Thursday, September 29, 2011

Why life with Calix is like a marriage.....

Fierce and loyal.....


Hogs the covers.....




Iffy impulse control....


Always needs to know what I am doing.....



Questionable dietary habits....



Can't be changed.....


Gets called an ass at least once a day....


Loved....

Monday, September 26, 2011

If you give a mouse a cookie....

This kid's book, written by Laura Numeroff, is rated for grades 1-3; however I think it should be required reading for all adults. In it, this poor kid give a mouse a cookie, the mouse then needs milk, he then spills the milk and needs something to clean the milk up with. Things snowball from there, each event leading the necessity of the next action until the kid is exhausted and thinking maybe he shouldnt have given a mouse a cookie. It describes real life perfectly....or at least my life on a regular basis.

Take for example, my decision yesterday to go for a long run (well, long for me anyway), the first one in mississippi that didnt involve my own treadmill.  Armed with a print out of a map of a local bike trail system I was good to go. It was hot outside so I had to find running shorts. This required me to unpack and put away clothes. I found a pair of shorts and then noticed as I was headed out the door that they had no pockets. Running in a new place, I figured taking a cell phone was a good idea and I might also need a place to put my keys. Went back and spent another 10 minutes unpacking clothes, finding the second of my two pairs of running shorts which happened to have pockets (and are also splattered with paint but whatever).

Off I went, driving north to find the trail. I was low on gas but it was a short drive. The map however was lacking a few things, like the markings for both highways in the area. Once on the trail they are irrelevant however they are a necessary landmark for finding the trail system. I drove back and forth, knowing where I wanted to be but not being able to get there. I could SEE the trail in places. By then I was low on gas and had to drive about 4 miles away to get gas. Coming back I drove back and forth a bit more, finding a parking lot with a few cars in it, I decided that I would just try the trail from that point. Locked my car and headed out. However, since I didnt find the section of the trail that I wanted I couldnt keep track of my mileage. So I went back to the car and got my handheld gps. Then I ran.

Overall it took me about 4 hours total to get a 3 mile run completed. If you give a mouse a cookie.....

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Does speed necessarily follow accuracy?

Accuracy first and then speed.  You hear that a lot. Learn something slowly and then as you get better at it and commit it to memory you will get faster at it.  I was thinking today how this does or does not apply to dog training. For one thing it implies that the person or dog or whoever actually WANTS to perform the exercise faster. This might be true for highly reinforcing exercises where the cause and effect is easy to show the dog. Such as when we teach drug dogs to find narcotics - they get into drug odor and we give them a fight with a tennis ball.  The faster they find the quicker they get the fight.  But what about things that require more precision where we can't have the dog completely overloaded in drive? Or when the exercise is inherently boring?  If the dog can do the exercise at a leisurely pace and still get the reward, why do it fast? Does withholding the reward for only fast performances really speed up the exercise? And if it does, is it because the dog knows to do the exercise faster?

The more I train the less I am convinced that slow becomes fast. I think in more exercises fast rehearsal results in fast performance. I have been teaching Jill to do the AKC Novice Obedience recall exercise. In it she has to hold her stay, trot across the ring and sit in front of me. Sounds simple right?  Not if you are stuck with a handler who insists on going all experimental on her! LOL. I will spare you the tedium of the training process, it takes so much longer to write out than to actual do. Basically I created a heavy "reinforcement zone" in front position without her moving anywhere. I then took a tiny step back and rewarded her for her efforts to seek out the RZ. She got no information from me other than praise and treats in the RZ. Because I establish the RZ before the exercise, the motivation to get there was well established, resulting in a rather "brisk" pace. Similar to our drug dogs - the reward process is established (we pick dogs who are highly reinforced for fight with the ball) before the exercise.  We then show them how to get the reward. If the dog does not know that the reward zone is there, why should they hurry to get there? And then when they do know it is there and have a habit of going there slowly, why start hurrying?

Disclaimer: I am sure I stole the term "reinforcement zone" from someone but I have no idea who.....

Calix says "you wanna recall? I'll give you a recall!!"
"Umm, Calix, you have to stop when you get here....."

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

A simple training technique....

A lot of people spend time debating (to put it nicely) the merits of various techniques focusing on positive vs negative reinforcement. Corrections vs no corrections. I have my own views both on what is right and fair as well as what is effective.  However I won't make that the subject of this post (I have to go to bed soon). Regardless of the method however I have a picture in my head of what I want the dog's work to look like. I want him to look confident. I want him to look like he trusts me. I want him to look like he understands the exercise. I want him to be precise and accurate but I don't want him to look like a robot.  I want him to look HAPPY.

My dogs are all primarily working dogs. High drive, knock you over and steal the toy out of your hands dogs. I want them to be that way. However it poses some challenges in training for more precise work such as competition obedience. Jill is about the craziest toy drive dog I have ever had. She is not much for tugging but will fetch literally for hours.  She bounces like a kangaroo (ironic given her Australian roots).  I want all the drive she brings to the game but she also poses a particular challenge in terms of getting precision. However I have been utilizing a training technique with her that I have found works quite well to sneak precision in without getting all hands on and fussy with the dog and risk reducing drive.  In spite of her crazy toy drive Jill is also quite sensitive and eager to please - act like you arent happy with her work and she starts to worry.

To simplify the explanation of this technique - you basically set the dog up in the place where they are wrong and ask them to do the exercise. They can't do it wrong because they are already wrong so they have to experiment with something else. When they get it right you then reward.  Here is an example I recently used for Jill. She swings her butt out too far when she comes to sit in heel position. This is in order to make eye contact and, more importantly, remind me just how extra badly she wants the toy.  To fix it I put her in a sit, moved myself the the place where she would be positioned wrong and then asked her to come to heel. She couldn't sit with her butt out too far because she already was. Her solution was to schooch closer to heel position. Shape a bunch of these and then I am getting a straighter heel position.

Similarly, you can use this to shape a closer front position. Just put the dog in a sit. Take half a step back so the dog is a teeny bit too far out and ask the dog to front. Reinforce heavily when they move forward and are in the correct position.

I love this technique because it forces the dog to develop muscle memory on his own moving from the wrong to the correct position. It also encourages thinking during the exercise and teaches, in a fair manner, that there are subtleties to the exercise. The expression on the dog's face can also be quite comical. When you issue the command with the dog in his "wrong" position they are kind of like "I thought I already was!!" It is important to note that this is NOT the same as issuing a second command and asking the dog to correct himself AFTER he has done it wrong. Do that too many times and there is a good chance that the dog will learn a behavior chain which would look something like this: come to heel/sit crooked/wait for fix it command/fix butt. Also remember that this will take proportionally longer to fix if the dog has a strongly established muscle memory for doing the exercise less accurately.

There..after all of the craziness of the past couple of weeks it is nice to see that I can still think dog training. I still cant quite wrap my head around the fact that I am living in Mississippi, probably about the least likely state I would have expected to end up in. However the dog training brain cells appear to still be working so it isn't all bad!


Jilly "I will do anything for a toy" Bean


Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Back to blogging....

Hopefully.

Calix, Jill, Steel and I are now in Mississippi. Notice I don't say we "live" in Mississippi yet. We may bolt at any moment - probably with Calix in the lead. He is used to a chaotic lifestyle but he has not yet learned the routine. Come to think of it neither have I..... Calix takes the "shepherd" part of german shepherd VERY seriously. Poor guy. I think he is having some serious angst about how well he can keep his flock safe. I don't even give him a break when I am home as I am still unpacking. No sooner does he get settled in the bedroom to watch over me than I move into the living room and he has to get up and settle in there to watch over me. Then it is off to the bedroom. Repeat..... Steel on the other hand is perfectly happy. He is however here trying to figure out why I cant bounce his planet earth ball down the hallway walls like I did in our old house. Other than that, as far as he is concerned, it's all good!  We are slowly getting back into dog training. Jill and Steel have been mainly doing some short sessions of obedience work and are very enthusiastic after sitting around doing nothing while I packed and moved. In my next post I will try to outline some of the things that I hope to do with them this fall. With my career change it is not real clear what exactly they will have a chance to do. Hopefully I will figure that out after we have been here for a bit - they are all used to staying very active and working so I will have to come up with something for them.


"Could you please stay in one place for five minutes......"

Thursday, September 15, 2011

On the road.....

All of my brain cells are dedicated towards moving the contents of my house halfway across the country, none left for writing anything intelligent about training. The dogs are bored but doing fine on the trip, one of the bonuses of having a normally chaotic life - just another regular day for them.

Stopped for the night in Alabama (the longer I can avoid unloading the uhaul the better, maybe it will be stolen in the hotel parking lot.....). Jill and Calix were running wild in the hotel room making pests of themselves with me and my brother, having no respect for either electronics nor personal space. However when I whipped out my camera they both immediately threw themselves onto the beds and quickly adopted innocent poses. Lookit the sweet little dogs just lying on the beds. Yea right..... The liars.


Monday, September 12, 2011

You can teach an old dog new tricks...

Or at least how to do the "trick" he knows just a little bit differently!

I had wanted to get Steel entered in a TDX (AKC's Tracking Dog Excellent) test before we moved south. There was one in NH this weekend but it gave preference to goldens, due to being a specialty, so we did not get in. However...on a whim I thought - well what the heck since I am entering Steel why not enter Calix for his TD (Tracking Dog) test? So of course HE gets into his test!

Over the last week I debated about whether to go (while trying to make a dent in packing to move).  At the last minute I decided to go give it a shot. We draw track #1 which means we went first. For those of you who have seen Calix come out of the car to work, it is not a calm nor quiet event. He comes blasting out of the car, wanting to know where the start is. They point out the start flag and suggest that I "hold on" and we are off with Calix head down and on a mission, cornering on rails at each turn.

Then we get to the end article..... Up until a few weeks ago Calix NEVER did articles on tracks in all his years of working. We did evidence recovery and we did tracking and never should the two come together. Articles on tracks are merely information to be noted as you attempt to get to the end of the track. So I have been doing a lots of articles lately and trying to convince him that they are not stupid. At the test he shot by the article and threw his head up about 10' past it. I then looked around and spotted the article and , lucky for me, he backtracked and did a quick sit next to it. Phew!

Everyone claps etc and the judges come over to congratulate me. Then the really funny part starts. As we are talking Calix is getting annoyed in a way that only he can get. Shuffling his feet and warming up his vocal cords getting ready to throw a tantrum if things don't start to suit him soon. The problem? As far as he is concerned we are not done yet, we have just stopped in the middle of a perfectly good track to chat!  The judges comment that it "looks like he wants to keep going". He tracks all the way out of the field, right up to the group and then starts sniffing each person in the group. They think he is being friendly. Ha! He is going through the crowd going "Not you. Not you. Not you." Until he find the tracklayer. Then he looks at me as if to say "There! NOW the track is over!" and heads to the car all smug and satisfied.

He got lots of compliments and I had a hard time convincing everyone that he was 10 years old. As usual I can always count on Calix to exceed all my expectations but to do it in his own "special" way.
 
 



Classic Calix tracking pic courtesy of Dawn Neff. I think I need to work on his intensity!
 

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Clear Communication....

With all of the many things to do before moving I have not had a chance to do much dog training or even thinking about dog training. It is not the big stuff, like packing, that take up all of my time. It is the ridiculously trivial but still necessary tasks that consume the whole day. Things where the amount of time needed to get them done is in no way a reflection of their importance. I did drive into Manchester and return $7.00 worth of soda bottles today and then redeemed $37 in loose change. While my "to do" list doesn't get any shorter, the day wasn't a complete loss!

While in Manchester, as I was returning to my car with 15' of bubblewrap (I need more, who knew....) I overheard a lady yelling at her dog while she was pumping gas. It was a fluffy white thing, barking its little head off and she was yelling "You be a Good Dog!" in a stern tone, over and over. Remember that far side cartoon where the owner is speaking and the dog is hearing "Blah blah blah Ginger. Blah blah blah Ginger." Even worse this dog is hearing "Blah blah blah GOOD DOG! Blah blah blah GOOD DOG!" I wonder why he continues to bark....

Seriously, we all do this. Most of us live with dogs day in and day out and we talk to them probably more than we would care to admit. Because they are part of our lives we tend to forget that they don't understand english (although I would argue that Bevan understood sarcastic humor). The everyday conversations are relatively harmless but we need to remember that certain words need to have specific meanings if they are going to be effective.  If we get sloppy with the meaning can we blame the dog for getting sloppy in the execution?

Training is about clear communication and I want my dog to be clear about what commands mean - it makes the command effective but more importantly, it is being fair to the dog.  If my dog could write I want him to be able to write out the meaning of a command in a short sentence. Take the command "come" for example. Everyone would agree that this is a rather important command. However it is one of the most commonly "abused" commands. My goal is for the dog to understand that it means "bring me your collar". I want him to come to me so I can grasp his collar, then I reward him and then release him. Grabbing the collar also keeps me honest and helps keep me from getting sloppy in reinforcing other behaviors as we slide down that slippery slope of close enough.

Come does not mean the following
come near me
come pretty close to me and then keep going
come to me and then leave immediately
come into the room I am in
come back in the house
walk the direction I am walking
jump in the car
etc
etc

Steel is notorious for liking to inventory all the new smells that happened overnight in my yard while we were sleeping. I have several things that I yell to him when he is taking an annoyingly long time or when I am short for time (fortunately I have no neighbors).  If those various words fail to produce results then I pull out the big gun and tell him to COME. I usually end up doing this while the poor dog is pooping which creates an even greater recall speed, in order to make up for the unavoidable delay no doubt. In addition to having clear communication this is one command I ALWAYS reinforce. It is money in the bank for the day when I absolutely need a fast response to the command.

Bring me your collar please.



 




Sunday, September 4, 2011

Vermont.....



"Vermont is a state I love. I could not look upon the peaks of Ascutney, Killington, Mansfield, and Equinox, without being moved in a way that no other scene could move me. It was here that I first saw the light of day; here I received my bride, here my dead lie pillowed on the loving breast of our eternal hills.

I love Vermont because of her hills and valleys, her scenery and invigorating climate, but most of all because of her indomitable people. They are a race of pioneers who have almost beggared themselves to serve others. If the spirit of liberty should vanish in other parts of the Union, and support of our institutions should languish, it could all be replenished from the generous store held by the people of this brave little state of Vermont."
Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States