Perch work - first shaping session

One thing I need in Fizz, as my future obedience partner, is lots of body awareness, rear-end movement and proprioception.   This is why we're working on the BOSU, I have balance disks to work with, and, we are starting to work on a perch.   For now, the perch is a book, as she grows and gains weight/size, the perch will change.   The idea of the perch is to teach the dog to move it's hind end in a circle, while maintaining the front paws on the perch itself.   You want to see a crossing over motion with the hind feet.   This will greatly help during heeling where fine body control is needed in turns, and in the figure 8.

Today's video is our first shaping session.  I have not done much pure shaping with her, and was curious to see how willing she is to offer behaviors.  Earlier today, we'd been out to "Open Gym" at Em's gymnastics gym.  There were 100 kids signed up for the 90min session, plus all their in-two sibs and parents.   Hundreds of people.......and you know we had to use that as a socialization opportunity.   We hung out at both drop off and pick-up, Fizz met probably 70-80 people:  men, women, teens, little kids....it was fantastic!    This shaping session is conducted after her post-visit nap.

I have an ex-pen set up in the den, in order to control her access to "fun" things (cords, the rug liner pad, sticks for the fire, etc).   This allows both of us to focus unfettered on work, rather than having to re-direct from distraction.   Efficient training is good training!

Blame it on the rain.............

well, that's what some dog trainers do.   You've heard it at trials.  "My dog didn't sit because there was a puddle in that spot."   "He doesn't work well in the rain."   or even "My dog won't go out to go potty because it's raining."  Those arguments don't hold water in this household.  Rain happens, life continues, and so does dog training. :)

I had an hour to kill between the end of Bible study and bringing James home from preschool this a.m., and it was raining out.   Having heard the predictions, I was excited to have some training time outside.   On my list of things to expose Fizz to is umbrellas.   My older dogs like to attack them, they elicit great joy.   Fizz completely ignored the umbrella that I popped open right above her.  Again.  And again.  And again, and then it bonked into her when it opened........and was flat ignored.   The food in her bag (at lunch time) was far more interesting.  I tried again later when she was not distracted by food........she could have cared less, though the metal frame did receive a good chomp after a bit.

The front yard of the church is along a busy corner at the intersection of a state highway (2 lane road) and local streets.  There are lots of big loud trucks that come through here.   She had her lunch mere feet from the road, as if that is her normal Cafe spot.  Prior to receiving her bowl, she worked chin heeling and some tuck sits to earn lunch.

After lunch we worked "sit pretty" for freeze-dried turkey liver, restrained recalls by wrapping the leash around a light pole, and then releasing as I ran off, and recalls to RZ.   Being that the ground was wet, of course we worked through fold back downs, and started adding duration to them. :)

While most of our trials will most likely be indoors, I do not want weather to be a distraction or demotivating factor for her.  We had lots of fun out in the rain, and she showed me strong work effort.  She's napping now, having had a good romp.   This afternoon she'll be coming to Emilie's Team practice for gymnastics, and meetings LOTS of new people. :)  All part of the "Insane Puppy socialization plan."

My puppy ROCKS!

Fizz has had a full two days.   We've worked on a lot of training games, including "Its Your Choice" with food on the floor, and Fizz maintaining focus on the food, not giving me eye contact but rather, backing off the food to earn it.  We worked on rewards in RZ, and "play with the toy that I have," including switching between toys of various ranks.

Making sure that Fizz gets out to many places, she ran errands in the car (no car sickness!), met the staff in the Church office, staff at pre-school after school finished for the day, and went to the vet for a well visit.  

Later that afternoon, we went to the local lake to explore sand, water, and rusty chains.   The joys of a 70F day in November!






If you need a "cute puppy fix" video, here's a bit from the lake. :)

This morning, we started with puppy proprioception work, and ground poles in the back yard.  Coming in to get breakfast and do some chin heeling to earn it.  Fizz works for at least 2 meals a day, if not 3.  I'm currently feeding her 4x a day.   After Emilie was on the bus, we got out the BOSU.   What an incredible way to teach a puppy balance, weight shifts, and general body awareness.   Thank you so much to Susan Garrett for this idea!  Her Puppy Peaks program is just stuffed with stellar ideas and examples.   From the moment I met Fizz, she's shown little issue with anything environmental.  Her reaction to the very tippy BOSU is an extension of that fearlessness.  She wasn't bothered by it one bit.  I think back to having to work with adult Froli on a tippy board before doing agility teeters, what a world of difference! :)    This was shot just before lunch, and you can see that once again, my toy does not rank with the puppy crack...........but I was also being a bad trainer and did not have a tug ready, so had to improv (and have since "lost" Vik's favorite fribbee........sigh).   My rockin' BOSU girl:

For other environmental stimuli today, we went to check out the Water Dept guy flushing the fire hydrant in front of our house (boy did James think THAT was grand!), and she hung out in an ex-pen while we split wood this afternoon........not at all bothered by the machine, cracking logs or flying bits.  Falling leaves magically appearing in her pen were her idea of "awesome!"

Learning through games

One of the things I enjoy greatly about Susan Garrett's work is that the puppies learn behaviors via fun games.   I've seen this work so well in my own children that I couldn't wait to apply it to dog training.  Her Puppy Peaks program has taught me a lot, now its time to apply it myself!  :)

Last night, Fizz had her first session of IYC - Its Yer Choice, in which a puppy who shows self-control then earns exactly what it is that they are restraining themselves from.  This is most easily taught with food at meal time when the puppy is really hungry.   Fizz worked for her dinner last night, and I was really impressed with how little time it took her to figure out the game.

Today at lunch, we played again.   My original hope was to work with food bits on the floor, and work her control that way.   However, that wasn't going to well, and since I was trying to stay in a 5 minute time frame for our training, I switched gears, and worked with the food in my open palm (ignoring it earns it).

Below is a video I shot of our session.  We started with food in the bowl on the floor, and she remembered last night's session.  Ignoring the bowl was not very difficult for her today, though it did require a few hand covers.   I then tried a play break, but had a lesser favored toy (I haven't figured out all the toys' rankings yet....she'd only been here 36hrs at the time of this video).  For my ignorance, I paid pennance with a pretty good "Dont Wanna, Don't Hafta" moment (aka DWDH).   Finally found something else to play with, and she turned right on to it.   We had far better switching from food to toy to food to toy earlier in the morning with "better" toys.

After the DWDH, I started working on the open palm with food.  She caught on to that pretty quickly and gave me beautiful eye contact when she wanted the piece.   Very happy with this!!!   Hoping to work it again tomorrow with food on the floor, may try that for breakfast time when hunger is even greater.  :)

Moving in!

Fizz has settled right in here with us as if she never knew any differently. None of the household noises phase her at all, she's great with the kids, and Miss Vik thinks she's pretty cute. Because of the size difference in Vik and Fizz, they're not having play time together yet.

Fizz started her training today. Emilie and I worked on restrained recalls. I had freeze-dried turkey liver, aka Puppy Crack, Emilie held her with a hand under her belly and one on her chest. From 5 to 10 feet away, I'd call, and Em would let her explosively release, racing to me. We worked it for about 2 minutes, and then had a great tour of the back yard, and played Leaf Chase. The idea is that she will come to me on the first call of her name, no matter the location or distraction. In order to work up to such a strong recall, I need to put a lot of deposits into that "account" in the Bank of Fizz. We will play recall games 2-3x per day, varrying the games but always having fun and big reward for coming to me. This will build a lot of value for me in Fizz's world.

I also worked on teaching her what her name is. We were out back with low to moderate distraction (the environment). When she was a few feet away from me, and finishing sniffing something, as her head came up, I called her name once, and then fed her puppy crack when she came to me. She caught on to this quickly! We'll work on it more around the house tomorrow. I'll keep a pocket full of various treats and any time her distraction level is low and she's near to me, I'll call her name and feed (or offer a game of tug).

Our final training session was playing Susan Garrett's "Its Your Choice" (aka IYC) with her dinner kibble. She was very excited to see her evening meal. I took a roughly half-filled 1/4C scoop into the den and sat on the floor, she followed quickly with me. I offered her two pieces of kibble individually, in order to get her interest up. Then, as she approached the scoop, I put my hand covering it. She spent a solid 45-60 sec trying to get into that scoop: shoving her nose between my fingers, biting on my fingers, and finally, digging furiously at me with two paws.

As soon as she gave up the digging and laid still, I said "yes!" smiled, and quickly grabbed a piece of kibble with the other hand and fed it to her. She went right back to trying to get into the scoop, and worked even harder. However, this time, she stopped and looked at me. I already had a piece of kibble in my hand and immediately put it in front of her nose.....she snarfed it right down. The light went on, and she'd look at the kibble scoop, then back at me. Each time she looked at me, I'd say "yes!" and feed. I was able to take my hand off and away from the scoop, which was sitting mere inches from her on the floor. She stopped looking at it all together and I jack-potted her. One more attempt to get into the scoop, followed by a very solid sit and look at me for several rewards. As she held my gaze, I told her "get it!" and released her to the final few pieces that were in the scoop. This whole session lasted 4 minutes. VERY happy with how well she did! The lightbulb moment in IYC was a lot of fun to see.

Tomorrow's plans include more recall games, more Name Game, and teaching a nose touch to palm. Also hoping to start Crate Games, now that food drive is showing up strongly.