The Progress Continues, The Documentation... Stalled
My internet has been out for the past 5 or so days so, just when I thought I was ahead on these blog posts I have now fallen behind. Not a big deal, life has gone on without it, now it's just a matter of catching up... on a great deal of stuff.
Raising Nick
Still one of the easiest puppies I have had to raise. I would have assumed that the honeymoon would have been over by now but the pup keeps showing me more of his ability with each passing day. Not huge changes or achievements, but constant development, and small progressions each day lead to big changes in a week. Some of these developments baffle me as I have not experienced a pup quite like this before. His ability to think through issues and figure out what I am looking for is fantastic.
The All-Important Toy Motivation
His ball and toy motivation is developing nicely, but again, not over-the-top. His retrieval is quite impressive, but he is a puppy and it is not perfect. I have recorded some video of a series of exercises where I have created failure in an exercise and made some glaring errors which were, for the most part, on purpose. I created these spur-of-the-moment exercises to push the limits of Nicks capability as well as provide him an opportunity to offer behaviour to solve a problem. I am not one to simply lead a dog through an exercise unless absolutely necessary. I prefer that a dog fill in the blanks for the most part, yet, I try not to create patterns to the point of obsession where it can interfere with other work. I may upload this video and provide a link to it later, but be warned... it is long and dull, but there are many gems in it, showing what patience and being spontaneous with a goal can provide you in training and building a working relationship with a young pup (or any animal for that matter).
A Different Point of View... Literally
Simple problem solving exercises are not always so simple. For example, the next series of photos combined with a short video (sorry, it is poor) show you a very simple exercise in teaching an understanding of objects and how they may interfere in a search.
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| A dog agility tunnel. From where this photo was taken I simply lobbed a ball over it. Where it landed on the other side was visible from where I was standing but... |
The blue and yellow thing is what dog agility people refer to as a tunnel, the things on the ends are sand bags which hold the tunnels in place. The exercise itself is simple. I stand on one side of an obstacle and lob an object that the puppy desires over the obstacle while the puppy is watching. Initial reactions to this set the stage for how I go about the next phase of the exercise.
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| ...as you can see by the red line (my line of sight on the ball) and the green line (puppy's line of sight) there is a significant difference in what the handler and puppy see from each of their vantage points. |
A. If the puppy realizes that the object has not magically disappeared and makes an attempt to go over the obstacle (which is usually set up to be impassable) I simply stand and watch and wait to see if the puppy sticks to task and, as they begin to realize that they can go to the left or right of the object to get behind it to search, I move with them as support. They are praised and played with when they find the ball.
B. If the puppy appears to completely lose interest, meaning, they appear to be put off by this (perhaps they think the ball has simply disappeared) I will go around myself, pick up the ball quickly and head back to where I started, opting to lob the ball near either end of the obstacle, but still within sight, just to give the pup an opportunity to determine that there is a back side to the object.... okay, enough explanation, we were on plan A, outlined above.
Initially Nick attempted to climb over the tunnel, which was impossible for his size and the tunnels shape so, in frustration, he barked at me and then went to work. He went to the end of the tunnel, went through the tunnel, came back to me, went in again, came back, went to go in the end again and paused, snorted and headed around back where he found the ball. Fantastic!
The following video shows the basic exercise after his first success. He learns quickly. I apologize for not catching the first pass where he problem solved as it was the most important part. I would also like to apologize for the poor footage that I managed to catch. Interestingly enough, his first success occurred when he went around the left end of the tunnel. In the video, you are seeing his second run at this exercise and, after my toss, he started to go left then paused and decided to investigate the right end of the tunnel as a possible route around the object. Nick is interesting in that, although he can learn pattern, he takes initiative to go outside of pattern to figure things out. The majority of pups would simply stick with what they had success with the last time and not investigate further. This is not a highly technical exercise nor is it meant to be impressive. This is an exercise to observe the puppy as it determines how to problem solve and how he perceives certain situations.
Road Trip(s)!
Nick has been on the road to a number of locations and logged a number of miles over the past week. He has had some in town walking next to traffic, pedestrians, etc., some trips to open areas, watched other dogs playing agility in our back field and been out to a schutzhund club about an hour drive from our home where he participated in some activities relating to retrieval and search. He travels extremely well, quiet, clean and comes out ready to work.
We again ventured onto the field where we happened upon a stray plastic water bottle with a torn label. I took the opportunity to pick up the bottle and toss it, which Nick returned to me with enthusiasm, repeatedly. Being the environmentally-conscious person that I am, we ventured to where the recycling bin was to deposit it. Seeing an opportunity to do a search I restrained Nick physically and tossed the bottle I had in my hand into the recycling bin which was already half-full of the same bottles. I released Nick, allowing him to go up to the bin. Up went his paws onto the side of the bin which, almost immediately, tipped toward him, emptying the contents onto the ground. Nick was quite surprised by this response and backed up eyeing up the small pile and assessing it for safety. He then went back to work, nosing his way through the debris, sniffing and snorting... then a pause... then he picked up the bottle that I had thrown in there and returned it to my hand. This was the same bottle, same ripped label, slight creasing in the plastic, still had his little drool bubbles on it. Awesome. This completely took me by surprise. This was not something I expect out of a puppy of his age. People work long and hard to prepare dogs for the scent discrimination portion of their UD (Utility Dog) program to earn their obedience titles and my pup just did it naturally. I would expect (with a puppy) a great deal of fuddling around with the bottles on the ground, but not a perfect scent discrimination exercise. Unfortunately my wife was not recording at the time but there were a number of people who witnessed this event.
I am still thinking about this today as I type.
Ball Play and Retrieval
Not to get off topic, but I have had a number of questions regarding what I use to "build drive" or as a reward. I mentioned before that I do not use fancy toys and tugs to build toy motivation in my dogs. Being someone who has access to wholesale pricing for these things, you would think that I would take advantage of this. Yes, I do have Kongs and stuff for the dogs, but my favourite item that I like to use with my dogs is something I put together myself... a simple tennis ball on a rope. I am inserting pics of the process of how I make these. I do not buy tennis balls, I simply wait for people to discard their old ones and pick them up. Call me cheap but I find them to be ideal for my purposes... plus they work well with my scent detection system boxes.
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| 1. A simple coat hanger wire has a loop bent in one end (the other end is sharpened). The end of the rope is placed in the steel loop and crushed down using pliers to hold the rope in place. |
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| 2. The sharp end of the coat hanger wire is pushed through the outside of the tennis ball, through the center of the ball and through the other side (not through your hand). |
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| 4. Once through, pull out enough rope to tie a large knot to prevent the rope from being pulled through the ball when tugged by the dog. |
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| 3. Once through the other side a pair of vise grips is handy to lock on to the sharp end to assist in pulling the loop (which holds the rope) through from the inside of the ball |
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| 5. Ball, with knotted rope, ready to be used. These toys are to be used for interactive play with the dog and not meant for the dog to be left alone with (choking hazard). |
Nicks motivation for a toy is good. Again, not over the top. Just building up and becoming another way of reinforcing behaviour as well as building another form of interaction that we have with one another. The video below shows a little bit of ball play followed with some retrieval. Simple stuff, just playing with the puppy and enhancing some things that will be useful for later.
Now, For Some Training... Kind of
While out on a walk, it is second nature for myself, actually, for my entire family, to randomly turn situations into an obedience exercise or learning/training opportunity for our dogs. Since starting this blog I have had a difficult time catching these moments on video simply because they are just so common in our day-to-day life that we do not realize what we are even doing. The following video was one of those rare moments that I thought to record. It is a good example of how I create intensity and quick response in the recall.
Nick is, by nature, a dog that sticks by you, who is naturally obedient but is not afraid of heading off to investigate the world around him while keeping an eye on your location. I have, in this instance, included the rest of my dogs in a walk to the back of our property at dusk (when the coyotes begin to howl). Nick does take some interest in the dogs when the opportunity to chase them presents itself. They try very hard not to interact with him and reinforce his obnoxious puppy behaviour, however, this does not prevent him from trying (I do respect that they are simply tolerating him and handle him accordingly, meaning, I call him away from them or distract him regularly so they are not pressured too much). This presents a perfect opportunity to begin practicing his recall.
Although I allow Nick to run off and return to me without calling, I want for Nick to be sensitive to when I call, even a little bit anxious as he anticipates me calling him. To do this, I pick moments after he has just left my side to venture off with the other dogs and, just before he passes the threshold where I feel he may have a slower response, I call him. I do this repeatedly, gradually increasing the distance that he is allowed to move away from me. The progression in the recall is quite quick when approached in this manner (progression meaning a quicker response as well as an increased distance away).
I think it is important to understand that I do not, under normal circumstances, work the recall in the manner which I just described with my clients dogs. Normally, I would (using food or play as a reward) begin with a focus exercise to which we would attach a request and begin to add distance (this is a rough description of the process, I may go back and demonstrate the entire process with Nick or another dog if necessary, later). Unfortunately for those reading this blog, Nick circumvented this whole process by being naturally obedient. All I had to do was simply attach his name to the behaviour of him returning to me from short distances... then longer distances. No restrained recalls, no running away (well, I did a couple of times for fun), no multiple calls or a long line needed to reel him in... he just did it. Sorry, not much I can say other than that. He just does it... which does not make much for an interesting process that I can illustrate with video or still photos. I will, at times, reward him in different ways for performing well, but, for now, he seems to enjoy interaction as a primary reinforcement.
If you watch the first recall versus the second at 0:22 into the video, you see a dramatic difference in response. This could be for 3 reasons, the first being the shorter distance away and the second being that the stimulus (my wife in this case) is less distracting to Nick as compared with running dogs and finally, because at this point he is anticipating my call. Either way, a behaviour that is offered and performed enthusiastically is preferred when an animal is learning. This is what I strive for as an end goal. This is fresh video, taken last night... Nick has grown considerably. www.clpr.ca
