Since I failed our CGC on Saturday, we've been working on two things: loose-leash walking and not rushing to greet people. Fizz's leash pulling has never bothered me before, that's why I didn't fix it previously. However, it is required for the CGC. Also, she may not greet anyone until she's held a sit or down, and is given permission to go say hi. This includes family members upon our return home from any outings.
For most of her training, I have not used a clicker, and am not even judicious about using a verbal marker. I focus mainly on placement and timing of reward. I do tend to use a verbal marker, but not consciously so....more because I'm a chatterbox. For this work, I felt the clicker was a more noticeable mark of "yes, that's correct" and so it now comes with us for all on-leash work. I hold the clicker and leash in my left hand, food is in my right pocket, and delivered with my right hand.
We started on Saturday afternoon with simply being able to go down the driveway. That probably took us 10-15min. I she pulled, I backed up. Pulling = no forward, or a complete direction change by me. We were able to work down to the street, and maybe go 20-30 yards from the driveway. I ended the session when my food was out, and we went back to the house. Later that afternoon, we went out again. Her understanding of the new idea was showing nicely and we made it easily down the driveway (about 125ft) and out into the street.
As soon as I said "let's go for a walk," Fizz would surge ahead. I backed up, or circled around, and clicked/treated when she was back in place and we were moving forward properly. Simply coming back to me only was rewarded maybe 4 or 5 times because that was not the final behavior, and I upped the criteria. On our 6th attempt at "let's go for a walk!", she stuck to me like glue, hard staring at me and demanding her meatball for good behavior. She got three! :)
Yesterday, we were able to progress not only to the block, but about 1/3rd of the way around it. There we met up with several strong distractions that used up a lot of direction change and reward for choosing correct position. A robin running along the side of the street (and she is an AVID robin chaser in our backyard!), a man who came out of a house, using a very LOUD and seemingly somewhat agitated voice to yell back to his buddy inside, and a group of children playing in a yard where they were obscured from vision by scrub and trees. Fizz loves kids and pulled real hard at this one.
Today, we took our show on the road. I wanted to track her, and then head to the store for bones and food. I had hoped to work with her outside the park while James played on the playground, but no dogs allowed anywhere on the property, so that plan was scrapped. I explained to the staff at the store about our failure, and how we were working on it, while I paid for my food. Then, went back to the car and got Fizz and went back in.
There are 2 doors to go in, and she sat at both automatically, and waited for me to invite her through. This is not something I've worked on in a long time, so it was rewarded both times. Her reward was leftover cheeseburger, chopped into bits. I also had a tug with me, covered in real rabbit fur. There was initially a good bit of pulling because we entered near the elk antlers and various other kinds of natural chews. I simply backed up each time the leash tightened. She was rewarded for coming back to me. Initially, she was rewarded for simply looking away from high value treats when I called her name.
Fizz has been in this store many times. She enjoys it, and they enjoy her. Today, the slick floor bothered her. And as she stressed about it, she knuckled up her feet, making her footing worse. At that point, I learned that food has higher value to her than tug. I am still learning about Fizz, and she is still maturing, so I recognize that preferences are in a state of flux. I know for Xcel, ALL toys always trumped food. For young Banja, all food trumped toys, but as she got older, some toys (cuz!) trumped most food except for the very rarest of beef. She put her mouth on the tug and gave me a half-hearted grip, but it was not a real tugging session, and was not able to release her stress about the floor.
However, she did work well through the stress and settled down. We worked on a down stay, return, leave again and recall (as was done in Saturday's test). We worked on sitting and not greeting while several customers came in and walked near by. And we worked simply on loose leash walking, which she was giving very nicely after the initial "I must see all treats." Finally, I was able to ask a staff member to help us, by coming to say hi to me, but not to her. Fizz broke on the first time after we were shaking hands and talking. I replaced her (she was in a down), and tried again, this time she held it and got a handful of cheeseburger.
We then had loose leash walking all the way back to the car. I am VERY happy with how she is doing. Our BIG challenge will be class this afternoon. She loves class, she loves Esther, and she drags me hard to get in there every Monday. We may spend the first 20min of class just trying to get inside in n appropriate manner, and if that is the case, so be it. That is what we need to work on right now, and so we shall. :)
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