I am a bad blogger!

Well between visitors, mowing, and hot, hot weather, my training efforts got slowed down for about a week or so. My blogging efforts definitely got slowed down but training has been kicking along, it's just boring & repetitive training so it's dull to video. Well it's too hot to mow today so I'm going to get my blog on (and avoid doing laundry).



So what's been up.

Well I'll start by showing some video of both Squibby & George doing box work. Hum, it's old footage, but another step in the process anyway. http://www.youtube.com/mcjayne#p/u/0/6wye0csmET4



Squibby the Squibbler!

Squibby does a good job work for his tug, but we've struggled at team practices with the distraction of all the fun people & dogs he can visit. So he needs a lot more work on making flyball super fun & slowly increasing the level of distractions. Turns out flyball is played in a setting that's just chock full of distractions, but for a young dog this is something I would rather expect. Squibby however is currently in another foster home as Jo was watching a friends dog that I normally dog sit, and he wasn't thrilled with her social butterfly/playmaniac young dog. So we traded Squibby for Cisco until Cisco's owner gets back from vacation. Squibby is really happy there and is playing up a storm with her dog. So good to know he is exactly the same dog no matter what house he's in!



George of the Jungle!

George has lost weight & is in really nice shape. With his endurance and physical fitness in better shape he's been able to work for longer sessions, which is helpful. So aside from runbacks & box work our primary focus has been on ball work. It went like this:

Step 1

Look at ball, click reward

Step 2

Nose touch ball, click reward

Step 3

Open mouth a little while touching ball, click reward

Step 4

Nibble on ball, click reward

Step 5

Nibble a LOT on the ball, click reward

Step 6

Use teeth to pick up ball, click reward

Step 7

Pick up ball from further away, click reward

Step 8

Chase moving ball, pick it up, bring it back towards me, click reward

Step 9

Do step 8 in various locations, and ball placed further away and is stationary or moving.

Step 10

Jump over a jump and bring the ball back to me, click reward, and lots of rewards!



Yes folks it's just that easy, in only 10 steps he's getting the ball. Ha aha ha. Now for some details.

Step 1, easy, he looked at it, he got a click, reward

Step 2, still easy, touch it with your nose, get a reward, once they got this I start waiting for them to offer a double nose touch

Step 3, smear ball with gooey treat, he opens mouth to lick it off & gets a click reward and lots of them b/c the reward needs to be better than the goo on the ball. He really liked Step 3!

Step 4, ball now has a slit in it, and a treat is wedged in the slit, so he has to work to get the treat out (or further in the ball), and when his teeth make contact he got a click & rewards, again heavily rewarded b/c he's leaving another treat to get the reward. We worked a lot of Steps 3 & 4.

Step 5, George now has the concept: put teeth on ball, move teeth, get reward, so we stopped baiting the ball with anything tasty and he had to do it on a regular old ball. He got that quickly because in steps 3 & 4 he was consistently rewarded heavily for leaving the baited ball to get an even better reward. We did this A LOT, I have an immense amount of video of this, it bores me to fast forward thru it so just imagine lots of repetitions here. When he would consistently nibble, look at me and nibble some more, it was time to move on. Here is video of George ball nibbling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97HzIqKSGRw

Step 6, Part a) I cheated. I have this ball toy that looks like a christmas ornament, it's got a nubby on one end so it makes for an easy thing to pick up. I then took a tiny bowl, and put the ornament ball into the cup...but the bottom of the bowl was filled with diced ham. Yummy. I kept a finger on the ornament ball (let's call it GOB for short), so that George couldn't nose or paw it out of the bowl. The only way to gain access to the ham was to put his teeth on it & pull it out. I let George problem solve his way thru that puzzle, and he figured out that he could easily bite on the nubby part and pull the GOB out of his way. At which point I clicked and he had full access to the ham in the bowl & I gave him additional ham bits. Repeat, although I only let him have the ham in the bowl about 5 times before I started clicking & making the only treats he got come from me & not the bowl (the focus is not the bowl's goodies, the GOB is the magical treat producing element!). If I had not had the GOB around, I would have rigged up a string or loop around the ball so he had something small to grab onto to pull the ball out of the bowl.

THE GOB!

















I know you are thinking, this GOB thing is a total crock! It is barely a ball, but I am teaching a concept, not just to pick up a ball. And for a sensitive dog like George I wanted to make it as easy as possible to LIFT the GOB outta that bowl & get a reward. It meant I didn't have to fiddle around with a regular tennis ball for a long time til he opened his mouth super wide & shoved it in himself, then picked it up. You'll see, trust me, have a little faith in dog...