A wonderful pal expressed that they appreciate my Pierre posts, and it was just so surprising and uplifting to hear. Here I am attempting to stream-line and organize my constant, ever-changing theories, observations and often straight mindless chattering. To hear that people* find it interesting and even helpful is just, the most heart-warming and validating thing.
I have a collection of websites in my dog training bookmark folder that I have used for inspiration, with varying degrees of attention to the detail. Lately, I've only been looking through them when I need to send resources to people. One note-able write-up that I like and hope to practice is the, "Program for Relaxation" written by... some person of whom I know nothing about... It looks like a good practice protocol and I love that everything is broken down. Sometimes brains just don't work and having a simple list of tasks to do is helpful.
https://www.boulderhumane.org/sites/default/files/ProtocolforRelaxation.pdf
So far though, I have mostly just been mix and matching locations, duration and changing up my placement and body language. Another great article (re: distance, duration and distractions), whose advice I have barely been following because I am sloppy as hell, is: https://iaabc.org/dog/teaching-concepts-duration-distractions-and-distance
Overall, Pierre is doing great. I'm still often a questionable leader, and he knows it, but we've made a significant amount of progress. I intend to write a post about our journey in navigating leash reactivity eventually but I've decided to focus on our "obedience" practice at the moment. If you could even call it that.
General Obedience
I have been practicing his “sit”, “down” and “don’t move” (stay) in public places more readily. Not consistently but I figure every little bit helps. "Heel" is something I barely work on, but let's ignore that for now, I will work on that when I feel it's a good time for both of us to dedicate our brains to it. I hope to find the space between the "this needs to be perfect now" sense of urgency and anxiety and "let's lazily work on this for years because I have no energy".
General Obedience
I have been practicing his “sit”, “down” and “don’t move” (stay) in public places more readily. Not consistently but I figure every little bit helps. "Heel" is something I barely work on, but let's ignore that for now, I will work on that when I feel it's a good time for both of us to dedicate our brains to it. I hope to find the space between the "this needs to be perfect now" sense of urgency and anxiety and "let's lazily work on this for years because I have no energy".
I have a collection of websites in my dog training bookmark folder that I have used for inspiration, with varying degrees of attention to the detail. Lately, I've only been looking through them when I need to send resources to people. One note-able write-up that I like and hope to practice is the, "Program for Relaxation" written by... some person of whom I know nothing about... It looks like a good practice protocol and I love that everything is broken down. Sometimes brains just don't work and having a simple list of tasks to do is helpful.
https://www.boulderhumane.org/sites/default/files/ProtocolforRelaxation.pdf
So far though, I have mostly just been mix and matching locations, duration and changing up my placement and body language. Another great article (re: distance, duration and distractions), whose advice I have barely been following because I am sloppy as hell, is: https://iaabc.org/dog/teaching-concepts-duration-distractions-and-distance
Retrieving
A couple of fun tricks I have tried to teach him and kind of
gave up on were, “take” and “get your __specific toy name here_”. “Take” and “drop” were worked on this past winter and we
lasted a couple of days before I ran out of energy and drive to keep working on
it.
I initially got Pierre to grab a pencil and started pairing
it with the command, “take” and then I read this retrieve series online and
realized that you’re supposed to teach an out command first? Oops. This is a common theme. I'm very much a trial and (many) error kind of learner so I have a hard time putting the things I read into practice. I went back another
day and tried to shape this behaviour the way that the website suggests, but I didn’t make it very far.
The resource I'm referring to:
Train a Service Dog to Retrieve: Part One (covers proper tools/equipment, dumbbell introduction, and how to get your Service Dog to grab the dumbbell)
Train a Service Dog to Retrieve, Part Two (Covers “hold” and proofing the hold)
Train a Service Dog to Retrieve: Part Three (Covers picking items up, introducing new objects and retrieval seeding puzzles)
Train a Service Dog to Retrieve: Part Four (Covers object-specific retrieval, specifically retrieving a beverage on cue)
Train a Service Dog to Retrieve: Part One (covers proper tools/equipment, dumbbell introduction, and how to get your Service Dog to grab the dumbbell)
Train a Service Dog to Retrieve, Part Two (Covers “hold” and proofing the hold)
Train a Service Dog to Retrieve: Part Three (Covers picking items up, introducing new objects and retrieval seeding puzzles)
Train a Service Dog to Retrieve: Part Four (Covers object-specific retrieval, specifically retrieving a beverage on cue)
“Get your shark!” has been a passive cue that I like to
pretend he’s learning but, who knows. He plays fetch inside with his shark
stuffy and more recently with a tennis ball but won’t play with toys outside. In the last few months, I have been saying, “get it!” with his ball and then “let go!” to cue release and it’s going
okay but hasn’t been active training, more just passive cue pairings. I started some basic targeting
training with his shark toy one time but don’t remember when and can’t remember
how it went :))))))
On Your Spot
I practice this very regularly. Especially in conjunction with his down-stay. Sometimes if Tim is cooking in our small kitchen and Pierre is keen on trying to scavenge dropped food, I’ll spend time practicing this. I’ll then give him a huge tasty reward for waiting there patiently for a variety of time lengths. The reward is often coconut oil or almond butter in a giant hollowed out bone. He doesn't have free access to this specific bone to prevent resource guarding and to keep it special; it's reserved for keeping him occupied when we need him to F off. My hope is that he uses waiting on his bed as a default "begging for food" behaviour eventually, or something. I'm not sure. I generally only give him human food when he's lying there or if it's in his bowl.
Yesterday, in an attempt to procrastinate doing the dishes
that Tim asked me to do, I asked Pierre (who was following me around
expectantly) to go “on your spot” from far away. He got real excited and threw
himself on the couch and then performed a variety of tricks and I had to do a
combo of verbal corrections and essentially walk and gesture more dramatically towards the
bed before he threw himself on the bed, making it slide across the floor. His
exuberance is really entertaining sometimes.
We tried easier tricks for a confidence boost and then tried the same command from a closer distance and then farther and farther away until he was able to go almost directly to his bed with the command (and hand pointing) from across the room.
On Your Spot
I practice this very regularly. Especially in conjunction with his down-stay. Sometimes if Tim is cooking in our small kitchen and Pierre is keen on trying to scavenge dropped food, I’ll spend time practicing this. I’ll then give him a huge tasty reward for waiting there patiently for a variety of time lengths. The reward is often coconut oil or almond butter in a giant hollowed out bone. He doesn't have free access to this specific bone to prevent resource guarding and to keep it special; it's reserved for keeping him occupied when we need him to F off. My hope is that he uses waiting on his bed as a default "begging for food" behaviour eventually, or something. I'm not sure. I generally only give him human food when he's lying there or if it's in his bowl.
We tried easier tricks for a confidence boost and then tried the same command from a closer distance and then farther and farther away until he was able to go almost directly to his bed with the command (and hand pointing) from across the room.
Sit Pretty
He genuinely
understands what I mean by this but he can’t hold himself up. He often immediately offers some flail-y version of this when he knows we're going to practice some stuff. We’ve tried and tried and tried. And
tried. Regularly. Irregularly. With support, without support, on different
surfaces etc etc. It’s just not something that seems to be comfortable for him,
and in the last few weeks, I stopped practicing this with him because I have
been anxious about his spinal health (dog incontinence, what up!!!! Such joy!!!
More on this later, maybe). The reality is that this trick is widely regarded as an incredible way to strengthen core muscles and in turn, the spine. As well, his vet and a dog chiropractor have noted that the trick wouldn't pose him any problems. I think part of the problem is that he doesn't have awareness of how to sit on his haunches to get the best balance. I tried it with him today at the park and then at home and it was looking a lot better than I expected (see picture). His positioning is better and his movements look more controlled than before, though he still can't hold it. I'm glad I finally figured out how to adjust the shutter speed on the digital camera.
He genuinely
understands what I mean by this but he can’t hold himself up. He often immediately offers some flail-y version of this when he knows we're going to practice some stuff. We’ve tried and tried and tried. And
tried. Regularly. Irregularly. With support, without support, on different
surfaces etc etc. It’s just not something that seems to be comfortable for him,
and in the last few weeks, I stopped practicing this with him because I have
been anxious about his spinal health (dog incontinence, what up!!!! Such joy!!!
More on this later, maybe). The reality is that this trick is widely regarded as an incredible way to strengthen core muscles and in turn, the spine. As well, his vet and a dog chiropractor have noted that the trick wouldn't pose him any problems. I think part of the problem is that he doesn't have awareness of how to sit on his haunches to get the best balance. I tried it with him today at the park and then at home and it was looking a lot better than I expected (see picture). His positioning is better and his movements look more controlled than before, though he still can't hold it. I'm glad I finally figured out how to adjust the shutter speed on the digital camera.
We also started learning “crawl” in the last couple weeks and if
I just keep it up I know it’ll be reliable soon. It’s an easy one to
teach and very funny to see.
His full command list, at this point, is :
His full command list, at this point, is :
- Sit
- Down
- Come
- High Five
- Paw (and Other Paw)
- On Your Spot
- Don't Move
- Leave It
- Sit Pretty
- Wait
- Find It (a.k.a food that is purposefully hidden or that he dropped without noticing)
I've also used this to get him to notice that someone is trying to give him a treat, i.e., in the nursing home we've visited - And sort of: Slow Down (if we have to slow our pace for some reason), Heel, and Crawl
I mark his correct behaviours with a verbal marker, "yes!", generally try to mark wrong responses to commands with, "nuh-uh" or "no", and his typical verbal correction if he's actually doing something unacceptable is a sharp, short, "ah" or "hey"! I think I often use a less intense, lower frequency version of "eh" as a wrong response marker. If only I could explain the tones better as that's truly what he knows and responds to more than specific "words". Whatever. That’s about it. I really should dedicate more regular time to working with him
more extensively but between my brain sludge and my life schedule, I have just
been prioritizing getting him out for long enough walks and more hikes instead of trying to do all of the things.
*Like three people. Most noteably my closest, most aggressively supportive pal Lyss. Thanks bb for constantly sharing my posts and encouraging me so much :')
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