Fun Training Or Classes

[NeylasMom]

It seems sort of silly to be taking her through a basic class since I'm well equipped to teach her all of it myself, but I just need the motivation right now.

 

Ah, for me the threat of public humiliation is always incentive to train. That is a neat way to run training classes. Would work well for me. Too bad no one around here that I know of offer that.

 

Sunita & I had our first agility class last week. She was GOOD & I had a blast. Love this girl! Someone in class said, "You've done a lot of this haven't you?" I allowed that I have indeed brought quite a few dogs through lower level agility & added, "I never seem to get any better though."

 

Have you heard of Laurie Luck? She does the local in person wkd portions of Karen Pryor's academy for our area among other things. She is the first trainer I know of in this area that offered sort of "alternative" training. Her classes are broken into 4 categories (I'm not going to be able ot remember all of that, but for instance once focuses on self-control, etc.) and you can use up your classes in any of the categories - all in one, equally split amongst all, whatever you want. But, like Pat Miller, she's also pretty far from me, the closest facility is about 50 min from me flying. So I'm really pleased to have found this. It's not quite the same concept, but it works with the fact that I have this inflated opinion of myself as a trainer.

 

 

I'm thinking about agility for Violet down the road. Not competition, just for fun and to build confidence, but we'll see.

 

Krissy, do you have nosework classes in your area? It's starting to catch on and might be a really good option for you guys instead of agility. I have a friend who started taking classes here when they were first offered and just titled with her dog. It's much more about doing something that encourages a dog to use his natural abilities rather than teaching him to do "artificial" things on cue. That part of it really appeals to me.

[Guest jacsar]

Hello everyone! I just found this thread and thought you might be able to help me out with a few training questions. Ok, a lot of training questions...

 

We're doing puppy classes with Finn who is just 4 months. He can sit, shake a paw, leave it and down. I'm teaching him bow (when I catch the behaviour). His recall is OK, considering I've always had a pocket full of treats but I wouldn't trust it anywhere but at home.

 

One of the problems is that he is nervous in the car. Last time I left early so I could walk him before class. I think this helped with the car anxiety but not the class. He was still nervous, always watching the other dogs and not food motivated at all. He was great after playtime until a new dog showed up late and he worried about her the entire time.

 

The trainer told me to bring high value treats so tomorrow I'm going with wieners, cheese and doggie pepperoni...but I'm not confident that it'll help.

 

Would it be rude of me to let him smell the other dogs as they come in? Is that a puppy class no-no? If I have a chance I'll ask first.

 

Will he get confused if I use the clicker at home but not at puppy classes? No one at class does and I feel silly bringing mine.

 

Oh and one more. Finn always has a bit of a delay in his sit or down. When we did it in class the trainer kept directing me to lure him, thinking he wasn't going to do it, but given a few seconds more he will. I know we want them to not hesitate but I think given time the length of it will shorten. To wait or not to wait?

 

 

 

I'm so impressed with all the training you guys are doing! I was all impressed with bow and then I read CRAWL and SPIN and ...... fantastic!

 

I did learn a few other things from a private lesson. I stopped the miscellaneous offerings of tricks Finn was doing (shake a paw mostly- which is cute but not what I wanted) by not treating until he was still, we also never let him move his head at all to get the treat, I push it directly in to his mouth so there's no confusion that it's not his until I give it to him. It's been working like a charm! I don't want him snatching food out of the kids' hands.

[krissy]

Krissy, do you have nosework classes in your area? It's starting to catch on and might be a really good option for you guys instead of agility. I have a friend who started taking classes here when they were first offered and just titled with her dog. It's much more about doing something that encourages a dog to use his natural abilities rather than teaching him to do "artificial" things on cue. That part of it really appeals to me.

 

I've never heard of it but I'll do some leg work. I know most of the training facilities in this area though since we just went through the search for a place for obedience/agility last winter. I doubt much has changed in the way of programs so you never know.

 

Summit LOVES agility. We have so much fun. It's not an issue of getting him to do artificial behaviours... he'll pretty much do anything to get a treat once he knows what he's being asked to do. The problem was those darn gun shots at the agility field all the time. Ruined everything. Of course, with agility more or less out of the picture it would be nice to find him something else to do. He's not exactly crazy about obedience but he is pretty good at it.

[kudzu]

Nose work is wonderful!

[kudzu]

jacsar,

 

Time, patience & slowly building up exposure may be the cure for the nervousness problem. On the subject of high value treats one thing that has really worked well for me are frozen grilled chicken strips available in bags in the freezer section. I pull some strips out just before leaving for class. By the time I get there they are defrosted enough for me to easily break tiny bits off. If I have a nervous dog I am trying to entice to take treats & distract from all the worrisome things around I pull an entire strip out. Hold it in one hand & break tiny bits off to treat. With my Staghound I had to spend a class or two working at a distance from the other dogs. Since she already knew the things being taught in the beginning at puppy class I decided we could work on other things like feeling good about all those scary barkers around us. I stayed as far away from them as I needed to keep her comfortable enough to take treats. Luckily she LOVED to work & train. So once she started taking treats & getting a few rewards we were able to get in the groove. After a bit we could more closer. For the first couple classes I spent the first 10-15 min just giving her treats every time a dog barked. For the ride there & back I had to just start giving her treats while driving. Talk about distracted driving. But it did help. Getting her to potty in new places was a whole 'nother prob. That took forever.

 

Don't be stingy in the treats & don't worry if you have to work on just helping your pup feel happy & comfortable in such distracting or even frightening environments rather than working on the same things others are doing. The training in classes is mostly for the humans anyway. train the dogs.

 

Would it be rude of me to let him smell the other dogs as they come in? Is that a puppy class no-no?

It depends on the objectives of the class plus the make up, instructor, dogs & owner. Never allow interaction with another dog without asking the owner first & keep a close eye on both pups. You don't want to frighten or overwhelm either of the pups involved. Also remember that many owners actually do not have a clue about canine body language or how to read their dogs. Some owners do but do not have the confidence to believe their own eyes. A less than confident, "Well, it should be OK," to me usually means the owner has doubts & so should I. A distracted owner's opinion of, "Oh, sure," isn't worth anything. When my dog seemed particularly concerned about a certain dog in class I have a couple times asked if we could take our dogs for a quick walk after class. We did parallel walking outside & then took them to an area with great sniffs so they could have other things to consider besides just each other. That seemed to help a lot & did not intimidate either dog... Except this approach was not a consideration with the major barkers.

 

Will he get confused if I use the clicker at home but not at puppy classes? No one at class does and I feel silly bringing mine.

Well I think you should use whatever works best for your pup. If that is a clicker then use it & don't worry that you are the only clicker trainer there. Do you have a verbal marker that works almost as good as a clicker? If so & using a clicker makes you feel too self conscious, use the verbal marker in place of a clicker at classes. I did have a trainer who used reward based methods but not clicker training. The instructor found my clicker distacting so I just used my verbal marker. Since I've always had better timing with a verbal marker anyway it was no problem for us.

-eta: Short answer is maybe. So if you don't want to use a clicker in class you may want to train a verbal marker. That way you are still clicker training but not with an actual clicker.

 

Finn always has a bit of a delay in his sit or down. When we did it in class the trainer kept directing me to lure him, thinking he wasn't going to do it, but given a few seconds more he will. I know we want them to not hesitate but I think given time the length of it will shorten. To wait or not to wait?

Short answer - I say wait. Long - To me, luring is fine when you are first trying to get the dog to understand what you want. But lures need to be faded as quickly as possible. Sounds like you are past the luring stage. If he will sit but is just responding very slowly then you need to work on clicking for faster response. So if he maybe responds in 5 seconds you can start withholding the click sometimes for a 5 second delay before sitting. He'll learn that delaying sometimes works but sometimes it doesn't. But he gets a click for every sit with less than 5 seconds delay. He should start responding faster & then you just phase out clicking for any delay longer than 4 seconds. Repeat the process until his response is instantaneous. Pups learn uber fast & he'll likely be dropping that bum pronto by the next class. Though that speedy response may only work at home. You may have to drop the criteria back to 5 seconds or longer if he is still very nervous in class.

 

I did learn a few other things from a private lesson. I stopped the miscellaneous offerings of tricks Finn was doing (shake a paw mostly- which is cute but not what I wanted) by not treating until he was still, we also never let him move his head at all to get the treat, I push it directly in to his mouth so there's no confusion that it's not his until I give it to him. It's been working like a charm! I don't want him snatching food out of the kids' hands.

Excellent!! Feels so good when we find a way to communicate with our pups & see results like this. Sounds like you are going to do so well with Finn. Have fun!!

Edited January 31, 2012 by kudzu

[krissy]

Nose work is wonderful!

 

I found some DIY tips on at home nosework, so maybe when I have some time I'll start doing a bit with Summit. He does a lot of sniffing on walks so who knows... he may actually be capable of being a decent tracking dog. Looks like fun at any rate.

[Guest jacsar]

Kudzu,

Excellent advice! Thank you so much for taking the time to respond so thoroughly.

 

I'll try chicken, wieners, cheese and cat food tonight. It's either that or a stack of paper! This boy loves to rip up paper! Wouldn't that look funny?!

 

I don't know what my problem is but I can't stop rewarding with "Good boy". It just escapes and by the time I've finished saying it he's likely done several other behaviours I didn't want to reward. I keep trying to say "Yes" but I think I'm far harder to train than he is! The clicker is good for me because then I don't need to worry about it.

 

I'm going to take it tonight and ask if it's ok.

 

I'll also take him for another walk ahead of time and keep working on making the car a fun place. Yesterday I placed treats leading in to the garage and on the floor of the van. (Picture below) He's reluctant to approach it at all. It seemed to work as by the end I was tossing treats all around it and he was running to get them. I won't be able to do it today but tomorrow I'll try and get him climbing in to it to get them. He won't take treats once he's in.

 

I hadn't thought of treating him when the other dogs bark. Great idea. The other pups in the class are quite young and at this stage I bet a lot of us aren't sure what our dogs are capable of. I'll take a reserved approach about introducing him on leash.

 

 

Thanks again.

[NeylasMom]

Krissy, do you have nosework classes in your area? It's starting to catch on and might be a really good option for you guys instead of agility. I have a friend who started taking classes here when they were first offered and just titled with her dog. It's much more about doing something that encourages a dog to use his natural abilities rather than teaching him to do "artificial" things on cue. That part of it really appeals to me.

 

I've never heard of it but I'll do some leg work. I know most of the training facilities in this area though since we just went through the search for a place for obedience/agility last winter. I doubt much has changed in the way of programs so you never know.

 

Summit LOVES agility. We have so much fun. It's not an issue of getting him to do artificial behaviours... he'll pretty much do anything to get a treat once he knows what he's being asked to do. The problem was those darn gun shots at the agility field all the time. Ruined everything. Of course, with agility more or less out of the picture it would be nice to find him something else to do. He's not exactly crazy about obedience but he is pretty good at it.

I wasn't saying Summit had a problem with the artificial behaviors, just pointing out what I see as a major difference between the 2 sports. As a result, how you train for it is very different too. I'd really recommend taking a class if you're interested in pursuing it and can find one. This site seems to be the best resource, but unfortunately it looks like the search for trainers is limited to the US. But there may be contact info so you could email to find out.

 

Anyway, it was just a thought for something else you could do. Was the agility field iwth the gunshots just where you trained or for competition? I'm in such a dense area of population that I have my pick of agility facilities, but I'm guessing that may not be the case for you.

[krissy]

Krissy, do you have nosework classes in your area? It's starting to catch on and might be a really good option for you guys instead of agility. I have a friend who started taking classes here when they were first offered and just titled with her dog. It's much more about doing something that encourages a dog to use his natural abilities rather than teaching him to do "artificial" things on cue. That part of it really appeals to me.

 

I've never heard of it but I'll do some leg work. I know most of the training facilities in this area though since we just went through the search for a place for obedience/agility last winter. I doubt much has changed in the way of programs so you never know.

 

Summit LOVES agility. We have so much fun. It's not an issue of getting him to do artificial behaviours... he'll pretty much do anything to get a treat once he knows what he's being asked to do. The problem was those darn gun shots at the agility field all the time. Ruined everything. Of course, with agility more or less out of the picture it would be nice to find him something else to do. He's not exactly crazy about obedience but he is pretty good at it.

I wasn't saying Summit had a problem with the artificial behaviors, just pointing out what I see as a major difference between the 2 sports. As a result, how you train for it is very different too. I'd really recommend taking a class if you're interested in pursuing it and can find one. This site seems to be the best resource, but unfortunately it looks like the search for trainers is limited to the US. But there may be contact info so you could email to find out.

 

Anyway, it was just a thought for something else you could do. Was the agility field iwth the gunshots just where you trained or for competition? I'm in such a dense area of population that I have my pick of agility facilities, but I'm guessing that may not be the case for you.

 

 

No one in our area offers the nosework. I'm not really interested in pursuing it in the sense of getting him titled or anything, just from the point of view of having something new to do with him so I'd probably just work with him at home for fun.

 

We actually changed agility facilities and ran into the exact same problem at the new place. Both have gun clubs a few kilometres away. It's not loud, but even just the slightest distance popping and Summit turns into jello. On walks if he even hears something that sounds similar to a gunshot he goes onto high alert, so we've worked on that, but actual gunshots are just too high stimulus for him. There are no other agility clubs that are within a reasonable distance for us. I'm in school until at least dinner time most days so I really can't drive more than 30 min to get to an agility field with him. Hopefully when we move we can find a facility that is nowhere near a gun club. At that point though I will have adopted my second greyhound and will be focusing on her. If there are no scary guns Summit will come for fun and I'll work him through a simple course, but he's effectively retired from agility at this point. Sad and unfortunate, but that's alright. There's always something new to try.

[NeylasMom]

That's too bad, but I get it. Gunshots and fireworks were the 2 things I could never get Neyla totally comfortable with. We made progress with gunshots because there was a firing range at one of the parks where we hike, but she could have never worked in that environment.

[krissy]

Here's Summit doing a bit of nosework!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8msIiKnXhJs&list=UUv4UPHwt2tthOhojMb-jtXg&index=1&feature=plcp

[NeylasMom]

He's such a cutie. Clearly he thinks the find it game is awesome!

 

 

I've been really lazy about training. Violet and I had our first obedience class a week and a half ago at the new facility, but I was out of town this past weekend and knew we wouldn't be at class so I slacked off. I have to say, I'm not thrilled with the new place. I was worried when I saw the space at orientation and when I got to class and saw 7 other dogs I knew my concerns were spot on. The room is SMALL. There is just not enough room to work so not all of the dogs can work at once if we're moving around at all (leash work for instance). I don't even know how they'll manage recalls. And poor Violet was so overwhelmed by all of the stimulation, especially so many rowdy dogs in close quarters. She handled it well and worked well through class, but I could see it was stressful. A reactive dog could never work in that space.

 

I expect she'll get more comfortable and we'll stick it out, but I don't think we'll be signing up for more classes. I am also hoping we can move up a level quickly and it will be less crowded in the higher level class (and the dogs will be calmer). Of course, in order to do that I need to start working with her routinely!

[krissy]

More nosework with Summit....

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCQStaZJuEE&context=C44f849aADvjVQa1PpcFMkRN6I1_fPkV1KDi657lTAuN1PDfUiqLo=