacts your dog's ability to learn and focus and be motivated to work. What we use as "rewards" are only reinforcing to the dog if the DOG sees them as true rewards and WANTS them! Sometimes we simply have to experiment and try different things! Like with my demo puppy. We learned something about what she truly finds valuable yesterday.

People who really get hooked on dogs sports have usually
also been very successful at developing a nice repertoire of
"top rewards". Big effort = Big reward. Everyone is happy,
and the dog loves the continual challenges presented.

In this puppy's case the difference between "too distracted and not interested in training" and a "learning machine" involved a switch from something we "think" should be a reward: cheese (which is something many dogs looove - but this puppy felt lukewarm about) or the dry dog bisquits the owner had been trying to use (which clearly were not of high enough value) to something we let her tell us she WANTS: dried liver.

It's really no different than motivating people when you think about it. One of my mentors and teachers, Chris Bach (The Third Way) illustrated this to me with a very memorable example. Let's say you have a job where there are big performance bonuses paid out in event tickets. You are a hockey fan and really don;t care for the Opera at all, but your boss at work insisted on paying your performance bonus in tickets to go see the Opera. How "rewarding" would you find that? How long would you continue to work in that kind of situation? Would it seem like it's worth your while?

But if your boss now had a conversation with you about your wants and desires and you could tell him you'd really prefer tickets to hockey games instead - and he started to give you wonderful tickets to your favorite hockey teams' games...now, wouldn't that change things? All of a sudden you would feel like you were heard and had great motivation to work!

So, for our dogs - whom we do not have the ability to converse with like that...we need to find out in different ways. It's worth doing some experimentation with and can be a discovery as simple as what we had in class. Or it might take some time and effort to really find out.
Sometimes the top reinforcers will change, too. So keep experimenting and try different things! Also switch things up. The more highly-sought-after rewards you know you have in the repertoire to use, the easier the journey will be! What are your dog's favorite "tickets"? What is going to help motivate him so that he goes from "Too distracted to work" or "mediocre response" to that "WITH GUSTO and brilliance!" response?!