"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 :-)

Where is it? FOUND IT!!!!

Here is a short video of dogs working some fun search games we do in the Thinking Games class.  
They've played the game a few times at this stage and are getting more and more independent with their searching...now so thrilled with the game that they can play off leash, because they will stay with the game, knowing there's something fun and rewarding at the end!!! 

Latest graduates and what we did in class lately...

This is Jazz.

This is Seven.

Here are a few shots of the most recent class graduates. The first two (top of this page/ along with a third who sadly missed "grad night") graduated from Manners class. The three at the bottom took part in a 6-week mixed class where we combined content from three different classes: Rally'O, Thinking Games as well as intro to Conceptual Learning. What great fun! It is always rewarding and fun for me, too, when people go on with the training beyond just the very basics. In this mixed class we got to introduce dogs and handlers to Rally'O (Rally Obedience) and worked through a couple of Level 1 courses as well as picked apart some of the more complex individual stations and exercises. We also started intro work on teaching concepts; meaning; NOUNS -- teaching the dogs names of objects. This is often a totally new concept; requiring a new and systematic way of working and teaching, as most of the things we normally teach our companion dogs centers around action-verbs, "doing" something. When working on teaching nouns, there is a small degree of "action" - in that we need some kind of indication behavior so the dog can "point" to the object we ask for, but the rest is quite different from most other things we do and it is rewarding yet challenging to work through the stages. Fantastic mental exercise for the dogs! (well, humans, too!)

This is Halle.

This is Charm.

This is Aspen.

As a favorite, we also did some fun Nose Work Games...working on independent searching through some simple yet amazingly fun search games. We start easy and add complexity and challenges as the dogs get confident with understanding the game. Will upload a small video to illustrate some of this fun so stay tuned...video coming soon :-) The search games are usually a favourite for both dogs and people. It is truly remarkable to watch a dog keen to use his or her nose in a game we all approve of...the joy is ever so obvious! FUN to see them use their powerful noses...

Thoughts on relationship and value...

With only a few sleeps until Xmas, surrounded by thoughts of Giving, Sharing and Being Grateful, I find myself reflecting over the human-dog relationship. I know I don’t need to tell you that dogs are amazing.. But I’ll spend a few moments reflecting and pondering with you.

Besides being our constant companions…obviously dogs have brilliant ability to learn…beyond what most of us actually really explore and push boundaries for. We have not even scratched the surface for what we could indeed teach our companion dogs. I am convinced, too that dogs DO love and WANT to learn:  they LOVE the attention they get in the teaching/learning process. If you are a good “employer” (which hopefully you strive to be), make it safe for the dog to experiment and offer behaviors and pay your dog well for effort and learning - the relationship that develops in this process is also truly remarkable and will continue to deepen and flourish further, the more you teach and the more you challenge the dogs’ brain to keep learning! I see it in classes and my clients all the time. Dogs absolutely love learning, they truly enjoy and want to be participants in the process…and they are utterly and bluntly honest about what they know and what they don’t know! And how fun for people, too…to see their companion shine!

So…when you Have taught your dog some stuff…we run into a topic which often is controversial and met with questions and hot debate. We have taught our dogs some basic skills/ manners  and “we know that the dog knows” these – should they not just “obey” because they “know”?? We are the leaders and they should be subservient and just DO things because we ask them? Misbehaviour really shouldn’t happen “Because they know better?”!?

Like walking nicely on leash, for example…if we’ve given them a few cookies during a few walks for being beside our leg, then yanked them a few times and told them “NO!” for pulling…and again given them another treat for walking beside…should they not KNOW better? Have we now not clearly shown them what leash walking should look like? Shouldn’t they now walk nicely all the time? ---Maybe not…Here’s my take on stuff like:

walking nicely beside your leg (VS. sniffing the ground, or pulling toward something really exciting),                          

coming when called (VS. running off to play with another dog or chasing a bunny),                                                          relaxing and lying down calmly waiting (VS.  lunging away from you, straining, looking for fun elsewhere when on leash)…

Dogs are completely HONEST about where they see the VALUE. Where has your dog, through a history of reinforcement (rewards) learned that there is FUN, Joy, and opportunity for reinforcement?? THAT is where his attention and energy will be directed to! If you don’t build a reinforcement history for walking nicely next to your leg but instead  your dog finds amazing joy in straining away from you to smell the world, try to chase bunnies…etc…of course your dog will think that the value when on leash is Definitely AWAY from you. Not in being WITH you.

If your dog has lots of opportunity to play off leash in the dog park, running AWAY from you and learning that other dogs are truly Amazing and fun, whereas you are mainly a sure-fire signal that the fun is about to end and there is no reward history telling the dog that hearing you call him would ever have any significantly positive consequence (possibly rather the other way around) L - of course your dog will see more value in running away from you towards other dogs, than he will see in coming TO you. Simple as that. 

IF, however, you take the time to build YOUR value…teach your dog how to play games with YOU, teach your dog that beside your pant leg is the best place in the World to walk (have him earn all his breakfasts and dinners for walking where you WANT him to walk) and spend time BEING YOUR DOG’S BEST FRIEND…guaranteed, in the process your dog will start to Seek You Out as someone fun and reinforcing to be around!

I am often amazed at how many students in my classes complain about the dog’s “lousy recall” and when discussing the dog’s daily/weekly routine we quickly discover that INCREDIBLE time and effort is dedicated toward making sure that the dog has ample opportunity to play off leash in the dog park, but one-on-one time owner-to-dog is nearly non-existent. Why would we then be surprised to find that the dog clearly chooses other dogs over the owner? When looking at things from a “minutes-per-day” perspective, it is pretty clear that the owner has actually taught the dog: life is all about other dogs, not human family members. Why is it then a surprise that the dog has clearly chosen to stop listening to the human being at all? It should not be a surprise…nor should the “fix” feel like a mystery. Dogs are (sometimes brutally) honest. They tell you, through their actions, where they see the value.

The really good news is this: You can CHANGE THIS! If the value isn’t where you would like it to be; you CAN switch things around! Really, I see and help people do it all the time!

The most functional and rewarding relationships definitely seem to be ones where the dog sees a ton of value in being with their person and actually will CHOOSE to be with the human, even when “distractions” are present. It is also a relationship based on trust and a safety. In the most successful human-dog relationships that I see, (if I define that simply in terms of least amount of friction and frustration) besides the very important safety factor, it is quite obvious that the owner has been able to build their own value to a large degree / the dog clearly WANTS to be with and “do” stuff with and for the human being. These people, while obviously committed to spending one-on-one time with their dogs are not rigid or unrealistic in their expectations of their dogs, they understand that there is an on-going balancing act; and they are also flexible and open to re-adjusting this balance as the relationship develops and evolves. Keeping and maintaining your value as a “best friend” to your dog is not something we should take for granted or think we don’t have to work toward and continually assess. Relationships evolve and change, and so does the value scale, which needs to be looked at and adjusted from time to time. In times of frustration, or when “mistakes” happen – important to consider that your dog is not to blame for “mistakes” – inevitably it is the human being who is responsible for:

a)      Making sure you make and take time for your dog: one-on-one

-in dog agility a common saying is also ”BE the handler. SHOW the way!”. BE the driver, be the chauffeur. Call it whatever you want – time and commitment is needed!

b)      Actually teach your dog what you DO want him TO DO instead of just being frustrated at the  “don’t do’s”.

c)       If/ when there are “mistakes” – ‘Fess up! Your dog is not to blame! Dogs are (well yes, they ARE opportunists) but always HONEST…if there are “mistakes”… Either you have not done a) taken time for your dog, or b) there are gaps in what or how you have taught him. He is probably not prepared well enough for what you are asking of him!

With these thoughts to ponder, I leave you to celebrate a very Merry Christmas! And wishing you a Happy New Year, too! As part of your New Years’ resolutions, maybe consider adding a resolution relating to the current relationship with your dog!? Is there room for improvement? Teaching better, more solid skills? Or maybe just spending more one-on-one time; making sure you live up to being His/ Her Best Friend, too?! And of course, if you would like some support on your Journey – I’d LOVE to see you, whether in a class or private one-on-one.  

A few grad photos

Pinot agility training

Fantastic and really fun day of agility training with Pinot yesterday! I will share some video below.
We've been working skills, handling and equipment for a year and being that Pinot is my very first agility dog - I am exstatic about where we are! It really has been a totally adrenaline filled and addictive journey! I can see many, many more agility dogs in my future :-) The new year 2012 will hold the next adventure for us: our first competitions! I can't wait to get to our first trial! It will probably be chaotic and crazy - but amazing FUN nevertheless! Here's a video from yesterday's training session.

I am really looking forward to the upcoming Lynda Orton-Hill agility workshops we have signed up for, we'll be working and learning over three days Nov 18-20, 2011. Will have to share more about what we learned, after...

The learning we have under our belt to date is a big complilation of skills and coaching from a ton of different sources. I have been trying to absorb information and "stuff" about agility for a good three years..reading books and magazines, watching DVDs, watching people compete and train both live and on youtube (tons of good stuff out there!) and talking to agility trainers, competitors, etc.

By the time I got Pinot (two years ago) I had a good idea of where to start and what route I wanted to take. We've obviously learned together, side-by-side and many times I have had to pause and go back and ask questions before continuing on with our training. But it's fun to be where we are today!
Her first year was spent just building important foundation skills without obstacles; circle work, tricks, body awareness, and basically learning the ins and outs of how to  "run together". Last fall and over the winter is when we really started teaching jumping skills, working on contact behaviors and slowly and gradually combining all of it into short sequences and introducing the other pieces of equipment. Weaves were not introduces until this past spring.

Last year I hosted a "Backyard Agility seminar" twice - bringing in my good friend Catherine Thomas, from New Brunswick to come and coach, teach and help myself and others interested in agility, to get off on the right track. She basically uses the Greg Derrett and Susan Garrett handling system of handling, so this is the one I have been tryinig to learn and use as well. When she was out, we basically designed a "plan" with desirable steps to teach and achieve over the winter months: some focusing on small little behaviors (such as what's  needed for the 2on 2 off contact), others being handling skills - getting the dog to understand pinwheels, 270s and such....and this "list of skills" is one I have referred back to many times.

A lot of our training has been done in really small spaces as it's tough to get access to large pieces of land for training in Banff and Canmore. About once a month I have thus tried to get out to Kim Boyes' Hyper Hounds near Okotoks for privates or semi-privates to add to our "homework" list and get help with my handling, as well as have opportunity to practise on all of the equipment and as of lately; start to do full courses. I have also been going to a different facility about once a month where I can just pay a fee to use the space and equipment - there's no teaching or coaching - you just work by yourself.

I've managed to get in on a couple of other agility workshops also: last December: Justine Davenport was in Calgary for a "Double Box work" seminar, which Pinot and I took part in. A video from our work at that seminar can be found here:
Pinot, Dec 2010 Double Box work seminar It's fun to look back at stuff like this now and really see how big a difference a year of training can make!

This fall I got to see Anneli Hilton in "Distance Skills 101" (seminar), which was all about starting to work: yeah, you guessed it: Distance!
There are more influences, but this gives an idea....There's a great saying about kids that goes something like "It takes a Village to raise a child"...I think the same is true for raising Pinot to become an agility dog. I have many people to Thank for her progress and our learning together. And OH how much fun the journey has been!

Rally Obedience with Maggio

This past weekend I competed with Maggio at the APDT Rally Obedience trial hosted by Sit Happens! in Calgary. We needed one more leg in Level 3 to get his RL3 title - and it just had to be under a different judge than Tammy Brooks who we had already qualified twice under in the spring.

Funny thing, how this training and behavior stuff seems to Evolve without us realizing. I mean - I really did not train and practise much at all for this trial as I have felt pretty confident in our skills in regards to what's required for Level 3. I read through the exercise signs and did a couple of run throughs last week, feeling like "we've got this under control". I should be able to handle through the courses and we should be able to finsih (provided my ring nerves stay under control). But then, in the ring - a brand new problem was born. One that I didn't even know existed.

Our first round, under judge Sarah-Jane Petti - a round which WOULD have counted (had we qualified), resulted in an NQ due to a silly brain fart that took me completely by surprise. Stuff that just "happens" and left me confused about what really did happen? The brain fart moment caught me totally off guard and I was not prepared with a "plan" of how to handle it. Had I kept my brain on my head through it - I would have said to the judge "I would like to re-do this station"...taken a few steps back and re-done the station...thus resulting in deductions in points - but because of my choice to just keep trying on the spot without indicating I am re-doing - I had a Non Qualifying score. It was very messy and also pin-pointed a brand new problem to me: Maggio was totally confused about the similarity of the words "Stay" and "Stand". It had never happened before, but with so many position changes in a row in Rally and going from sit to down to stand and then sometimes leaving the dog with "stay" - I think everything just became a guessing game. He was honestly confused - and happily trying his best. Here is a video of this run:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtuKlYzl_08

I only did this one round on Saturday, went home for a "think", a glass of wine and a good sleep before returning back on Sunday. In my warm ups on Sunday I made a point of experimenting with what difference it made whether I used or dropped my hand-signal to "stay" simultaneously as I said "Stay" and whether I could really slur through the first letters in "st...." and really emphasize the "AY!" when I wanted him to STAY. as opposed to "Stand" when I tried to really enunciate every letter. With this somewhat comical plan I made it through the first half of the course pretty nicely....and then we ran into the same trouble again. Stay? or Stand? WHAT?

This time, though - I knew that I have to tell the judge clearly that I am re-doing...and re-do I did: a few times, before we got our stuff straight. Goodness gracious. We got through it but Now I REALLY had to come up with a Real plan.
Here is the video of this round: (which I call "warm up" as it is for the "wrong" judge, so even though we did qualify and had a score of 199, it did not count towards the title)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raIbgzziqtM


I now had a few hours before my final try. I drove off with Maggio, found a nice, big piece of grass in the city and over three little mini sessions set out to convince him that "WAIT" is the new "Stay". I had come to the conclusion that the frequent changes of position, similarity in words was just too confusing and without a new cue that would really sound distinctly different, I would be up for the same mess. Same hand signal, just a new word that is distinctly different than "Stand" to replace the old "Stay". This saved us in the last round. We got through. No big mess-ups, "Wait" worked and Maggio was happy to work. We lost some points to other mistakes and oopses, but with 6 months to wait until the next opportunity to try - I was happy with some loss of points - at least this counted: and Maggio finished his RL-3 title. Hooray!

A big Bison bone for Maggio in the car on the way home. A smile on my face. A couple of ribbons to add to our collection. One fourth placement and one third. But Mostly I returned home with a great feeling of gratitude for a dog who was so very happy to work. It felt like true teamwork and really fantastic to work together! He made me very proud. I hope he understood the many Thank yous I tried to convey last night. He's never asked to sign up in any trial - yet he's travelled this journey with me as a very willing and happy partner. What amazing creatures these dogs are!!!!