Fizz hasn't seen or touched her dumbell since March 17th. I decided tonight to re-present it to her, and see where we were. We're following Sue Sternberg's Inducive retrieve method.
As soon as she saw the db, she grabbed it hard. Big praise, and reward. We went through 4 reps of that, and then I put it down to the floor. She immediately grabbed it, and I praised/fed her. I was sitting on the floor, and only looking for her to grab it.
Since all seemed to be well settled in her head, I decided to move forward to the next step: lifting from the floor to my hand. I wondered if she'd balk at this sudden increase in criteria and was pleasently surprised at the answer: nope! She picked it up and held it long enough that I was able to bend down and get it (from a standing position). Huge praise and a small jackpot of food.
We worked through quite a few reps, took a balance break of tug inbetween to keep arousal level high, and returned to grabbing from the floor. There were two failures, in which she dropped the db before I could bend down to take it. Nothing from me, and she immediately picked it up again and held it til I got it. GOOD girl!! :)
Final rep was one in which she picked it up (while she was standing), and then held it long enough to put herself into a sit (I have no clue why she sat, and at this point, it matters not). I was thrilled with the progress that we'd made and ended it there with a huge jackpot.
Plan to work on this some more tomorrow, with the goal of her bringing it up to my hand, without me bending over at all. We finished our evening with a good game of tug, and she retired to her crate with a bit of pig's ear.
2 May 2012: Worked a bit more with this today, here's some footage from our work this afternoon. :)
Fizz had a morning of adventure, and a lunch time of learning retrieve work. :) We went to a local farm in Sherborn to pick up fresh eggs. They have a petting area there for kids to go in and see the chickens, ducks and rabbits. Fizz was able to go up to the fencing, and the animals were not in the least worried about her. She showed active interest in the birds, but was not coming unglued. I asked to her 'set up,' and then give me 3-4 steps of heeling. She NAILED it! :) :) GOOD GIRLIE!!! She easily and happily left her cool feathered friends to come work with me, and we were all of 2 side-steps away from that fence. Super happy about this! :) She also got to see a few horses up close. Again, actively interested, but not obnoxious, jumping, barking or otherwise alarming the horses.
After the farm, we went to the bank. All of my dogs have spent time in our bank, the folks who work there just adore dogs, and have always been most gracious to my Rottweilers. Fizz got to experience automatic doors (the kind that open with a handicap button). I decided these things absolutely ROCKED for working on 'not bolting out the door.' Not that Fizz has that problem, we established sitting at doors at a young age. BUT.....to be able to sit with your dog at a door, push the button, have the door open, and you and dog are still set up (and you are able to reward the good choice to hold the sit)......totally awesome!! If I owned a training center, I'd have these installed for training purposes! :)
While in the bank, we worked on formal sit durations, and then after visiting a few customers politely, we did a down in another area. Again, very happy and eager to work in a new and distracting environment, without much time to check it out at all. I'm very happy to see how in tune she is to me, and how trusting she is. :)
Finally, after the bank, we came home to lunch. I decided to start Fizz's formal retrieve work today. We're using Sue Sternberg's inducive retrieve. I will not do a force retrieve on my dog, in any form. As I read through the booklet, I knew I was going to struggle with the necessary co-ordination of holding the db, holding the treats (we used broiled chix breast) and trying to pop the db into her mouth. Thankfully, she is a very patient puppy, and not hyper sensitive about her face/body being touched. She kept pushing at my had and getting me all out of position, so there was a lot of wiggling around.
Initially, I started with a wooden db, but quickly decided there wasn't room to get my hands in there where I wanted, and so changed over to a plastic one with a longer bar.
Session 1 was our very first attempt. The goal is manually place the db into her mouth and immediately reward with high value treat. At the end, a 'test' is presented in that the db is shown, and when the dog grabs for it themself (vs. the manual placement), BIG jackpot reward.
Session 2 was about 10 minutes later, after a bit of tug and playing. In this session, I was rewarding her for taking it herself. No more manual placement. She showed great willingness to take it. There was some nosing/licking, but I suspect that will quickly disappear, as it's not being rewarded.
