Fizz and I haven't worked on backing up in a very long time. No particular reason, it just kinda fell off the radar. Went back to it, and this is our first session back. Recently, we've been working on 'down' a lot and you can see her offering downs frequently. The biggest challenge for me is waiting this out, and resisting trying to lure her back up. I am not walking into her to get her to move back b/c I want her shifting her weight back, which comes when she makes the decision on her own to walk backwards.
Dogs learn best when the choices are purely theirs. Think of the last time you followed someone to a ... party, new training facility, trial, a friend's house....anywhere. If you then needed to leave before your 'guide' was ready to go.........how confident were you in how to get back to your start? Luring creates behaviors that LOOK good, that seem 'strong,' but then when the lure is gone.......the behavior quickly falls apart because it wasn't really learned, it was simply 'done.'
I have been pouring through my learning theory books, trying to find the scientific explanation of a phenomena seen here, and I can't find the silly thing I'm looking for....how frustrating! But essentially, there is a double dip in learning a new behavior. The behavior seems to start coming together and then suddenly 'disappears.' The key to it is to wait out this first dip. There's a scientific explanation for the processing that is going on, at a neuron level....but as I said, can't find it. :( After the first processing, the behavior grows in strength an appearance again. There is a second dip, but of less deterioration than the first, and then the behavior grows again at a much more rapid rate. One of the keys to training is being willing to wait out those dips, to know them for what they are and to know that 'it will get better.'
In the backing video, there are 2 significantly long times in which Fizz is in her offered down and I have to wait her out. It seems interminable when working through it, and admittedly, patience is not my strong suit. However, I can also see, in re-watching the video, that the time she spends in down is quickly shortening because in this session, down is not being rewarded.
This video is long, 8:45, and with a slow connection, may take some time to download.
Fizz and I have been working this week on perch work, to teach hind end movement that will feed into heeling, specifically on maintaining position, making left turns in strong position, and getting into heel from 'around the clock.' In this session, my goal was to get her to start turning in a circle around the pot, independant of me moving. I want my movement and body position to be out of the picture, so that she gets a stronger understanding of her own movement. The past two sessions, we've been really stuck on her depending upon my movement, and I think the reason is that I didn't increase the criteria when I should have, and dug us a rut. However, here, she finally moves out of the rut, very happy to see it! :)
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!
