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Winter training

January 31, 2011 in Agility, Epic, Obedience, Pictures

Thomas has been away teaching in Norway for a week now and I’ve been home alone with my dogs. I haven’t had much teaching to do this week, just one evening class, so we’ve been training a lot. We’re fortunate enough to have two indoor dog training arenas within about an hours drive. They are warm and have turf footing, which is a life saver when it’s cold and icy outdoors. We also have a riding arena where I have my agility equipment just 5 minutes from our place, but it’s not quite the same. I’ve been training a lot of obedience the past month and both Squid and Epic are doing well. Squid will do her first obedience trial in march and I feel very well prepared for that. We’re working on a lot of sequences with 3-6 exercises in a row with only one reward at the end. I’ve also started to add more and more distractions to the sequences, trying to find new things that could distract us at a trial. I will keep doing that, but now that everything works well as a whole, I’m also planning to take care of some minor details that will make our performance even better. My goal for the trial is to be so well prepared that there will be no surprises.

Squid, tired from four hours of training in one of the indoor arenas

Epic is mostly working on heeling, the stand (which i promise I will talk about in the blog soon), sitting still with distractions (people coming up to him is one of the hardest, he is such a happy dog, just like his sister) and always retrieving his toys to me in full speed. We’re also working on some tricks and agility foundation behaviors, like circle work, nose touches and puppy jump grids. He is so much fun to work with – always keen and focused, but also very good at relaxing in his crate when I work with one of the other dogs or watch others work. He will be 6 months old this week.

Epic, running in the snow at home

Shejpa doesn’t do obedience, but I’m working on some stimulus control and standing still waiting for a cue with her, something she’s not very good at. We’re also training agility, like today when we went to a riding arena where our dog club has training every Sunday. This year, my goal with Shejpa is to get a more consistent performance in trials. She really has ups and downs and I’ve never really figured out what makes the difference. I’m starting to think that the correct warm up is very important for her and I’m trying out different warm ups and record keep so that I can get optimum arousal and focus in every run. So far I feel I’m on the right track and I’m very excited to do more trials so that I can tell if I am or not.

Crazy cocker spaniel <3

Right now, I’m preparing for two days of obedience with our favorite instructor Maria Hagström. I’m really looking forward to it and I’m sure I’ll have something to tell you about it later this week.

My pretty dogs

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Teaching heel

January 18, 2011 in Articles, Obedience, Videos

I have finally been able to make a little video to show you some of my thoughts on teaching a good heel for obedience trials. Heeling is difficult since it is a duration behavior and has many different parts that all need to be good. I split heeling into it’s parts and train one behavior at a time. This blog post is about the basics of heeling – the dog walking with me on my left side with perfect attention, attitude and position. Turns and straight sits is another part that I work on separately. Maybe I’ll write another post about that some time.

When teaching the dog to heel with me, I start by walking backwards and have the dog follow me. Doing this has many benefits, like:

  • It’s easier for a puppy to follow me when I walk backwards and I can get more rewards to the dog.
  • It’s easier for me to see what the dog is doing without having to turn and bend towards the dog.
  • Since it’s not the final setting for the behavior, I’m not worried about shaping one aspect at a time. I would not like to reward the dog for good attention but bad position if I was walking forward. By walking backwards, I can shape a good behavior and be pretty sure that I will get good behavior to reward once I start walking the right way.
  • I use the walking backwards-heeling for teaching stand, sit and down from heel.
  • It’s very good to have when training in a distracting environment, as the young or inexperienced dog has better chances of success.

When I start the training, I walk backwards away from the dog and mark and reward all attention the dog gives me. I’m not interested in the dog looking me in the eyes, as that is incompatible with a good heel position. As long as the dog is giving me attention, I will reward it. I keep the treats in my left pocket, or in my right hand (only if the dog can ignore treats in your hand). As i mark the behavior I want, I get one treat from the pocket (or right hand) with my left hand and reward at my left side. In the video, the rewards are pretty calm. This is because my dogs have great position by my left side and because they don’t need to get more active. For most dogs, I would recommend that the dog gets to chase the treat in your hand in a straight line and end up with his shoulder at your left knee. I show this with Squid at 1:05 in the video.

When the dog is giving good attention, I start to look at the dogs attitude. Some dogs need to get more active and with them I will mark and reward things like coming closer to my side, ears up, going from a walk to a trot, tail up, head up etc. I will also make sure that all rewards are active and that the dog has to chase the treat after the click. With some dogs, it’s a good idea to work on how to reward separately, so that the dog knows to come close and steal the treat from your hand on the click before you start training heel.

Other dogs have a little too much attitude. They might be jumping up and down, making noise or touching you too much. With them, you have to do the opposite. Walk a little slower and reward calm, quiet and rhythmic behavior. Stop when you reward and give a few treats for just standing still before you walk again.

When the dog shows great attention and attitude, I start shaping a good position. For a lot of dogs, this comes for free because of good placement of reward on the earlier stages. I want the dog close to my left side, straight in the body and far enough back. Watch the video to get an idea of the finished behavior.

When the dog can do a nice heel while I walk backwards for a few meters, I start to turn around. This is demonstrated by Squid in the video. It is an advantage to have worked on some rear end awareness before doing this, so that the dog is willing to swing his rear end in before walking forward.  In the beginning, I will reward the dog as soon as he finds position by my left side when I walk forward.

There is of course a lot more to be said about heeling, especially when thinking of all the problems that might arise. If you have questions or comments, please post them below.

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Merry Christmas

December 22, 2010 in Epic, Obedience, Videos

We have been working our puppies with Maria Hagström (awesome obedience instructor from Sweden) for two days and we’ve had a lot of fun. If you think obedience is boring, take a look at this video. There’s a lot of playing going on, but also a lot of obedience training with high precision, and even sequencing. Do you think the puppies even notice the difference?

With that, I wish you a Merry Christmas! Please leave a comment if you have something on your mind. I’m off to clean the house and prepare for my parents and brothers arrival tomorrow.

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How to get your dog to beg to work!

December 21, 2010 in Articles, Obedience

A lot of people have asked for ideas on how to do if you don’t want to ask your dog to work. In all training, my first goal is that the dog asks me to work with him, not the other way around. One part of this is of course to have great rewards. Developing good toy and food rewards is a really important job to do if you want to have a good working relationship with your dog, but it usually doesn’t fix the problem in itself. A lot of high drive dogs that are easy to reward are still relying on the handler to tell them to work and are easily distracted from their work.

I use shaping when I teach my dogs new things. Shaping relies on the dogs own initiative and I don’t use lures or promts to get behavior. This is a huge benefit if you want your dog to beg to work. The dog will learn to beg you to reward him by offering behavior right from the start. In addition, the dog that is used to shaping will learn to come back from not getting rewarded and to keep offering behavior. This will make it easier to work on longer sequences without rewards.

Doing a lot of shaping with your dog is really good, but it is also important to keep this attitude when you combine behaviors to exercises and exercises to sequences. With my puppies, I do a lot of training where my goal is to reward the dog for spontaneously following me and begging to work. I play tug with the dog (or use another good, active reward), snatch the toy from the dog, hide it and walk away. When the dog catches up and gives attention, the play resumes. As the dog gets more experienced, I will wait for longer before I give the reward back to the dog.

In all training, even when preparing for trials (or in a trial!), the dog has to make the first move to get the game to start. Coming to heel position should be automatic for the dog, I don’t even have a cue for it with my two-year-old dog. To start an exercise, the dog has to come to heel and give attention. It is so easy to start nagging the dog when the training starts to look more like obedience trials and less like shaping tricks. The trick is to keep the same division of responsibility all the way. Make sure that you never use cues when the dog doesn’t ask for them. Cues should not be “commands”, they should act like green lights and reinforce good behavior.

Good luck with training and please comment if you have any questions.

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Go-outs

December 20, 2010 in Articles, Obedience

A few people asked me to write something about go-outs, so I’ll give it a try.

In FCI obedience, we have the send to a square. This is a good video that shows you how the exercise is done in the elite class. The dog is sent to a marker 10 meters (33′) in front of the handler where he is asked to stand. He is then sent abpout 23 meters (75′) to the left or right to a square made up by four marker cones. The outer limits of the square is marked with a visible line. The dog is told to stand in the square, then to lie down. The whole dog has to be inside the square to get points on the exercise. The handler walks towards the dog, turns to the side and then back to the start. About 10 meters from the start, the handler recalls the dog and the dog comes to heel. In the lower classes (class II and III) here in Sweden, the dog is sent straight ahead of the handler to the square. The Square is 10 meters away in class II and 25 meters away in class III.

In North America, the send out is across the ring, about 12 meters or 40 feet. (If I have read the regulations right, please correct me if I’m wrong). This is a good video of how the exercise is done. When the dog reaches the end of the ring, he is asked to sit and is then directed to either the left or the right jump, coming back towards the handler. When the dog is back at the handlers side, the exercise will be done again, this time doing the other jump.

I start working on send-outs early with young dogs. I want them to be comfortable and have fun with running full speed away from me. To get them started, I teach them to target a big mat (I often use car mats as they are a good size) with their paws and work on going out to the target. I want to focus more on the running out than on the targeting and try to place the reward in front of the dog. Always clicking and treating as the dog is targeting and turning towards the handler can create a dog that is always thinking about stopping, because all the value is in that behavior. When the target goes away, the dog will often stop short. I don’t use the target for much else than to make the puppy love running a long distance away from me, so I’m ok with the dog just running over the target. I try to mostly reward with a toy thrown over the dogs head as he is running away. I also leave the dog standing in front of me and send him to the target left or right, as in the send to square in elite class.

As I work on targeting, I also teach the dog to load when I restrain him by holding his collar (this can also be taught in other situations, like when doing crate games or teaching the dog to “get it”). When the target is out of the picture, the signal for the dog to go out will be me loading the dog by holding his collar.

Next step is to get the same behavior without a target. To get this, you can try different things. You could start by using the target and then taking it away in the same session. If the dog is excited and understands the collar load, he will probably start to go out even when the target is taken away. Reward him starting the go-out by throwing a toy over his head. You could also work on this while you’re out walking with your dog off leash. If your dog behaves likes to run straight forward when you release him after a recall, you could reward this with a thrown toy. After a few repetitions, add the collar grab and let the dog load before releasing him. Reward him for starting on a go-out and gradually increase the distance. Another way of getting the behavior is to throw a ball to the dog on a straight line, until the dog starts to anticipate the throw and runs away from you before you throw the ball. When the dog is getting the idea, start restraining him by the collar and work on longer and longer distances before you throw the ball.

All of these methods require that you have good mechanical skills. It is very easy to teach if you convince the dog right away that the easiest way to get the toy is to keep staring ahead. A lot of dogs have already learned to always look back at you in anticipation of the toy. This makes training a lot harder and I wold recommend that you keep the target for a longer time, so that you get a lot of repetitions where you can throw the toy over the dogs head without him ever looking back at you. You will probably need to stay close to the target and also sometimes reward the dog for actually targeting, so that he keeps his focus forward.

When I have a good send out to nothing, I add the square right in front of me and reward the dog for running straight through it. I then run to the square and play with the dog in the middle. I move the square a lot so that the dog is not just running on the same line over and over, and I make sure to vary the distance to the square all of the time. It usually doesn’t take long before you can see the dog getting excited by the sight of the square.

The dog also needs to know a good stop and a good down at a distance. This is something I train separatly, it’s a nice thing to work on while out for walk with the dog off leash.

There are a lot more things to say about the send to square, but I can’t write too long today, so this short text will have to do for now. What about the North American go-out then? Well. You can surely benefit from teaching your dog to run away from you in a straight line, but I would think that the easiest way to teach it is to teach the dog to just target the fence that marks the edges of the ring. It’s always there and it’s not a very long send. Combined with a well generalized “sit”, I don’t think you need to put much effort in to get a really nice performance.

Good luck with training and please comment below if you have any questions or comments.

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Training for competition

December 16, 2010 in Obedience

Thank you for all the interesting ideas you gave me in yesterday’s blog. My plan for today was to make a video about teaching the dog to heel, but it’s been snowing all day so I’ll do it some other time. I really think you need to see a video to get the idea. A few of the people commenting yesterday said that keeping the dog focused and driven in a trial was the biggest issue for them, so that is what I will address today.

Teaching the exercises for competitive obedience might be hard some times, but the real challenge is to get the dog to perform as well in trials as he is in training. I would say that about fifty percent of training should be preparing the dog for competition, as opposed to just working on details in the exercises. There are different factors that make competitions much more challenging than training, and the first step is to identify them. Here are some things that I find makes the difference:

Lack of reinforcement. This is probably the most important point. We love to reward our dogs and we do it a lot in training. In a trial, the dog has to work for up to fifteen minutes without any food or toys. Most dogs quickly get the difference between training and competition and that’s when we start to call them “ring wise”.Start to let your dog do more than one behavior before he gets rewarded early in your training and increase the time and effort he has to do between rewards gradually. Ideally, your dog should be used to working for longer periods of time in training than you ever ask for him in a trial.

Lack of sequencing. This is related to lack of reinforcement, but brings another aspect to it. Doing many exercises after another without rewarding in between brings out weaknesses that you won’t see if you’re always working one exercise at a time. This is where you go to a trial and don’t understand why your dog made a misstake – “it’s never happened in training”. Make sure that you try all exercises in a sequence with other exercises before it. Make note of any mistakes and fix them before you try the sequence again.

Division of responsibility. When training, I always consider what I want my responsibilities to be, and what responsibilities I lay on the dog. In the end, everything that happens is my responsibility, but I need to train my dog to take care of a lot of things. I can’t do everything for my dog in a trial, but many trainers still take all the responsibility in training. They are always helping the dog out and they never teach the dog to be an active part in training.When I train my dogs, I have the division of responsibility in my mind.

The most important thing is that I never ask my dog to work with me. My dog has to ask me to work with him. I don’t ask him to look at me or to come to heel. The dog has to take responsibility for those things if he wants to work. A trainer that is always asking the dog to work, regardless of if she does it with lures, cues or corrections, will create a lazy dog that knows that he can engage in other things (looking around, sniffing, lagging), because the handler will always tell him when it is important that he shows interest.

Make sure that you have great rewards that your dog loves, and teach him to beg for them. Let your dog be active in asking you to work with him and reward him for taking initiative.

Distractions and new environments. Of course, distractions can be a big difference between training and competition. Make sure that you include anything that could disturb you or your dog in your training.

Before, between and after exercises. Most people only train the exercises and never think of everything else that goes on in a trial. Many dogs (and handlers) don’t know that to do between exercises, or how to get into the ring to start up in a nice way, which causes the dog to loose focus. Make sure that you include entering the ring and transportations between exercises in your training for competition.

Warm up here, perform there. Many dogs are fine as long as they have checked a new place out and have gotten a few rewards in that place. In a trial, you need to warm up away from the ring and then be ready to walk to a new spot and perform right away. Make sure that you do this often in training. Warm your dog up on the parking lot, then walk onto the grass (or warm up in one area of the training hall and then move to a new area) and let the dog follow you for a little while before you reward.

Don’t ask your dog to come with you, reward him if he chooses to (and if he doesn’t, evaluate how much your dog is willing to work for his reward and think about how often your dog asks you to work vs. the other way around). Gradually increase the amount of time your dog has to work in the “ring” before you reward, but don’t always make it harder. Surprise your dog with an early reward once in a while.

I’m sure that you can come up with more ideas. Please post a comment if you do, or if you have any questions. Training for competitions is a massive theme to cover in one blog post, so this is just a scratch on the surface. The most important things to remember is to train your dog for trials, not just exercises. Make your training look like competition a lot and train your dog to a level where the exercises feel easy at a trial and the dog is used to work for longer periods of time without rewards. And make sure that you make your dog feel like a champion every time you finish a trial or a competition-like training. There should always be a great reward for the dog in the end.

Let me know what you think!

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Obedience Challenges

December 15, 2010 in Obedience

I know that a lot of people that read this blog are interested in how to use clicker training for obedience. I will try to write about how to train different exercises and how to problem solve, but I would love to get some input from you. First of all – I need to know if you’re interested in knowing more about clicker training for obedience. I’m also interested to hear what challenges you face when training for obedience trials. Tell me your problems, and I’ll try to give you solutions based on clicker training in this blog.

Epic playing in the snow today

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Send to square

January 14, 2010 in Obedience, Videos

We’ve had two great days with our favourite obedience instructor, Maria Hagström. We were lucky enough to be able to train in a heated indoor facility, made for dog training. We’re not spoiled with great indoors training in Sweden, we’re mostly outdoors or maybe in a riding hall. But change is coming; There are indoor halls for dog training popping out in many places around Sweden now. Very few of them are big enough to host trials, but we’re very glad that we got the opportunity to use one of them for this workshop. It’s been very cold for many weeks and we’ve still got a lot of snow.

Squid has really made progress in obedience. She is much more driven and focused. She is ready for longer sequences and fewer rewards (when training for endurance). One of the things that we have started working on this winter, is the send to square. In class II, you send the dog to the square ten meters straight ahead of you. In class III, you send the dog straight for 25 meters and in the elite class, you send your dog 10 meters to a cone, then to the square, 25 meters away from you, to the right or left of the cone. We didn’t start any training on this until i felt that Squid did really well in some other exercises, like send to a foot target and running full speed away from me without a lure or target.

When I started working on the square, Squid already knew how to run straight ahead in full speed. All i did was to add the four cones in her way. I rewarded with a toy thrown over her head. At first, she didn’t really notice the cones, but it didn’t take long before she started seeking them out. I’m guessing that we’ve had about eight sessions in total before this video was made. I’m really surprised by how fast she got it. Now that Squid has a lot of value for running between the cones, I have started with some work close to the square, where I shape her to move around inside the square. I don’t want to reward her for stopping there, but I want her to have a feeling of “inside the square”. I will combine this training with further training on longer sends like I have done before.

Here is a video from training yesterday:

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The Retrieve, Part 1

January 1, 2010 in Obedience, Videos

A few years ago, I published an article on retrieving (in Swedish). It has been much appreciated by all kinds of dog trainers and has helped many to teach a great retrieve for obedience. We still use the same methods, but training evolve over the years and there are some things that I want to update the article with. I have also decided to add video to the article, and to translate it into English.
Since I wrote the first article, we have become even better at the foundation training. Our philpsophy is to make sure that the dog knows the behavior really well before we introduce it in the setting where it will be used at a trial. In that way, we can keep a high rate of reinforcement, without ever rewarding things that we don’t like.

This is maybe most important when it comes to retrieving. We meet a lot of dogs that have a negative association with the dumbbell – even clicker trained dogs. It’s easy to put pressure on the dog without knowing, and thus creating a negative feeling. If you make sure that your dog has the perfect attitude towards grabbing and holding an object before you introduce the dumbbell, such misstakes can be avoided. Different trainers have different goals for their training, but for my part, I want my dog to have a really energetic attitude to dumbbells. The dog should grab the dumbbell as soon as she gets the chance and then hold it with a rock solid grip until I tell her to drop it. And no matter what distractions I throw at her, she should glow with confidene and joy. I am very satisfied with Missy’s retrieves, so when training Squid, this is one of my first goals. Squid has not been as naturally energetic as Missy, but as you can see in the video below, we’re getting there!

A good retrieve is based on a good game of tug, at least if you ask me. If the dog will grab toys immediatly, hold and weight shift, you have a good foundation for the retrieve. I will gladly spend a lot of time playing tug instead of starting with the formal retrieve too early. Like I have said before, I also work on an informal retrieve to hand, where the puppy picks up a toy and nose touches my hand. This is not strongly connected to the formal retrieve, but I think it is good for the puppy to move with something in her mouth, and to learn to always run to me as soon as she picks something up. I usually wait with the dumbbell until the puppy has grown adult teeth, before that we’re working on foundations like tugging and retrieving to hand.

The most important training I do before I introduce the dumbbell, is to shape the dog to pull on any object that I present to her. I start by using soft, easy things (if I’m not dealing with a dog that is crazy about tugging, in wich case I might use something a little less exciting) and progress to other kinds of objects (plastic dowels, teaspoons, pens, gloves, metal chains etc.). This is nog tug-of-war. I am passive and the dog is active. It’s always the dog that seeks out the object, never the handler that pushes the dog to grab it. I let the dog stand in the initial training, but then progress to having the dog offer a sit in order for me to present the object. I want her to sit down while holdig and shifting her weight back. I hold on to the object for a long time in training, until the dog is holding the object calmly but with a great attitude and weight shift. When the dog can do that, I will let go of the object for a short, short time. I might just let go with one hand, or release the pressure a bit. I always end by grabbing the object again, to test the dogs grip, before I click and reward. The goal is to have the dog hold on to the object with the same hard grip no matter if I’m holding it or not. Because of that, I can’t rush this training and I can’t be too predictable. I will also use self control games (like tempting the dog with treats while she’s holding) to give the dog a greater understanding of her job.

When you’ve done this kind of training for a while, chewing on the object should be something that happens very, very rarely. This gives you the opportunity to make a big deal out of it when it happens. You’re close by and can react with perfect timing. Grab the toy (ideally as the dog opens her mouth to chew or change her grip) and express how shocked you are (or do a victory lap with the object on your own). Don’t give your dog a new chance right away, become an actor and let your dog beg to get the object back. This will of course only work if you have built value for the object in your initial training, and should not be used right away.

  • Get a strong foundation of tugging and retrieve to hand
  • Train in short, energetic sessions with lots of playing
  • Always let the dog grab the object, never push it towards the dog
  • Let the dog offer a sit before you present the object (after initial training)
  • Make sure that the dog is always working for your rewards, and is not just pulling because she likes tugging on the object
  • Reward a calm, but heavy grip. You should be able to feel your dog weight shift even when he is sitting down
  • Let go of the object for very short moments in the beginning. Grag it again and reward if the dog is still holding it well
  • Gradually increase the amount of time where the dog is holding on her own
  • Use self control games to increase understanding (can be done at all the steps)
  • Do the same thing while the dog is moving
  • Use all kinds of objects
  • Only reward your dog for letting go on the click or on your verbal drop cue, not on other sounds or cues
  • Always evaluate the dog’s attitude. The dog should really want to have that object!

Here is a session where I’m doing this kind of training with Squid. It’s mostly play, but that’s how it should be:

Good luck with the retrieve! If you have access to a video camera, I’d love to see some sessions and comment on them, so upload them to YouTube and make a comment here!

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Update

October 26, 2009 in Agility, Obedience, Pictures, Tests and trials

I know it’s been forever since I wrote here. Everything is great in our new home, except that we still haven’t got an internet connection. I was really looking forward to finally getting broadband (we couldn’t get it where we lived before), but it’s taking forever. It took them almost three months to connect a stationary phone and now that that’s done, I hope that we’ll get internet connection soon. Right now, I’m on a mobile connection that is really slow (and that I can’t use with my Macbook). Wich is the reason why I haven’t been able to post any videos lately. I hope this will change soon, then I’ll be a better blogger and publish new videos.

I’ve done a few trials this fall and we’ve done really well. Missy became Obedience Trial Champion in the beginning of October and Shejpa became Agility Trial Champion the same weekend! I’m trying to qualify  both dogs for Swedish nationals next year. Shejpa and I just came back from a trial on Gotland, an island on the east coast of Sweden. We weren’t as successful as we’ve been before, if you only look at the results.  But I have been working on speed with her and it has really helped! Her speed was really good and I know I can make it even better. We did only have one clean run out of four, where she finished second, after another working cocker, world team memeber Max. Her running contacts are perfect in trials and I don’t worry about them at all. It’s a great feeling, knowing that they are consistent and fast. I was more worried about the other dog that I brought to the trial. My student and friend Anna let me run her border collie Fonzie in his debut in standard. Unfortunatly, he knocked a bar in two of his runs and had weave pole problems in the two others. But his running contacts were great and that was what I wanted most of all.

Squid has turned one year and is doing good. We’re training agility, obedience, herding and search and rescue. She is very immature and I have decided not to do any trials with her this year. I have so little time and I might as well spend my weekends trialing with the dogs that need to in order to qualify for nationals. Thomas’ cocker Pogue is one month younger, but he did his first trial in obedience this weekend. He did really well and is now qualified for the next level! Now, Thomas has promised to do focus on Pogues agility training – we’re bringing the young dogs to Greg Derrett’s double box seminar in about five weeks. Shejpa is running in the advanced group. We’re really looking forward to the seminar!

Squid herding:
 

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