Back to the db

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.  :)

At the end of a month......

Fizz was 12wks on Sunday, and has been here a month now.   I'm just amazed to see how far she's come.   Its been tiring at times, this new journey we're on.   No verbal or physical corrections.   Logging all of my training, which is typically 6-8 mini sessions per day.   Some days, I go to bed so exhausted I can't even remember what I did (thus a new system of tracking my training has emerged).   I don't ever remember a puppy tiring me so much, but I don't think I ever put this level of detail/effort into a puppy either (meanwhile, keeping up with my 3.5 & 6yr olds!).  :)

I keep a 3-ring binder with all of my training notes.   Each day contains details of each training session, including:  time, location, treats used, games played, and then an assessment of how it went.  At the end of the day, I look to see how much of each thing was accomplished, and based on that, and my weekly plan/goal, decide what to move forward with for the next day.   If I've missed something for a few days, or not gotten enough reps of it in, then it goes on high priority for the upcoming day.

Being a scientist by training, keeping notebooks is not foreign.  However, I was not finding the time to NEATLY enter the level of detail that I wanted.   So....now I have a scribblebook (composition notebook) and my decorated 3 ring binder.   The scribblebook is used through-out the day, to quickly enter notes about what happened when.   Just before bed, I sit down to re-write it, putting into detail what went on.  

At the end of our first month, I have a puppy who is tightly bonded to me, yet confident to go meet any one new who crosses her path, and self-confident enough to hang out with someone if I choose to hand the leash off and walk away.   Today, we walked down the street, around the corner, and met a "tree dude."   Two HUGE diesel trucks were running, one of which was also hauling a monster-sized chipper.   The other 'tree dude' was using the chain saw and cutting the remainder of a fore-shortened tree into manageable sized logs.   None of this bothered her one whit.    She was so excited to meet someone new:  a big thick man, wearing an eye-bleeding yellow jacket (you know, that new safety color that so many have), thick blue rubber gloves, and his bright orange hard hat - hearing protector contraption.    He was QUITE the sight, and certainly not like anyone else we've met.   But he was excited to see her, and she just calmly went right up to him, and nestled in for pets.    The trainer in me was VERY happy with her confidence.   If we ever meet an obed judge in tree gear, at a very loud trial........we're down with that.  :)

Fizz travels beautifully in the car, and has since Day 1.  She just goes to sleep and does not try to crate surf, nor bobble around as I'm driving.   No car sickness, no barking at anything.....just lovely!   In a similar vein, when we're at our competition obedience class, she lies quietly in her crate until it's time to come out and work.   Fizz ADORES other dogs and people, I would rate them as an A++ level distraction at times.   However, when it's our turn to watch, she is wonderfully quiet and sedate.   I sure hope that continues as she matures.

We've established, through games, that treats on the floor are NOT fair game, just for the taking.  Neither are treats in my hand, or on the counter..........and funny enough, neither are toys.   She will hold a sit while I drop a favorite tug to the floor within a foot of her.  I can take that same tug and snake it around, and even whack the ground with it.   She just looks like "what, you think I'm gonna fall for that?!"   She explodes into it on release, and we have wonderful games of tug and puppy bounce. :)    Her ability to maintain a down is similar, even though we've not worked on it much at all (maybe twice in the past month?).    She's generalizing the "Its Yer Choice" (Susan Garrett) game very nicely.  

Retrieve work is started.  She races out to whatever I throw out, quickly picks it up, turns, and comes straight back to me.   Currently, I kneel on the floor when we play this game, and her default behavior is to dive between my legs.   No growling when I pet her, and if I put out a hand as she comes in, she'll bring it to my hand.   I have not worked that behavior yet, and its on our list to solidify over the next month.   When I was visiting the litter, Fizz brought a few toys near me, but often seemed to want to get off away from her littermates and enjoy whatever prize she'd shopped.   I don't care about puppy tests, PAT, or otherwise.   I didn't need to see what she'd do with a crinkled paper ball, or if she'd bring it back.   I wanted to see her natural carrying behavior (calm, not mouthy), and her natural interest level in people in general throughout the day (high).   I knew that with solid calm carrying and an interest in people, simply building a strong, positive relationship would generate a good retrieve in the early stages........and that is playing out!   I have never done a forced retrieve of any kind on any dog, and I don't plan to ever change that.   In 5 trials, Froli never lost points on her retrieves (3x SchH1, 2x ScHH2).  

Needless to say, I absolutely adore this puppy and am having a blast training with her.   :)

Good lessons from poor trainer choices

I wanted to start shaping Fizz's retreive today.   She already likes to pick up her dumbell and carry it about, including up and over the BOSU (blue side up, non-rocking).   Normally to start shaping a retreive, one would start with rewarding even a glance at the db, and then increase criteria to a sniff, a lick, a bite.   Because I know she likes to play with it and carry it, I was starting with the criteria of grabbing it with her mouth.   No clicker, b/c it's simply too much for me to work (clicker, food, db).  So just a verbal marker and feed (today's treats are scrambled eggs.......one of her favorites!).

I had planned to start this an hour earlier.  However, as I started gathering stuff, I looked up and there she was, sitting tight on the rocking BOSU.   So I decided to work with what she gave me.  Got the bowl of eggs, and rewarded any movements or position changes on the BOSU.   We had fun playing this game for about 5 minutes.  Finally snapped a leash on her, gave her a release cue, and led her off.  She really seems to like the rocking BOSU (maybe she wishes for a sailboat rocking on the seas??).

After the BOSU work, we spent some time outside, both potty break and playing.   I should have put her up at that point, it was a natural break point in her day.  However, she came back in still zipping around, so I decided to pursue my original goal:  shaping the retreive.   You can see the lower level of "oomph" in her work, due to my poor choice to not put her up, and push forward.  Bad trainer!

We had several distractions going on here: 3.5yr old James bouncing from chair to chair, across an end table and jabbering away.   The flag outside was whipping in the wind and thwacking the screen (I'm surprised that didn't pick up on the audio feed!), and hubby shows up twice.  I had NO idea he'd pet her until I watched this video.......will have to work on that.  "No petting puppy when Mommy's training!"   :)

There's a DWDH moment to work through b/c of my poor choice in timing.  She wasn't showing me great frustration, so I didn't want to end it, I wanted to see her come through it, and she did.   I was even happier with her choice to keep working with me the second time George showed up.   It had to be her CHOICE, and not me being enticing..........thus no big prey object game with the db to get her back.  I want her to work with me because she desires too, and because there is joy in it.....not because of "have to."

Finally, in playing tug, we have a few learning games within the game.  Thanks again to Susan Garrett for her awesome leadership and allowing us to watch Swagger in Puppy Peaks.  I've learned SO much!!!