Jotting down some training ideas

I'm supposed to be typing up lab reports for organic lab which are due tomorrow so naturally I decided to blog about some ideas of what I want to begin tackling in my training this week.

1. Stand

- I think I will start this by capturing the stand when I groom Keiko, which I do twice a day

(after her morning walk and after our last outdoor activity of the night). I make her stand still when I do that so I will start marking for her just standing still while grooming. Making the transition from this to standing from a sit/down I haven't quite planned out yet but that's something for me to ponder.

2. Down

- I want to put a command to this by the end of the week, but I want her to do it from a standing position as opposed to having to sit first. I think I will first teach it by luring, because I am aiming for a competition obedience style down, not a down with her hips flopped to one side or the other. (The obedience style is with all four legs facing forward)

3. Hand touch

- I want to clean up the hand touch. By next Sunday, I hope to be getting real nose punches out of the hand touch which means I will have to work fairly intensively with her #1 reward (which to date is a lick out of a frozen can of baby food). This reward sends her fairly high into drive so I'm looking forward to making the hand touch concrete with her.

4. Come

- Up until now I've only worked on an "informal" recall. I say "c'mere" and Keiko has to come back to me. At some point in the next few weeks, I want to teach a more formal "Come" where she is required to actually come TO ME.

5. Here

- Here means come to me and sit right in front of me, looking up at me. I will work on here after I have the recall come down, as I think here is a bit more specific and difficult a task.

I also have seen a lot more toy drive out of Keiko lately. She has always been more interested in her soft/fuzzy toys so I'm considering purchasing another "Lambiedoodle" for the purpose of drive building...we'll see. Maybe I'll get something smaller but still soft and attach it to some sort of line to do some drive building with.

I'm also still about 5% undecided about SAR. I have been going to the practices all summer and have become a little SAR sponge, but for some reason I can't say that I'm 100% sure I want to do SAR with my pup. In fact in some ways, I see all of the herding instinct she has (and she came from an old working line breeder, so if I didn't have her she would most likely be off on some ranch working) and I almost feel like I would be wasting it if I didn't trial her (or work her...which I can't do now because I don't have cattle, sheep, or ducks lol). We'll see...I've still got time to decide whether I want to work her in SAR for certain and I plan to get her instinct tested sometime in the next few months. I know things will work out for the best in the end though.

I had something else I wanted to jot here but I forgot what it was and I'm getting tired so I'm going to finish my lab reports and call it a night. I'll update later!

Down, Keiko

Well I was going to post my training plan for teaching "down" but of course I got ahead of myself and started already. :) I started inside, with her wubba since I know she's got drive built up for it now. I took the toy out and got her going by asking "you want it?" which quickly gets her attention now. Then I ducked the toy behind my back and said her name "Keiko" to get her attention, at which point she made eye contact. I praised her (we're still reinforcing her name) then I produced the toy from behind my back. She was already sitting so I placed the toy down between her front paws and drew it towards myself. I said "down" in conjunction with drawing the toy towards myself. At first she just tried to pick up the toy with her mouth so I applied gentle pressure to her shoulders to get her to drop them. She did so quickly and as soon as her chest was on the ground, I praised her excitedly and played a little tug with her and the wubba. The second time I went through the same procedure, but had to reset a couple of times. Since I'd already reset a couple of times, I took her front legs (she was in a sitting position) and guided her into the down position. She plopped quickly on her own then so I praised her lavishly and again played tug. I stopped after a third try.

We worked on this during two more sessions today, keeping them at just three to four repetitions each. During her session tonight, before bedtime, she already got the jist of what she was supposed to do. I now hide the toy behind my back and put her in a sitting position. I make eye contact with her, then use a closed fist to guide her into the down position and saying "down". She quickly dropped down to the lying position the last three times I tried, at which point I produced the toy from behind my back and immediately tossed it onto her front legs for her to play a little tug with. On the last rep, I let her carry the toy back to my room before putting it away for the night. I don't remember how it was raising Rhasta, but I'm really excited to be teaching her down. It's nice to have another option of commands to give her, haha. We'll see how tomorrow's sessions go.

Keiko is really getting the point as far as this toy drive business is going. I think I will introduce another toy tomorrow, but I haven't decided which one yet. I've also resolved to think of an effective way to tie strings to the squeaky tennis balls I have. If that doesn't work, I'll go ahead and get small cuz balls this weekend and tie them to strings.

One of the SAR guys is making me a crate pad for Keiko's home crate...I'm super excited! :D Yay! No more lying on the plastic floor or the thin padding of a towel in the crate! I don't think Keiko actually cares (if anything, she prefers to ly on the plastic as she always bunches the towel up and just puts her head on it) but I will sleep better at night if I think she's sleeping on something comfortable. ;) I've decided that I will keep a simple bath rug in the crate she rides in, in the car so I also need to go buy one of those.

Alright, it's way past my bedtime and I have class in the morning. Goodnight!

Training plan

Today wasn't very special.  The best thing about today is that by Keiko's reaction when I say "you want it?" I can tell that the drive building is working.  She perks up when I say those three special words and goes consistently after the toy now.  I'm a little worried about being able to teach the retrieve as there is a small window you really have to work with when they're puppies and I'm afraid that by getting her at 4 months, I may be in the tail end of that window.  But we'll continue working and see how it goes.  I need to get another Wubba so that I can just trade her one for the other and I don't become the "bad guy" for taking the wubba way from her to throw it again. (For now anyway)

I have decided that I need a more concrete training plan as far as what I want to teach next and how I want to teach it.  I don't like to make training too regimented as far as this puppy stuff goes because I feel a lot of it should be integrated into play, as opposed to being structured teaching time...mostly because puppies at this age get bored FAST!  I will update this post after I've had a chance to jot down some notes regarding how I want to teach the "down", which I've decided is the next command I want to teach her.  I haven't fully deciphered the way Keiko's brain works; what makes her tick and what motivates her, so I'm going to wait until I have a better feel for her to teach "stay" and "come".  I am beginning to feel more bonded to her now though.  I was actually missing her while I was in class (first day of summer classes...ugh!) and at lunch with a friend today, and I felt a little more genuine when I loved on her when I first saw her today.  I think it's finally settling in that this is my dog that I bought with my money and I make all the rules concerning her!  Foreign concept, I know.

Building drive for the "wubba"

Keiko has a blue puppy "wubba" toy, pictured below.

I realized the other day that while she would play with her toys inside, she quickly lost interest in them outside. I decided that this was a problem, mainly because I am planning to train her for a job (whether that ends up being search and rescue or herding) and it is important that she has a drive for toys - primarily for the SAR training. I also decided this was a bit of a problem because I enjoy playing fetch and other games that involve with toys my dog but if I have a pup that doesn't have much desire to play with toys outside (or at all), that would seriously hamper my ability to enjoy the activities I like to do with my pup.   I also prefer to do a majority of my training with toys as opposed to with treats.  Luckily, I have a puppy! Which means that my dog is still open to being molded and also means that some things just have to be taught to her - i.e. HOW to play with certain toys!

So I decided that I would begin making a more serious effort to build her toy drive. Many puppies don't take to playing with toys outside because their owners only play with them inside. So I have switched to only playing with toys with Keiko (for now it's just the wubba) outside. Inside, she gets either her puppy kong or her chilly bone and those are just to keep her company in her crate/to help ease her poor gums as she gets into the teething stage. Otherwise, if we are going to play with a toy we go outside to do so.

How I'm beginning to build drive
My first session began with me taking Keiko out into the backyard to potty. At this point, she hadn't played with a toy inside since yesterday. I hid the wubba in my back pocket. Once Keiko pottied, I produced the wubba from my back pocket. I got her attention, squeezed it a few times in rapid succession, and asked in a high voice "you want it? You want it? You want it?" This has been the phrase that comes naturally to me as I try to build her excitement over whatever I have in my hand. Then I wiggled it a bit so that the long pieces of fabric flapped about. When I knew I had her attention (her eyes were bright, big, and on me, and her ears were pressed forward) I drew the toy down to the ground, squeaked it, and dragged it about a foot across the ground in front of her. As I did this, I shouted "get it!" which is the cue I've been giving her to go after her toy. She went after it and I let her "kill" it - she pounced and grabbed it. I immediately erupted into praise: "Good girl! Good Keiko! Good girl!" and I let her carry it around a bit. I took the toy and did this two more times. As usual, I got excited about the good response I was receiving and threw it a fourth time, which proved to be one too many. She went after the toy but didn't pick it up. She is a puppy and as such, was bored with the game. I resolved to make sure I didn't push it too far the next time.

We went out into the backyard a total of four times today. On the second time, I threw the toy three times following the same procedure. The only thing I changed is that I ran backwards, calling her to me while she carried the toy. All the while I made it exciting, using animated body language and a high-pitched voice to indicate that I liked what she was doing. I concluded the second, third, and fourth sessions by letting her carry the toy back into the house and into my room.  Once in my room I took the toy and put it away until the next session.

In the third session, I tied a thin leash around the wubba to turn it into an improvised ball-on-string sort of toy. I plan on buying a couple of the Cuz balls and tying strings to them, but for now I will stick with what I have available to me. This made it much more convenient, as I could extend the distance I dragged the toy without being directly attached to it or having Keiko target my hand or legs as opposed to the toy (which she has done in the past). Each session I would throw it about three or four times, never pressing my luck and always having Keiko carry it back into the house and to my room. On the third time, I began playing a little tug with her.  I allowed her to win the tug and carry the toy around for a bit before I took it away. I decided that for the sake of building her toy drive, I could sacrifice the potential for creating any "hierarchy confusion" that may be involved in letting her win the game of tug of war for now. 

The fourth session was the last of the evening. Between the third and the fourth session, Keiko and I went on an hour walk down to a nearby park and back. I brought the wubba-on-a-string with me in a bag and went out to a bit of open field. I latched on her fifteen foot leash, let her explore the immediate area, then produced the wubba. I can already tell by the look in her eye that she is beginning to understand this game. She is more excited and focused on the toy, and goes after it more times. I played the game a bit in the field, then continued our walk on down the road. We got lucky and the cows were out by a fence we walked by. Well, my affinity for cattle and the fact that my puppy IS a herding dog and may have a future in herding...I just had to stop! Keiko looked at them like "what the heck are those?" at first, but we settled down beside the fence near some calves for a while and she kept trying to find a way under the fence to investigate. The calves were about four months old, and just as intrigued by us as Keiko was by them. It was a great experience and I'm really glad that I had the chance to introduce her to some livestock so close to us. After meeting the calves, we went on down the road where we played the wubba game again in another stretch of open field. This went well. On our walk back to the house, we crossed some rocky terrain which Keiko handled well so I was extremely pleased with our evening.

I will continue to post on building drive, as this is a very important topic and blogging will help me keep a good record of what works, doesn't work, and how we improve over time.  I will also try to get some pictures of the toy and Keiko with the toy, if I can.  Usually there is too much commotion for me to try and operate a camera and actually get a picture in action.

P.S. I apologize for less-than-decently worded passages and any hint of scatterbrained-ness in my posts.  One of my personal goals in maintaining this blog is that I become better able to express my my thoughts in coherent statements.