Some Training Thoughts

I dusted off my video camera a couple of days ago to film my efforts with Belle on working turn and forward, turn and reverse through my legs and reverse weaves.  The edited video is below.  Ilona Wright, who is conducting this month's workshop on backing, pointed out that at that at :45 seconds I bring out the lure after Belle has failed several times to respond to my touch command.  Somehow in my readings, I managed to miss the instruction to never, ever do this since you are basically rewarding a behavior you don't want.  (You are also confusing your dog as to what the verbal actually means.)

Ilona's advice is to break off what you're working on for 10 seconds or so, and then work on the behavior that your dog is not performing.  In this case, I was trying to get Belle to walk backwards between my legs and remain lined up with my knees, but she was backing up faster than I could.  I wanted her touch my hand and back up, but that didn't work too well, so I put a cookie in my hand to keep her in place.  That probably would have been fine if I had done it as a first step, but I didn't.  I tried to use a cue that Belle doesn't respond to all that well (despite the fact that it is one of the very first ones I ever taught her) and after that didn't work, I hauled out the lure.

We are working on complicated behaviors.  It is my job to break them down into pieces that Belle can learn.  She is the final arbiter of whether or not I have done my job well.  I she doesn't execute my command, either I have failed to motivate her or I have failed to teach her what the command means.  Since Belle is a very motivated dog, it is normally the latter.

 

November Is Backing Month

November is being devoted to backing on the MDSA Seminar list.

Here are the important points I came away with:

1.  If your dog's rear end is flaring away from you when the two of you back up (dog at side or heel), work on having the dog go from a sit to a stand at your side.  When your dog is consistently moving into a stand that is parallel to you, you can move on to the next step. 

Have your dog stand, then give her a back cue or command, then take one small step backwards.  Practice this until the two of you nail it before adding a second step.

2.  To help your dog back straight away from you, place a target mat on the floor and backchain the behavior.

3.  Train your dog to stand between your legs and be comfortable there.  (I did this ages ago by having Belle do it before I put down her food dish.)  Once the dog is comfortable, you can work on backing up, turning, or moving forward with the dog between your legs.

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I was being pretty diligent about spending a little time each day working on backing with Belle and Dusty.  Then a couple of days ago, I wanted to demonstrate how to stand when teaching reverse weaves.  Belle did fine starting from my left, but when we tried it starting from my right side, we encountered difficulties.  Mainly, I had a very hard time getting her to align herself in a straight line and close to me.  Time to get serious about my criteria for heel and side (heel position at my right side).

I  decided I would use meal time to reinforce the two positions.  I found that when I used a platform, Belle had no problem bringing her rear end in line.  After working on it for three meals, I can see she is much improved even without the platform.  Interestingly, both Dusty and Libby assume a much straighter "heel" position than Belle despite the fact that I don't work with them nearly as much.  Go figure.