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Some videos

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Fanny
on February 25, 2010
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We’re having a pretty extreme vinter for the south of Sweden. We have about 85 cm of snow and more coming this weekend. I don’t mind a bit of snow, as it makes everything brighter and cleaner, but this is really too much. We can’t train or teach in our normal riding facility, as it is closed because of the snow (some buildings, like tennis centers and riding facilities, have collapsed because of snow on the roof). Because of that, we had to find a new place for last weekends seminar on jumping. We did, but then it started snowing, and the roads and trains just broke down. Our instructor, Vappu Alatalo, was on a train from Copenhagen to Örebo, but never got here. She spent 24 hours travelling, but got nowhere (she eventually just tried to get back home). So the seminar got cancelled.

As long as my training field was plowed, I was okay. We could do herding, obedience and a lot of foundation work for agility. Now, we’re still waiting for the snow plow to come bye again, but it seems like we’re waiting in vain. I wish we had our own tractor. On the positive side, you can really tell that spring is coming. It’s so much lighter in the afternoons now, and the sun shines on our fields. We didn’t get any sun in the middle of winter, as we’re surrounded by trees that blocked the sun for a couple of months.

Thomas and Pogue did an obedience trial in class II on Valentine’s Day. It was a bit early and not everything was perfect, but they got enough points to be able to move on to the next class. They will focus on search and rescue trials this spring and summer, and then do more obedience (class III and elite) in the fall. They are a wonderful team to watch, you can really tell how much Thomas loves that dog. He is only 16 months old, one month younger than Squid, who hasn’t done any trialing yet.

Here is a video of Thomas and Pogue training scent discrimination, the first step towards the exercise with scented articles in class III and elite:

Here is a video of Squid and I doing some shadow handling:

And we’ve also started training weaves with the 2×2 method:

Adding a Cue

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Fanny
on February 24, 2010
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I got a question about how I add a cue to a shaped behavior, and why I do it that way. When you add a cue, you can choose to add the cue before the behavior, as the dog performs the behavior, or after the behavior (just before the click and/or reward). As I pointed out in this post last summer, I choose to add the cue before the behavior. It just makes much more sense to me than any other way of doing it, and it seems like my dogs learn faster than they did before (when I did differently).

A cue, or a discriminative stimulus, is information for the dog. It tells him what behavior will be reinforced (or punished) right there and then. Even before we’ve added a cue, there are discriminative stimuli at work. When there’s a behavior, there is a stimulus preceding it. When we add a verbal cue, there are already stimuli that cue the behavior (our position, what we’ve rewarded recently, the way we reward etc.). Our goal is to get the verbal cue to become the most important one and override the other stimuli. In order to do that, we need to make the new cue valuable to the dog, it needs to give information.

In theory, I think this is the most important thing. I try to make the cue mean something to the dog as soon as possible. When I only reward the behavior if the cue has been given, the cue becomes valuable to the dog. I also want to mix in other cues pretty soon, so that the cue is not only valuable, but also contains information on which behavior I want. I think this is the important part, and it can only be done with the cue happening before the behavior.

Pairing the cue with the behavior for a long time is probably not as important, but I do that as well. I can’t really explain it in theory, but it seems that you can add a cue to an operant behavior, using a procedure more like classical conditioning (pairing the cue with the behavior, not really focusing on the consequence). If we are using a classical conditioning procedure, it is absolutely most efficient if the cue is presented before the behavior (just like we would click before we give the treat, when we want to condition the clicker). In both operant and classical conditioning, the stimulus comes before the behavior.

If we add the cue at the same time, or after the dog performs the behavior, we’re not effectively pairing the cue with the behavior, and other stimuli will still be what gives the dog information about what behavior to perform. Of course, people teach their dogs cues in many different ways, so they all work. I just don’t think that adding the cue when the behavior already is happening is teaching the dog much at all. Eventually, most trainers change the timing and give the cue earlier and earlier, why not do it with perfect timing right from the start?).

Please write a comment and tell me what you think!

Some of my Thoughts on Shaping

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Fanny
on February 4, 2010
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Wow! I love that so many have contributed to the discussion on shaping. In total (Swedish and English blog) there are over 50 comments made. This seems to be a topic that needs discussion. I’m going to write some of my own thoughts on the subject, but of course, I don’t have all the answers (no one does). I don’t think that shaping only works for a certain type of dog. Our dogs are all very different, but they are all successfully shaped. Some of them have been easier to train, but that would probably be true regardless of method. I think it’s up to each trainer to decide how they want to train their dog, as long as the method is reward based. I see a lot of great benefits with shaping, compared to luring or targeting, and that’s why I use it a lot.

How ever you choose to train your dog, think twice before making statements like “shaping makes my dog stressed” or “my dog does not like to think for himself”. Of course, dogs are born with different personalities, but we can do a lot to nudge them in the right direction. I will always try to strengthen the weaker sides by building toy drive, socialization, handling etc. In this, I also include shaping how my dog acts in training. I believe that you can get all (with very few exceptions) dogs to be calm and focused in shaping. And that all dogs can learn to love shaping.

It is, of course, a matter of what you feel like spending time doing. Some dog trainers seem to always look for the path of least resistance - if the dog won’t play, they’ll give him treats instead, if the dog won’t retrieve, they won’t use toys, if the dog get’s passive in shaping, they help him out. A trainer like that might feel that she is simplifying things (in contrast to the poor people like me that will “make everything so complicated”), but she will without a doubt get shaped by her dog. That leads to the dog developing his strengths, but he’ll never get a chance to work on his weaker sides. When people ask me where I get the patience to do shaping, I quietly feel that it would require a lot more patience on my part if I had to help my dogs through all their life. Shaping might require some patience for a short period of time when you’re just starting out, but you will gain that time many times in the future. A dog that is shaping wise will learn advanced things so much faster than the dog that always needs guidance.

Champions in any field make a habit of doing things others find boring or uncomfortable

The biggest problem in the Swedish comments, were how people desribed the training. Here is one example: “I’ve heard about dogs shutting down a lot as soon as they are expected to offer behaviors”. The key word being expected. Stop expecting anything from the dog, and you’ll do well. All dogs “offer” behaviors all the time. They stand, sit, lie down, sniff, drink, eat, pee, scratch, turn their heads, walk, yawn, prick their ears, wag their tails… If one of these behaviors start producing a reward that the dog really wants, that behavior will increase in frequency. Voila! - The dog is offering behaviors.

Stop your efforts to influence the dog and start observing to find behaviors to reinforce.

If your dog gets worried while shaping, you shouldn’t be staring at the dog and expect him to offer behaviors. This is a great comment posted in the Swedish blog:

Jessica says:
“I thought that my worried young dog couldn’t be shaped. She never offered behaviors and she would get more and more anxious and finally go lie down somewhere. Not good. But then I tried to click for all movements, as long as she did something. And all of a sudden, she got it. You can really see how proud she gets and how her self confidence is growing. “Look at me! Isn’t this worth a click!”

If you have a dog that gets worried by shaping, try this tonight: Get a bowl of really tasty treats ready. Lock the other dogs away (if you have more than one). Turn on the tv and watch something that is interesting enough for you to have patience, but not so interesting that you forget all about the dog. Choose if you’d like to use a clicker or not (depending on your dog’s previous experiences with the clicker). Watch TV. Reward all movements from the dog by (clicking and) throwing a treat to the dog. Do reward ALL movements to begin with. If your dog starts repeting only one behavior, you can choose to not reward that any more, but wait for something else. It’s a good idea to make sure that the dog has to move to get the treat (if your dog lies down, throw the treat so that he has to get up to get it). If your dog goes to sleep - let him. He will eventually get thirsty, need to pee or get up just to change position. If you don’t get a lot of behaviors tonight, you can put the bowl of treats in the fridge and try again tomorrow.

There is no simple answer to this. But I am convinced that there are a lot of dogs that could enjoy shaping if they only got the chance. There’s so much to write on this subject and I’ll have to come back to it. Especially if you keep discussing it in the commend field!

Is shaping for all dogs?

Published
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Fanny
on February 1, 2010
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I posted this question in my Swedish blog, but I would love to get some thoughts from my international readers as well. I’ve got the impression that shaping is less common in the US than it is here. Clicker trainers seem to choose targeting or even luring more often.

Please submit your thoughts on the matter in the comment field, and I will adress this as soon as I feel that I’ve gotten some input from you.

Do you think that shaping suits all kinds of dogs? What kind of dogs should not be shaped? Do you have any related experiences with your own dogs?

Poor Squid

Published
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Fanny
on January 21, 2010
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Poor Squid has had a rough week. She started throwing up on Monday morning and didn’t keep any food or water all day. I wasn’t particularly worried, since she seemed like her normal, happy self. When I woke up on Tuesday, I discovered that she had sneaked downstairs many times during the night and left around eight yellow puddles on the floor. I also realized that she was in a lot of pain (she would close her eyes and bow) and seemed to loose her balance at times. We went straight to the vet, where they took some blood samples (that showed nothing out of the ordinary, except that she was dehydrated) and examined her. She had to stay for over 24 hours and get medication and fluid through an intravenous drip. I got her back yesterday, and apart from being very hungry and a little tired, she seems fine. I don’t know what caused her to get so sick, but I sure hope that we won’t experience it again.

She’s now eating small amounts of kibble (we usually feed raw, but she’ll eat RC intestinal for a while, doctors orders) many times a day, and she’s not supposed to eat to quickly. Perfect opportunity for small training sessions. We’ve worked on her stays, sitting rear crosses, putting on her collar (she hates it) and other calm but very useful behaviors. I’m also planning to start working seriously on her scent discrimination, it’s perfect when it’s cold, dark and snowy outdoors.

Happy New Year!

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Fanny
on January 1, 2010
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We spent New Years Eve at home with the dogs. It was relatively calm here and the dogs did not seem to notice the fireworks at all. A new year means reflecting over the past year and what we have accomplished. The biggest thing that happened to us was of course moving in to our very own house. We’ve lived here for five months now and we couldn’t be happier here, it’s just perfect! We’ve had some really cold days (-20 C) and quite a lot of snow. Perfect for celebrating christmas with our families, not so perfect for dog training. We mostly do sessions indoors (and that isn’t really a problem, there are so many things to work on that doesn’t require a lot of space). We’re also fortunate to have a riding facility really close by, and we get to use it pretty much when ever we like. I have most of my agility equipment there and we do all of our classes and seminars there this winter. I’m hoping to do some herding there this weekend too, that’ll be an interesting experience.


My cute girls waiting for their turn

Looking back at this year, it has been a fairly good one. Shejpa did her first year of trialing (well, she did two trials in 2008) and got into the highest level, earned her Agility Trial Championship and qualified for swedish nationals next year. We’re still far from where I’d like to be, and we have a lot of work to do, but I’m very happy with the progress we’ve made. Shejpa and I also did a seminar with Greg Derrett in December, and I’m happy to see the amazing progress she’s made since last year (I don’t think Greg yelled “spaniel” at all this year…). Shejpa has also gone hunting with Thomas a few times and she’s really the best when it gets tough (she’s not the most obedient spaniel, but no one

Missy and I did not accomplish as much as I had hoped for, but she got her Obedience Trial Championship and did some good trials. Squid is now 15 months old and we haven’t started to trial yet. She’s taking a long time to mature and she’s been a new kind of challenge for me. I’m very thankful for everything that she’s teaching me and I feel like we’re really making good progress now! Her tugging is a lot better, she’s starting to be able to concentrate for longer periods of time and she’s got speed and passion where she needs it. She’s making progress in herding and I hope to be able to start trialing in 2010.


Squid herding on Christmas Eve

My new years resolution is to become a better blogger and writer. I’m going to update this blog more often and share videos and pictures with you all. I’m also going to write a book about shaping. (Look - no “I’ll try” or “I’ll start writing”… it took me a few tries to get that right). Right now, I’m working on an update on my article on retrieving (in Swedish). I will translate it and put it in this blog along with videos.

Training Tip #2 - “Go see” and Classical Conditioning

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Fanny
on July 28, 2009
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Ok, I know it’s been a month since I posted the first training tip. I’ve been away teaching and going to trials with Shejpa (who is now in level 3 in both standard and jumpers and did some really nice runs!). We’re moving to our new home on Monday, so it might take a while before I’ll be able to post #3, but I will translate the second one for you tonight (and hey, comments are very reinforcing).

Todays tip is about adding a cue to the behavior of greeting (people and/or other dogs). I was just reminded of another benefit to this. Someone had put piles of wood in our yard and when I took Squid out to potty in the dark, she was a bit scared and raised her hackles and growled at the new sight. I tried telling her to “go see” and she instantly changed her attitude. She started to wag her tail and ran up to sniff the piles of wood before we continued on our walk. This is a cool example of the power of classical conditioning. I don’t usually make a big deal out of the puppy barking at new things and I don’t know if I think it’s a good idea to always make sure they go up to sniff and get over it. I think the best response often is to just act normal and walk on, but in this case it was interesting to watch her response to a well known cue in a new setting.

If your dog is uncomfortable around new people, this cue might help you break the ice in some situations. But you can’t use it too often in situations where the dog is insecure, as it then won’t be associated with good feelings, but rather the opposite. Add the cue in situations where the dog is happy and relaxed, like every time he is reunited with a family member or close friend. When the conditioning is strong, you can try it out in a more neutral situation, but be very careful not to scare the dog during the greeting.

The “goo see” cue (as any cue) has both a classical and an operant part. The classical conitioning is all about the emotions evoked by the cue. The operant part has to do with the dog learning that he may greet other people when, and only when, the cue has been given. You will want to be even more careful with getting your timing right when adding the cue (see Training Tip #1), if the classical conditioning is important to you. Make sure that your cue is presented before the dog goes to greet. If you give the cue as the dog is greeting or is running towards the person to say hi, the classical conditioning will be weaker than if you present the cue first.

I therefore hold the puppy in her collar or with my hands around her chest when I want to add the cue. I give the cue when I see that the puppy really wants to goo see and let go of the dog half a second later. I repeat this for every greeting for a couple of weeks, before I start using the cue as a reward for good behavior (looking at me, walking on a loose leash or staying in position, for example).

Obedience Seminars with Maria Hagström

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Fanny
on February 2, 2009
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Maria Hagström is a Swedish dog trainer who is extremely successful. She has been at the top in obedience and working trials for a long time and her young working kelpie Ylle was qualified for national championships in both tracking and obedience last year, only 2 years old. He also made the national obedience team. Maria’s training is a lot like ours, all shaping and reward based. We just love training with her as it always leaves us with both motivation and inspiration. This time, we had invited her to do four days of seminars at a riding facility close to where we live. I worked Missy on Thursday and Friday and Squid on Saturday and Sunday.

With Missy, I got a lot of new ideas for her training. Obedience with her has been frustrating this winter, as I have felt that she always is too high and that there are some details that I just can’t fix. Maria made me realize that the details that we are struggling with has to do with her level of arousal. When I got Missy to calm down, the details started to look much better automaticly! I have been struggling with position and straight sits in heeling, with stimulus control on stand, sit and down from heel and on keeping back feet completly still when working on distance control. I now realize that all of those things will be much easier to fi if we get Missys level of arousal down.

Maria talks a lot about active and passive reinforcement. With a dog like Missy, you would like to keep the dog as passive as possible while rewarding, and also doing a lot of “its yer choice” while rewarding. While heeling with Missy, I should mostly reward her sitting at my side, and reward her when she can focus on me while I move the treat around. It helped a lot and I can’t believe that I have had trouble with getting her arousal right when training heeling. When her arousal was right, her sits where perfectly straight.

Maria also puts lots of emphasis on preparing your dog for trials. Getting all the exercises perfect is not enough. You should do lots of training on longer sequences (2 exercises or more) without rewards (of course, dog gets rewarded at the end of the sequence). For most dogs, this is the biggest difference between training and trialing. They get lots of rewards while training, and then none when in a trial. Doing lots of longer sequences will prepare the dog for trials and also give you valuable information on what needs to be worked on. You often get problems while doing longer sequences that you don’t get when you are just training and rewarding a lot. You also get to see if your dog is doing well on the first try. If you don’t do this in training, you will have to make those misstakes in a trial, wich is both expensive for you and demotivating for the dog. It is also important to do this kind of training in new environments and in situations that look like a trial.

On Friday morning, we got to choose a sequence to do with our dogs to try this kind of training out. With Missy, i choose a short heeling pattern, a recall with stand and down and then my plan was to reward her for heeling with me to the next exercise (it’s very important to have good transitions between the exercises). I put a lot of thought into the warm up and Missy was really good outside the riding facility, calm and focused. When we got in the trial setting, she was higher, but not as bad as the day before. We need to work more on it before it works in a trial, I think, but we’re definatly on the right track!

Keeping Missy lower on the arousal curve is something that I really need to think about in agility as well. She is so high while doing agility that I don’t feel that we’re making progress while training. It is mostly my fault, since I have a tendency to just run, run, run with her. Never calming it down. I have taken the new knowledge about Missy’s obedience into our agility training. We have a really long way to go in agility, but I think it is the best way in the end. Missy has great knowledge of jumping, weaving, contacts and handling, but when she is too aroused, she will just throw herself over bars, pop out at the third weave pole, fail to collect and get out of balance on the dogwalk. This is a video from our first training session with lower arousal as our primary goal. I have edited out the most boring parts, there was a lot more sit stays and “its yer choice” in it:

Shejpa in class II!

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Fanny
on January 26, 2009
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We’ve had a great weekend! Saturday was agility trial with Shejpa and our chance to get those last Q:s and move up to class II. She did so well! She was clean and fast in both jumpers and standard and won both classes. She was 8 seconds faster than the second fastest dog in standard. I was worried about her contacts, as we haven’t been able to train more than a couple of times during December and January. Our training field is all snow and ice and we haven’t had many sessions in the riding facility. We did a team run that didn’t go very well, but all contacts were perfect. Then, in standard, her dogwalk was really bad, but she still hit the yellow. I’m not very concerned about that, I knew that it was a gamble to run her in standard with almost no training for two months and I know that she’ll be fine as soon as we can start training again. I’m very happy with Shejpa and I can’t wait until the next trial, in two weeks, where she will be running in class II in both standard and jumpers!

Jumpers run:

Standard run:

Sunday was obedience trial at our club and we were helping out. Two of our students were competing in obedience for the first time. They both have Kleiner Münsterländers, a german birddog (HPR) breed. There were about 40 dogs in the trial and one of our students actually won the whole class! In front of all te border collies and working breeds. Both of them did really well and they are now qualified for the next class. I was so proud watching the happy, focused and confident dogs!

Herding and flying

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Fanny
on January 16, 2009
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We’ve had a fun filled week. Last Friday, we drove to friends in Sweden for a weekend of herding. Squid got to meet the sheep for the first time and did really well. We were all very pleased with the way she was starting out. She was happy, confident, focused and balanced the sheep to me. She showed a lot of the traits that I have been looking for in a puppy. I can’t wait ’til next time we’ll be herding (in about a month), but I need to start jogging, because I got so exhausted from running backwards and sideways trying to help the dog and not get smashed by the sheep. Good thing that all that walking backwards in obedience is helping in other areas as well… Here is a video of Squids first day with the sheep, 16 weeks old:

Tuesday was Squids first time flying in her crate. The trip to Bergen is a short one, about 50 minutes. I was at the airport about an hour early (when has that ever happened before?) to give her time to get used to it and maybe get a bit tired. She was truly a perfect puppy at the airport. Walking nicely on leash while I was pushing the heavy cart, sleeping by my feet when I sat with my computer, wagging her tail to all the people that came by. We played some crate games and trained some tricks and then I left her in her crate with two raw turkey necks. I don’t even think she knew I went. When we picked her up in Bergen, she was relaxed and happy, I think she had a good time.

We were teaching in Bergen for two days. Squid turned 4 months on Wednesday. She is a great puppy to bring to classes, she stays in her open crate while other dogs are working and I’m teaching, she does demos and concentrates really well, she sleeps by my feet when I do lectures. I’m really pleased with her. I finally got the video camera back (along with my husband and three dogs) and I did some recording in Bergen and I’ll try to do some more at home. It’s time for a new video of Squid and the things we have shaped.


Squid at 16 weeks

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