New Blog Site- New Post!

I decided to start a new blog, attached to my dog sport business!  My goal is to do 1-2 posts a month with training advice from foundations to competitive obedience.

This blog will still remain intact and it will still have posts on my personal dogs' training and trialing experiences whenever I remember to post.

I recognize that not everyone cares about my journal style posts of my dogs and thus my decision to not completely move this blog over to my professional site.
Feedback is welcome though!

To start off my new blog, I have my first post up on using zen to get duration behaviors!  It's been 5 years since my blog post on reverse luring and then I discovered this week that I butchered the original technique.  Oops!  So my new post is clarifying how I use the technique I am renaming Zen Keeper for  (Zen Keep Going Signal).  Hop on over to the other blog for more!
https://www.tandemdogsports.com/blog/how-to-get-duration-with-doggy-zen

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Fixing Left Pivots- Butt Behind!

Zumi passed her TEAM1 run and now we're on to TEAM 2!  Fun stuff! 

But the tiny bit of Zumi's rear end being behind me when pivoting on the perch in TEAM 1, is being exasperated in the 2nd level test of pivoting on the ground.  Those little foundations always rear their head!

Zumi's known pivoting for quite awhile but clearly, I wasn't paying super close attention to whether her butt was behind my legs or not.  Training is always a balance, and in my quest to get Zumi understanding I wanted her butt close I got it too close!

The TEAM level 2 test requires the dog to be within 30 degrees of straight, and Zumi likes to really straddle that line and even cross it once I start pivoting! 

Fixing the Pivot!

To fix it, I'm trying to swing the balance of where I reward the opposite way.  I'm so conditioned to feed on the outside of dog's head, add left spins before rewarding, and maybe even pass the reward behind me.  All those things can help get the dog to think butt IN, problems both Vito and Lance can be prone towards.  

Zumi is opposite, at least at the moment.  So now I am swinging the opposite way.  Feeding in front of my leg *gasp* or more commonly asking for a nose touch in front of my left leg before rewarding.  If I'm using a toy I'll have her come forward to get it in to help bring that rear out.

Reward placement is such a huge part of training behaviors!  The thought of feeding where you want to be is valid, but when you're trying to change a behavior it sometimes best to over correct and exaggerate what you want the dog to do!

Luckily this appears to be the only issue holding Zumi back from a clean TEAM 2 title.  Wish us luck!

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Nala Walking with Focus

I admit that I usually don't have to do much with the dogs I've raised to get nice "attention walking" or heads up heeling.  Having focus on me is always a must have before I begin any actual training with a dog each session.  I don't want to have to fight with a dog in trying to be more exciting than the environment, so I just don't.

Through our play sessions, all of my dogs have easily learned how to keep their focus on my eyes or shoulders even while moving.  They don't want to miss out on anything!  Then it's just a matter of getting that focus as part of our criteria when doing formal heeling or our less formal attention walking, but the foundation of focusing while moving has already been taught.  I don't require any of my dogs to keep their eyes on me 100% of the time when we're going on our neighborhood walk, but they can be called upon that skill when needed.

Nala has been a fantastic 9 month old puppy for me.  Very easy going, eager, and just a bit sensitive.  But she has really struggled with learning this skill.  Of course, she gets the typical level of distractability that any puppy would have, but even when "focused" and wanting to work she naturally dips her head any time we start moving, on or off leash.

As a future service dog, the ability to give eye contact while moving can be crucial in navigating crowded areas.  Nala does a great job of general "loose leash walking" but she has a long way to go in learning to focus on her person instead of getting excited to greet people, or sniff the shelves, or...

I am currently teaching Nala that it IS possible to keep her head up and still move! Rewarding UP has helped her quite a bit.

I've also found that Nala is a bit different from all the other dogs I've worked with, in that she has had an easier time learning to focus up when walking forwards than backwards.  I think we finally reached 6 steps of walking forward without a head dip vs backwards walking is still about the level she shows in the video from a few weeks ago.  Very slow progress, but progress!

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Evaluating our Automatic Leave its

When I train the service dogs, the task I work on the most is getting solid automatic leave its in the real world.  Without being given any cue such as leave it or watch me, the dogs have to learn to ignore dropped food on the floor, trash, and people excitedly calling out to the cute doggy in the store.

For the service dogs in public, they are kinda in a weird combination of being in "working mode" and "relaxed mode."  The distinction between those two modes is actually quite important in most dog's mind!  For many dogs, they can learn to leave distractions alone and focus on their handler when they know they are actively working.  A well-trained dog can heel right over tempting crumbs on the ground without even really registering they're there.  The dog is in the zone and has an active task to do.

But that same dog might really struggle with leaving distractions in their relaxed, every day life mode.  They're not actively working and tend to default into move really quickly before mom yells "leave it" mode.  That trash on the ground during a walk? Fair game!  You drop a kernel of popcorn on the couch, and watch all your dogs madly sprint for it!

For competition purposes, this sometimes means that dogs can struggle actually getting INTO the ring to work if they're not being 100% managed by their handler.  The dog knows they're not really working and they choose to seize the moment by staring and even lunging at what they want.

With some dogs, this distinction between working and not working is muddy even when actually in the competition ring.  Does the dog consider themselves "working" when you move to setup on the startline in agility?  Or in between exercises in obedience?  I focus a lot on these moments in my Ring Confidence classes as I find they are very common moments where dogs tend to tune out and focus on the environment.  The handler needs to learn how to stay connected with their dog during these moments and train the dog that this in between time is still a part of their "work."

Evaluating Your Expectations
Dogs are masters are reading enviornmental cues and learning when certain behaviors are expected of them and when they aren't.  Maybe you accidentally trained your dog that they only need to focus when they're on leash and you're looking at them.  Or perhaps your dog is great when at training centers, but has no clue about impulse control in your house.

The first thing to think about is if you actually care about your dog automatically focusing in each situation.  Maybe it doesn't bother you at all that your dog scarfs up anything that hits the ground when you're at home as long as they learned not to touch things on the counters.  But you decided that anytime your dog is on leash or actively doing a command, that is the cue you want for them to ignore distractions.  That's ok!

But maybe you looked at what you want and you realized you have huge contradictions.  It is much harder for your dog to learn it's ok to go after ice shooting out of the freezer's dispenser but it's not ok to sprint towards your dropped slice of ham in the kitchen, or your dropped pill bottle.  Maybe there's a simple work around solution such as you deciding it's fine for your dog to lick your plate when you are holding it for them, but you decide to start training them it's not ok to lick it/steal food when you set it on the coffee table or put it in the dishwasher.

Training For Better Impulse Control
So you decided you want to clean things up in one or more areas, great!  Since your dog already has thier own expectations of what to do in that context you will need to go back to the beginning.
Make it easier for the dog by putting them in "working mode" when you introduce your distractions.
Even consider giving them a very concrete task to do such as lying on a mat.    Reward heavily!

As you progress, keep looking at how they respond the first time.  Does your dog always fall for it on the start of each session and then quickly learn "it's a trap!"  That's pretty normal!  One way you can try to minimize that is to move between each repetition.  If you're working on heeling by pieces of fuzz on the ground then, after rewarding your dog, move to a completely different area of the ring and briefly do some other type of work before trying to go back to heeling by the fuzz.

You will also want to make sure to introduce surprise distractions as you train.  If your dog watches you walk out and set food on the floor that is a pretty big clue that you are setting up a proof for your dog!  But if you set the distraction out before you even get your dog out of their crate then you are much more likely to get some advanced level training in!  The more you purposefully set stuff out before the start of a session, the greater likelihood that your dog will start automatically thinking that stuff they stumble upon was a purposeful proof!

Here I set out an obvious target distraction for Vito.  The bigger distraction is actually easier than something smaller!  Progress to cutting out small squares of paper that look like cookie crumbles!  With Vito I am working on not just ignoring it when actively heeling, but continuing to ignore it as I do less formal play with him!  He shows that this work is still a challenge for him:


Getting the Real Life Leave It
A similar concept can be applied to working on impulse control when your dog is out of their working mode and in their relaxed/off duty mode.  One of the biggest clues to our dog that we're not really paying attention is eye contact.  Build up to practicing your distraction work when you're not actively staring at the dog!

Once your dog is a pro at learning to leave food you drop from the kitchen counter, start sly dropping a piece of food while your back is to the dog and you're pretending not to notice the fall.  Be ready to body block the food if you need to!

Is downtime your issue at training centers?  First, teach your dog a nice place to wait (maybe between your legs!) and then slowly start "ignoring" your dog while you talk to someone.  Reward heavily for your dog continuing to leave distractions when they think your attention is of them.  And remember that your dog isn't being bad, they are just learning a new skill!  Previously eye contact was their cue to ignore distractions, and now they are having to learn to do it in a new context!

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Using Marker Cues

A loose goal I set for myself this year was to try to become more consistent with marker cues.  I was first introduced to the idea that markers, such as the clicker, are actual cues to the dog to do a behavior several years ago.

At first it's a weird concept.  Doesn't the marker just tell the dog the instant they earned a reward?  Yes!  But it also can be used to tell them so much more info such as exactly where to go to get that reward, or even what type of reward they earned.  When you think about the fact that one of the most powerful pieces in training is reward placement, this makes a ton of sense.  No matter how great your timing is, you can really struggle to train a behavior if your reward placement doesn't support it.

I believe I first heard of different marker cues through Fanny Gott a long time ago.  I remember being fascinated by the idea of having one marker cue tell the dog to turn around and grab a toy that was set behind them vs another marker cue tell the dog to come get a cookie in their hand, etc.  And then I promptly set that idea aside.  

Then a few years after that I was reintroduced again through Shade Whitesel.  Shade is like the Queen of Marker Cues and really lays out a great argument for how having multiple markers helps to reduce confusion in your training and reduces frustration when switching from food to toys and back again.  

I got excited again, but then it faded away.  It was kinda the same thing that I've done with other great ideas.  Recognize it's brilliance, think of it as excellent training, and then go eh it's hard to change.  I'm better at training the dogs than trying to train myself.  

Somehow at that point, I discovered I did indeed have different marker cues even if I wasn't super consistent and didn't think about it as such.  I already had 

- "yes" means come to my hand for a cookie

- "gooood" meaning wait there while I bring the cookie to you

- "get it"  meaning chase after the cookie, or the toy,  or grab the toy on the ground.  or their formal retrieve cue... :(

- "behind" used in heeling to tell them to duck behind me and get a cookie at my right leg.

But as I said, consistency just wasn't there.  I should technically always use "gooood" when I walked up to reward the dog at their go out spot instead of saying "yes."  But the dogs figured it out, they're amazing.

The problems with my "get it" cue didn't take a genius to figure out.

And even my "yes" cue should have been spot on right? But I abuse that one too by saying it as praise sometimes and not delivering a reward.

I certainly didn't have different markers for food vs toy reward.  

But as time progressed I found myself instructing others just how useful it would be to have at least a room service cue (Thanks Hannah Brannigan for that great term for waiting there while the reward comes!).  And then as I saw some teams struggle with their dog wanting to run off to their reward at a distance when they just praised the dog, I started recommending really training a remote reward cue too.  Clarity.  

Random dog picture.

So this year I tried to tackle myself.  I still have a long way to go towards consistency, but I'm at least more conscious of my cues.  I sat down and wrote out what I want their meanings to be.  I haven't yet tackled food vs toy, but I'm at least making the effort right?!

- "yes" = reward from hand

-"goood" = wait there for cookie to be brought to your mouth

- "get it" = chase reward tossed

" cookies" = send to reward bowl on the ground

- "behind"= duck behind me and get a reward at my right leg (whew, didn't have to change anything!)

- "Jackpot"= Sit while I get the reward that's located off my body and usually out of the working area.

This has also meant changing my formal retrieve cue.  Zumi's retrieve is no longer "Get it" but is now "Fetch."  

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Fixing the Vulture

If you read Zumi's trial report of her first experience in the Open obedience class, her biggest issue was over excitement and anticipation with the retrieves.  She was like a little red border collie as she hunkered way down, just twitching to be sent.

I recently spayed her and with the restrictions, it was a great time to work on just being still!
I divided up the issue into 2 goals.

1. Maintaining a straight posture as I cue the wait and go to toss the dumbbell.
2. Offer eye contact after watching the dumbbell fall in order to be released.

Good Posture
The first goal of sitting straight I tackled first.  Zumi doesn't have the issue with me tossing cookies so I went straight to the dumbbell.  Just holding it out and rewarding Zumi if her front paw didn't move forward, always her first move before she really hunkers down.  I would immediately take the db back to my body if the paw moved and re-cue her to sit.

Essentially this just became a version of doggy zen with me moving my arm back and forth in a tossing motion.  I'm not sure how much Zumi knew it was posture I was working on and not eye contact, but I got a 2 for 1 deal.

Eye Contact Before Sending
These last few days as Zumi has been allowed to do more activity, I've moved on to actually requiring eye contact before being sent to retrieve.

My first sessions were very short retrieves where I didn't throw, but gently set out the db on the ground.  This setup was fairly easy for Zumi as it was reminiscent of our work with remote rewards.  Zumi knows that she always needs to give eye contact before getting a reward at a distance.

It did become slightly harder once Zumi knew she was being sent to the db though.  Typically when I work with rewards at a distance, I am the one to go and actually get the reward vs sending the dog to it.  I find this works better for the obsessive tollers for me to have 100% of their brain in training vs some of it on the reward itself.  So once Zumi was being sent to the db on the ground it became a little problem to work through.  But the small distance and lack of throwing was still very doable.

I have recently started throwing the db short distances for Zumi.  This is where getting eye contact has been very difficult.  Zumi's hunt training, although limited, I need her to keep looking straight at her marks until sent or given another cue to turn away.  She will be able to learn the difference in context, but it is not an easy task for her!

I don't require my other dogs to give me eye contact before released after watching a thrown mark, but with Zumi I feel this is crucial to helping her anticipation issues when over excited!

Here was today's session with Zumi and her dumbbell.  Notice I warm up a little bit with posture work, but also let that slide while focusing on the eye contact department!  I'm a little greedy and throw too far here :(

The quick version:


The full session for those who care:

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Right Sided Heeling with The Corgi

I can't believe it's been over 2 months since I started training right sided heeling with The Corgi.  2 months, and sadly not many sessions and thus results.

Lance still needs work on his pivots and doodles, but his forging is way down.  It's a bit difficult for him to physically do the pivoting now so I try not to do it too much.

So mainly I've started to work on forward motion.  It was no shock that his natural tendency of forging keeps trying to rear its head, but the wideness Lance has been showing was a surprise!  I've been working on doing a pivot before each reward to get Lance in the habit of moving in towards me.  Eventually when wideness is the problem I'll throw in a moving side step each time, but he's not quite ready for that.

The horse flies are just starting to appear at home and The Corgi thinks they are his mortal enemy.  I don't disagree, but I've never taken it to the point where I don't want to come off the porch!  Thus I'm really proud of Lance for doing a training session out in the yard yesterday.  You can see how hard he thinks about it after each cookie!

So not quite there with pretty heeling on the right, but he's having fun getting to learn something new!

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Yummy Retrieve pt 2- More Problem Solving

Yummy, the service dog in training, and I are still working on that retrieve.  It's been about 12 days since our last update where I shared our progress on trying to get movement and a short stationary hold.

I'm happy to share that we now have a few steps of forward movement after picking up the dumbbell.  Yummy can pick it up and walk forward about 4ft to put it inside my bucket, or right at the edge of it.  Remember, my goal with the bucket/platform isn't really to teach a clean up at this point but more to use as a reward station to help Yummy develop a pattern.  The location you reward tends to act as a magnet!
Her consistency still isn't quite there as she regresses into flinging sometimes, and fairly frequently Yummy also just does a quick grab and immediate drop.  But with Yummy it's pretty darn big progress!

In the meantime, I was also able to slightly progress Yummy's hold so that she would pick it up off the ground directly in front of me and hold it briefly in a stand.  This was incredibly hard for her and often resulted in Yummy lying down while doing her hold or just dropping it immediately.  I was seeing too much avoidance behaviors as well.

So I abandoned our stationary hold practice except for the occasional rep while I remain holding it or she's holding it while doing a chair visit.  Then, since Yummy had started to get the concept of aiming, just a little bit, to her bucket or platform, I tried to see if just using her platform training and always rewarding in a sit would help her.  Pick up dumbbell, drop in front of platform or just barely on it, complete the "front" to get her cookie.  Hoping the reward placement and the chain itself would start to come together.  It might have helped if I stuck with it longer, but I switched tactics.

I realized that what Yummy was really struggling with was being able to lift her head UP.  Most dogs at this point I've been able to place my hands together in a big cup as I move backward.  I can shape them pretty easily in aiming for my hands with the help of my movement guiding them.  But once again Yummy needs something different.  So I started working with her "visit" to the chair cue as being her new target.  Tiny lift off ground, reward placed on the chair, and then cues to visit in between reps.  Here I liked what I started to see.

Today for the first time I added myself into the picture.  Review pick up and put it on the chair (which still needs practice by itself), and then I sat in the chair and worked on visit to my lap instead of to the chair.

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Yummy- Teaching a Retrieve

We have had Yummy for 3 weeks now, working on teaching her some mobility and autism skills.  Her temperament is greatly suited for autism assist work but I like all the service dogs to also be introduced to some of the basic mobility tasks as well as actually learning some sharper obedience tasks such as pivot skills for heel and side, moving downs, etc.  It's also possible that Yummy might not pan out for autism work due to her body sensitivity issues in wearing a bigger backpack that she would need for that placement.

So we are working on quite a few tasks.  The biggest hurdle for Yum Yum is her retrieve.  Last summer I spent weeks getting her to pick up a fleece rope and then just started to get her to levitate a dumbbell.  I have taught a LOT of retrieves to different dogs, not just labs and goldens(!), and by far Yummy has been the slowest.  When Yummy returned to her puppy raiser she was actually biting both objects and lifting them off the ground a few inches, but that was it.  Luckily this time she did at least pick right back up with where she left off.  I had levitation of a rope right away and just a few sessions later I had the dumbbell moving a few inches off the ground.  This was Yum from last summer, working on not just opening her mouth but actually getting teeth on her rope and db.  I remembered wanting to get video to show how hard it was with her db, but easier with the softer rope:

And now I've spent 2.5 weeks trying to get movement.  Any movement at all of Yummy being able to take a step or even turn her head with the object.  Baby, baby steps.  With dogs like Yummy I almost always use a reward station so the dog has a predictable spot to get their reward.  Just like how a dog will start to crab out in heel position if you always feed in front of your body, I wanted Yummy to think about moving towards the reward station with her dumbbell in prediction of food delivery!  Usually I use a bucket, but I also did some experimentation with a platform.

We are finally to the point where she can usually do head turns without dropping the dumbbell.  And if I put the dumbbell in a bit of a chute she can back out a step or two with it.  It's progress.  Eventually, my goal is for the dog to purposefully put the object in/on the reward station, to clean up, but for right now it's all about reward placement!


Yummy is also working on a hold.  Typically I don't introduce any stationary holds until after I have a decent retrieve to hand.  I backchain many things, but not my retrieve.  But with Yummy already spending quite a bit of time (well, compared to the amount of time I will have with her to try to finish it) on the retrieve, I wanted to see if it would be a better approach.

Again I chose to deviate from my usual first approach to hold training.  Since I teach dogs to tug back when biting a dumbbell to promote a strong grip, I've never been able to teach a hold with my hands on it.  Even with my own dogs, they can be given an item to hold and then can remain holding while I reach back to put my hands on it.   But if I try to give it to them and want a hold without me letting go first it's just not going to happen!
Since I hadn't gotten to that stage of tug back on the db yet with Yum Yum and didn't see it being a fast process with her, I decided to do mutual holding.  Actually I made it a 3 way with me, Yummy, and a chair to use for a chin rest.  Yummy does kinda know a chin rest to my palm, but I wanted a free hand to use reverse luring as well.  Of course :)

This was Yummy's 2nd and 3rd lesson working on a hold with chin rest:

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Training Right Sided Heeling

Since Lance is pretty much done with his formal training for sports I've tried to still keep up with training.  He still wants to work even if his body no longer cooperates as well as it used to.  In my attempt at increasing my motivation I occasionally come up with goals to work on.

Recently I decided I want to train Lance to actually heel on my right side.  Technically Lance "knows this" to the point that if rally required right sided work (and I think the new AKC rally class does!) Lance could easily pass under rally scoring.  But it wouldn't be pretty.  So much forging and crabbing!  Does anyone remember how Lance used to be a good body length ahead of me, looking over his shoulder at me, during his normal left sided heeling?!

So I'm going to clean it up.  And that means going all the way back to heeling foundations.  Since Lance has a history of being really pushy it's going to be a lot slower going than starting fresh with a dog.  Zumi learned both left and right side at the same time and while her right side work is a little rusty, the foundations are solid so it wouldn't be hard to clean up.  Vito is kinda in between.  His foundations on the right were at one point pretty solid, but now well I've created an obsessive and pushy monster over the years in attempts to work on his motivation.

The way I teach heeling to the majority of dogs who are relatively easy to motivate is through pivot work foundations.  Stand on a perch and rotate, rotate, rotate.  Then the same thing without the perch.  Lots of rear end work going towards me.  I almost always start heeling with pivots, side steps, and backing up long before I add a single forward step.  The emphasis is on holding position with small changes in direction.

Lance's occasional sessions are still focusing hard on those small doodles.  The biggest progress so far is that his attempts at forging are WAY less.  Mostly this is due to reward position.  I did a lot of feeding behind my back with each cookie.  Now I usually don't feed quite so far back, but when I remember to I pass the cookie from my left hand to my right hand behind my back instead of passing in front.

This session on Friday I tried one of my first steps of forward moving.  I planned to counteract each forge with a pivot, but I see that Lance isn't quite proficent at doing his pivots out of motion vs starting from a standstill.  Oh and I'm completely ignoring the error of his butt being behind me right now as we work on not crabbing out.  The opposite error is ok for now!

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Using a Snuffle Mat to Lower Arousal in Training

Snuffle mats seem to be all the rage recently.  For those who are unfamiliar with what a snuffle mat is, it's a rubber mat with short strands of fleece tied on the mat to make a very thick grass like look.  The idea is to scatter a few pieces of kibble on the mat so that they fall in between the fleece grass blades, allowing the dog to sniff them out.  Very simple idea.  And a very effective stress reliever for a lot of dogs.

I think we are all familiar with the idea that a dog suddenly sniffing the ground is likely a stressed dog.  Sniffing is a go to stress reliever for many dogs.  Many of us have used this to our advantage when we bring our dogs to a new environment and want to see if they can work.  At the start of every trial, or even every training session, I walk my dogs around the perimeter of the rings and let them sniff to their hearts content.  It's a nice relaxing walk that lets them get used to the area and settle in.  Even during a training session if I'm in a more difficult location I give the dog frequent chances to take a break, to "go sniff."

This need to take a break is pretty obvious in our dogs that stress down, tending towards disengagement.  But it's less obvious in dogs whose arousal levels tend to run high.  If your dog is getting more frantic they likely need a break too.  Sometimes those dogs love to work so much that they don't actually want to take a break even though their brain is turning to mush.  That's where doing a forced acclimation walk can be helpful.  Cue a break, and take a calm walk around before trying to work again.

Sometimes the stress low and the stress high dogs may not need a full break from work.  You just want to calm them down a bit before starting the next rep.  This can help prevent ever higher levels of arousal creeping into the work so, for example, that the dog doesn't start to associate heeling with bouncing and barking.  I think this is where using a snuffle mat, or a cookie scatter just in plain grass, can be very helpful!  Your forcing the dog to take a mental break as he spends some time sniffing out cookies.

At the CDSP trial a few weekends ago I noticed that Vito had a hard time finding the right scent article.  He eventually found and retrieved the correct article, but he looked a bit frantic as he quickly sniffed over each article several times before finally calming down enough to grab the correct one.  Often dogs resort to just guessing when they get like that so I was happy Vito was able to work through it.  But when the issue cropped up again in practice I knew I need to work on lowering Vito's arousal in the article pile.  More than likely it was due to stress, not excitement, but even a dog too excited will feel the stress of frustration.  So I started using a snuffle mat between reps and went back to very easy searches to build Vito's confidence.


We still have some work to go.  Vito is often a little too frantic on his first send still, although he is much more clear headed with the snuffle mat between #1 and further repetitions.  This is his session yesterday, where with distance added back in he shows this:


And yes I didn't really need an actual snuffle mat in the 2nd video when I was outside as well grass.  But I do kinda like the more defined search area it brings to the picture!

Snuffle mats have a variety of uses from general enrichment fun, stress relief, and arousal lowering.  I love that I'm starting to see people even take them to trials!

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Retraining Scent Articles- One Dog's Guide

I've mentioned before that for whatever reason Zumi had a very hard time doing her scent articles when I was pregnant.  I'm sure I smelled differently with all the hormones, and likely still do.  The other dogs had no problem adjusting but Zumi's mind was blown.  I put off all article work until recently.  When I tried Zumi again on a small pile she was just purely guessing.  Maybe a tiny bit of actual sniffing but mostly just grabbing one when she got too frantic to think any longer.

Scent article retraining!  When Zumi was a puppy I was able to teach Zumi using my food conditioned method and have the retrieve be her indication pretty much from step #1.  (I think I had to interrupt before the retrieve for the first 2 lessons to show her it wasn't just a retrieve exercise.)  This time I knew I had to break it down further and completely remove the retrieve as an option to prevent frantic grabbing.  She has a much higher reward history for retrieving and some of that toller obsession as well!

Zumi already has a sticky target (aka duration nose touch) so was in a great spot to have that be her new indication.  I also decided to go back to using food on the correct article to fully get her back into sniffing mode and cut down on some of her high arousal levels.  A shaping method to article training also works really well, but I usually prefer doing a bit of luring with the food to start.  I just like how it gets the dog sniffing for scent very quickly, especially when we are asking for a scent that they are so used to ignoring in every day life.

This was her 2nd session.  I put a smear of food on every repetition.  I usually prefer to use my honest kitchen mix as a smear as I can get more watery juices than a thicker blob, but the peanut butter was what I had available.  In this session, I still needed to praise as soon as she found the correct article.  Then I had to hold it in my hand in order to get Zumi to do her nose touch or she would want to keep searching for more food.


In the next session, I started having Zumi do her indication without my hand help.  She sometimes still left the article to reexplore but started settling in as we went.


And I think 2 sessions later I filmed again.  Here we no longer are using food on the article except for the first rep.  I also start doing a few food tosses so that she's coming to the pile with some speed.  This is much harder for her and while she doesn't make any mistakes in this session there is some franticness.


For the next few sessions still working on about the same step.  The first repetition Zumi usually needed a tiny food smear to help calm her and keep her confidence high.  Then I no longer reapply the food and am working on having Zumi search after the food tosses. I waited awhile to go back to a retrieve indication with her rings or dumbbells as just the little added excitement had some errors creep in.  When Zumi guesses wrong I have her come out of the pile and do a short down while I feed her for being calm.  Sometimes I need to have her do some other calm tricks such as a chin rest so she doesn't go back to the pile frantically.

Finally, Zumi has started showing signs of being ready to at least introduce retrieve items as a distraction.  I am still having the correct article be a lid, but will start having a ring or two present in the pile.
Today was Zumi's first session with the retrieve distraction.  And of course she falls for it!


In some ways, this re-training came at a good time.  Starting June 1st I am re-running my online scent article class!  While I've gotten to help many teams start articles from scratch or work on fixing issues that have cropped up on the way, it had been 2 years since I've had to do the actual skill training personally!

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Don't Eat My Food!

My dogs don't have a ton of house manner rules.  They can jump on me.  They're allowed on furniture of course.  The Corgi often leads obnoxious barking bouts at what are clearly grave threats to the household.  They charge out the door when opened.  And they are all very good supervisors of our food.  SUPERVISORS is the key word in my mind.  The main rule in my house is you can watch the food, even snuggle up close while I eat, but do not even think about eating it.  I often set my food down and even leave the room and only have to fear the cat who seemingly springs out from nowhere.  But never the dogs.

Zumi's station every time I eat is to place her head in my lap.  She doesn't even look at the food and if I accidently drop a piece she doesn't even lift her head.

But apparently she's acting out since Netta has come home.  Or more likely her lower exercise and mental stimulation the last several months has gotten to her.  Because Zumi has broken my main rule more than once now.

So now we will go back to basics and revisit training and management.  I admit that this skill that all my dogs and long term fosters have had is not one I explicitly teach them.  It just kinda comes with our everyday life and gradually pushing their understanding of rules.

First I will review her automatic leave it in training mode.  Is the dog truly able to resist a distraction without any clue from you?  If you're having to give a verbal cue, or even just a small stop in your motion then the dog isn't quite there yet.  And keep in mind that it's the first rep that really counts, not the ones after the dog knows it's a proof.  This with Zumi I'm certain is solid.  But a dog's ability to ignore distractions and concentrate on work is not even close to the skill level needed to ignore distractions when not working.  Zumi may still have some work to go with automatically ignoring things but overall she gets the game pretty well,

Outside of training sessions is where most of our work will take place,  I will do all of it without giving Zumi any cue to leave it or stay as I want it to be automatic.  If she was a different dog who really struggled I would consider using boundary training or place training to provide structure but Zumi doesn't need that.
First duration.  This is easy for me to practice because I'm lazy,  I'll just eat my meal, usually on the couch, and leave my plate sitting next to me.  In easy reach so I am a part of the picture still.  Duration will also naturally work on another variable such as my focus waning in and out.  Zumi still has this stage down pat.

I think it's important to note that I don't ever reward from my plate when doing this training as I don't want Zumi thinking about when she is going to be able to eat it. I want her to completely ignore the food altogether, knowing that it's not going to be hers.  Actually in this training at home I don't even like using food rewards at all, just calm praise.  Unlike in her sport training where I want her to leave a reward and focus on me, in this every day life moment I ideally want Zumi to not focus on what I'm doing at all.  Go chew a bone, take a nap, wrestle with the cat, I don't care.  Of course since supervision doesn't bother me either I also don't mind if she does choose to lay her head in my lap and closely watch either!  And I have fed my dogs directly from my plate quite often, but I will be suspending that with Zumi until she is back on track.

My movement and distance will be another variable.   She has already proved she can leave food without my focus on her so now would be seeing if she can leave it while I stand up from the couch.  Then whether I can pick up something in my hand, or bend down to touch my toes, etc.  Can I move to the kitchen with direct eye contact?  Move away without the eye contact reminder?

Next the dog's movement if she hasn't done that on her own already,  I want to see that she has no problem walking away from food.  I will reward any cues given to come but then dismiss her again and go back to pretending the food isn't there.  I don't want her in training mode. And a release is not a free for all,  I want to see Zumi relaxing and not thinking about running back to my food.  A hard step for many!

And finally the big one, going out of sight again.  This will be done only after she doesn't need my eye contact as a clue that I'm paying attention and isn't glued to its location.  Quick around the corner and back.  Not drawing too much attention to anything.  Low key praise as needed, but overall me being gone as no big deal.  The food doesn't exist.

Of course management is going to be equally important.  No leaving food unguarded again for quite awhile.  If your dog struggles with this training management will be far more important than any training,  Keep training steps easy so that you don't have to body block or verbally cue your dog. The more you have to help your dog the less your dog is practicing impulse control.  Actually progressing to quickly can mean your dog is learning more about how long your arms are and how fast you can run than anything else.  It's amazing the calculus a dog can do to figure out whether they can beat you to the food before you even see what's happening!

I am also reminded to always keep in my mind my dog's personality to have realistic expectations.  The Corgi humbles me often in this department.  As long as a body, a conscious body, is in the house he wouldn't dream of tearing into any food and raiding any desks/tables in search.  I;m willing to be that he would leave a hamburger on the floor untouched for hours.  But if nobody is home or everyone is sleeping then he is on a mission in an instant.  He is going to be 10 in a few months and still can't be trusted outside of his crate or being closed in the bedroom when left alone.

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Acclimation and Engagement

The concepts of acclimation and engagement are the 2 things that changed my dog training the most in the last 5 years.  At that time I didn't really have any words to put to it and I muddled my way through it with Vito.  But it was game changing.  And painful.  Really painful actually as I spent more sessions not working than actually working Vito and often questioned if this was the right path.

Those 2 words were also a core concept last week at the Fenzi Dog Sports Camp.   If there is one topic I wish all teams would understand it would be this concept.  And yet is really hard to understand!

So what is it?

Acclimation

Acclimation is the easy part.  It is simply allowing your dog the choice to look around and get comfortable with an environment.  This may be done through a formal down stay or more commonly it is done by taking the dog on a walk through the environment while letting them see and smell the world.  

This is SO important for many teams.  I think it is a rare dog who is ready to start work in a new place without knowing where they are.  Some dogs have such a high love for their motivators that it can seem like they are ready.  Indeed Lance is one of those dogs.  He loves his cookies so much that I could ask him to work the second I got somewhere and he would, even without seeing the reward since he has been trained well to know that offering work usually pays off.  And with Lance I was lucky.  He's not a nervous dog and the fall out from working him right away would be minimal.  Thankfully I rarely did that.  Lance didn't need much acclimation time to truly give me his all, but giving him just 2-5 minutes would really pay off huge.  No little glances away in his work as he already knew what was around him and felt safe.

With Vito I could also work him right away if I had his magical ball.  And I DID do that years ago.  I tried the advice of getting Vito to go straight from the crate to work.  And if I had his ball nothing else mattered.  But with a dog like Vito who has anxieties about people pressure and who drastically loses motivation without an obsession to focus on, there was no way that approach was going to hold up in the ring when the rewards were gone.  And for some dogs it could backfire big time if they suddenly got too close to a trigger they didn't notice because they were obsessing about their reward. 

I took Vito's lessons and am now applying them to Zumi.  Zumi is more of a normal dog compared to Lance and Vito.  In a new place she wants to look and walk around a bit, but she also wants to check in frequently.  She can fool me into thinking she is ready to work before she really is.  Indeed she demonstrated this at the Camp this past week as Zumi offered sustained eye contact and even tried to further engage me a little bit just a few minutes in.  But I knew better.  I knew that if I didn't immediately shove a toy in her face that Zumi would very quickly go back to looking at the environment and that she needed to do so.  And I knew that if I did choose to shove a toy in her face and play that I could get a bit of work in, but that as soon as the action stopped and we worked on less intense behaviors then she would feel the need to look around some more.  At Zumi's stage in training I want more.  Just forcing her to walk around a bit and get more comfortable in her environment gave me the picture I wanted.  She felt comfortable and was capable of giving me her all.

Acclimation takes as long as it takes.  Some dogs are fast and are ready to work in under 5 or 10 minutes.  Other dogs might need a good hour in a difficult environment in order to feel safe and confident enough to work.  And often with Vito, well we might never get to that working piece.  And that's ok.  I know that in the long run it will pay off.  As dogs get used to the idea that they will get enough time to truly acclimate, it not only will take less and less time for the dog to do so but their work performance skyrockets as they don't feel the need to check out once work has started.

What about dogs getting ready to trial?  I still use acclimation to get my dogs used to an environment.  The difference becomes that everytime I go somewhere to work I acclimate my dogs outside of the ring, or designate an imaginary line that become my work-no work line.  My dogs can walk around and sniff in a designated area and then we work in a place they got to see but not actually walk in.  And that concept transfers perfectly to an actual trial where the dogs do not get to acclimate in the same ring they will work in.

Engagement

Engagement is a more tricky concept.  It looks different with every dog and is hard to pin down.  But in general it is dog driving the work.  Denise Fenzi has written that "Engagement training is the process of moving responsibility for enthusiasm, focus and desire for work from the handler to the dog."  In early stages all the dog has to do is focus on the handler before the handler can start a party.  But the eventual goal is for the dog to work hard in order to get the handler to start play/work, all without seeing or knowing a reward is available.  That is some deep stuff!  

As I mentioned earlier, engagement looks differently from every dog.  Some dogs may just stare at you and wag their tail, others may jump up and maybe even bark.  The key with most dogs is getting them to move at you.  If you back away from your dog do they follow and keep focus?
The lines of engagement and personal play often start to blend.  If you don't reach for your rewards right away once the dog chooses to engage the question becomes will the dog continue to try and interact with you?  Can you use just yourself and no formal work cues to keep up your dog's focus and energy?  The dog making the true choice to work is thrilling and goes a long way to getting the same focus and energy you have when your dog sees your classical rewards to more advanced training when the rewards aren't on you.

In the ring you are stripped of all rewards.  There are no food, no toys, and certainly no corrections.  The only reward you can take in is yourself.  But if you've made it that far in your training there's a good chance you have a great relationship with your dog already!  Your dog chooses to work not just for the external rewards but for the whole package, including your attention, your praise, and your play.  That package of work, rewards and human interaction are blended and really can't be separated out.  Play may vary by your dog's temperament, but every dog can be taught how to engage in some form of personal play with you.

Here is Vito from a few months ago choosing to start the engagement process and gradually we flow into work. He is high as a kite in this session and is very pushy!  Note that if you're just starting out you will not get this type of response and some dogs will never look like this no matter how much experience they have.  In the below video you will also notice that while Vito does grab his dumbbell and I do some interactions with it, it's really not about the object:


And here is a much calmer Vito also starting the engagement process with me sitting in a chair.  But in this case he doesn't really mean it.  You can see how he looks around still and isn't really committed as I continue to ask him if he means it:


If I had chosen to ignore that and started work there is a good chance he would not have given me his full focus.  Or I would have needed to overwhelm him with constant food, toys, or high energy just to keep him focused.  That type of training just doesn't hold up in the long term.  Be exciting in reaction to your dog's own energy, but don't try to use your own energy to overwhelm the dog into playing with you!  The general guideline is to match the energy level your dog is giving you, or just 1 level above.  Notice I am much calmer in the 2nd video than in the first video and that is so I don't use my own energy to overwhelm and try to pull him up.

Denise Fenzi has an entire online class on how to develop engagement in your dog and spells out stages to get there on her blog as well.

I strongly believe the best way to make sure your dog is really ready for the ring is to focus on the concepts of acclimation and engagement.  When your dog is the one driving the work and pushing you to start then you're no longer the one trying to bribe your dog and shoving the rewards in their face to get work.  Instead the responsibility moves to the dog.  You don't have to try to be more exciting than their environment!  You don't have to do cartwheels to get your dog's attention!
But this does take time.  Get ready to settle in and be ready for the chance that your dog simply tells you they are not ready in that session.

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Service Dogs in Public

Several years ago I posted a little rant about a celebrity posing with their dog's "service dog certification" from an internet company.  That post still gets tons of hits from people googling everything from how to get a service dog to how to take their dog everywhere.  I also recently got contacted to "review" products from a service dog certification site with the tagline on their home page reading "now you can take your dog everywhere!"  Instead of a mini rant, I decided to be more polite and factual.

To those searching the internet, I have your answers.

What is the difference between a service dog, a therapy dog, and an emotional support dog?
Short answer, a therapy dog's job is to help others thru various means of comfort.  A service dog/assistance dog's job is to help an individual with a disability by doing trained tasks that alleviate that disability.  And an emotional support dog's job is to just exist to help comfort an individual with a mental disability.

So in order to take your dog to any public place you must have a disability, AND your dog must be trained to do a task to help in that disability. Therapy dogs do not have public access rights, even though they often visit nursing homes, libraries, and hospitals they must be INVITED.  Emotional support dogs do have special housing and airplane rights, but they do not rights to go anywhere else in public.

What are the legal requirements to get certification for a service dog?

There are no requirements to get certification for a service dog other than you having a disability and your dog being trained to alleviate it.  So if you truly have a disability that your dog has been trained to help with, you do not need to buy "certification" papers online (worthless!) or go through an organization. Your dog does need to be well behaved and it is often recommend that your dog be able to pass a CGC test and public access test. Both are very basic manners tests. Also, any business has a right to kick you and your dog out of a store if the dog is not under your control and is being disruptive (ex. barking, jumping on shoppers, urinating...) even if you and your dog are eligible for access rights.

Note: The ADA does not cover dogs in training; public access for service dogs in training (SDIT) are up to each state to set their own laws. Some states do NOT allow SDITs public access, while some states only grant SDITs public access if they are from a certified organization or with a certified trainer.

Can I train my own service dog?

If you have a disability and you know tasks a dog can help you with, then the short answer is yes.

But if you're looking at running out and getting a dog for that purpose than think very hard about the process.  Even large service dog organizations have a high number of dogs that make wonderful pet dogs but just aren't up for service dog life.  You have no guarantees that your dog will not only enjoy doing the tasks for you, but will also be happy going out in public.   Public life can be stressful for many dogs.  Despite being repeatedly told do not pet, service dogs are accosted by the general public on a regular basis and will encounter everything from screaming children running up to very loud arenas and dressed mascots.  If planning to train your own dog be prepared that your dog may not be well suited for the task and know how you will proceed if that is the case.  There are pros and cons to getting either a puppy or an adult dog but both scenarios need a plan B.  In any case, training your dog will still take a minimum of 6 months with an older dog or 2yrs with a puppy.

Where can I get a service dog from an organization?
If you're interested in getting a dog from an organization know that not all are created equal.  There are zero certification requirements for either an organization or a trainer.  Assistance Dogs International however does have a stringent list of requirements for organizations wishing to apply for membership.  They keep a list of members, and those looking to become members on their website and you can search by service area and by types of assistance dogs certified.

Tell me more about emotional support animals?

The ADA only grants public access rights for service dogs who have trained tasks.  An emotional support dog helps their person by simply being present.  While there have been numerous studies on the benefit of simply having a dog and petting it, this does not qualify as a task and thus does not qualify a dog for public access rights.  So dogs helping those with PTSD need to be trained to do things that help alleviate their owner's disability in a way that an untrained dog could not mimic.

The exception to public access rights for emotional support dogs are housing and airports.  Laws allow emotional support animals to be allowed into rental properties not otherwise allowing pets, and into airports.  A doctor's note prescribing an emotional support animal is often required. 

What about allergies?

Bubba the amazing Diabetic Alert Dog

One person's disability does not trump another's.  Allergies and fear of dogs are not legitimate reasons to deny access to an individual.  In extreme cases, accommodations need to be made to both parties.

What if I suspect a fake service dog?

First recognize that many people have invisible disabilities.  Just because the individual is not obviously blind or in a wheelchair does not mean they do not require a service dog. In addition, dogs of all sizes and breeds can be trained to do service dog work.  If the dog is out of control or not potty trained, regardless of whether the dog is a trained service dog or not the business IS allowed to remove the team from the store.  

If the dog is well behaved and you still suspect a fake, businesses are only allowed to ask 2 questions.  (1) Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability, and (2) what work or task has the dog been trained to perform. You can not ask about their disability, require any documentation or certification, or ask the dog to demo the trained tasks.

What do I do if I see a service dog team in public?  Can I pet it?
In general, the answer is smile and keep your distance.  Remember that the dogs are working even if it's not obvious to you.  While most dogs are very good at learning to ignore well meaning people running up, talking in baby voices, and even barking (yes barking...) it gets very old for the person and difficult for the dog to keep 100% focus.  Keep in mind that a distracted dog could miss alerting to a medical event such as a low blood sugar!

Some teams will welcome conversation about their dog (but please don't ask about their disability!) and may even invite you to pet their dog.  But just because one team allows it does not mean that is appropriate for all other service dogs.  Like humans, dogs are individuals and will have various degrees of attraction towards others and thus different rules.

Why is is a big deal if my dog wears a cape so he can come with me in public?

People who need a service dog get confronted way too often based on the action of people bringing their fake service dog in stores.  Even if your dog is well trained, people encountering these fake service dogs often don't realize that true service dogs often aren't allowed to say Hi in public as they are trained to focus on the needs of their person and can't be distracted.  

Most people who rely on a service dog would trade their ability to bring their dog in a heartbeat if it meant that they didn't NEED him anymore.  Going on fun outings with a dog is an insult to those who truly depend on their service dog to grant them more independence and peace of mind.   So please don't abuse the system.

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Value for Personal Play

I've been asked about how I've built up the value of personal play in my dog's training.  Considering that is all Vito is going to be working for in his obedience training experiment play has to be very well developed!

Every dog enjoys some type of play.  If you're stuck on what your dog may like, watch them play with another dog or watch how they play with a toy.  In general most play behaviors are boiled down sequences of their predatory behaviors.  Examples of play include
- Chase games.  Either you initiate brief chase with the dog or the dog chases you.  The corgi LOVES being chased and I usually go into a brief stalk mode and then cue him I'm going to getcha!  Vito is not a big fan of me chasing him and not really into chasing me.  He does like it when I walk backwards though and let him push towards me!
- Chasing hands.  Little dogs especially love spider hands!
- Light pushes.  And I mean light, unless your dog is super pushy you don't want to be physically causing the dog to move backwards when you push!  Experiment with where your dog likes to be touched, I find pressure on the chest to be a great one for many dogs, sometimes the shoulder, and sometimes butt tags.
- Oppositional reflex games.  Just like pushes tap into the dog's natural desire to push back, physically holding the dog back from something helps to build drive towards it.  I can progress this from initial restrains to food/toys to restrain the dog from a hand touch or even just from getting to the rest of my body.
- Weird nosies.  Some dogs like trills, some quacking!  I usually make a "schoom" noise if I'm trying to build excitement after a push or a hold
- Jumping up on me.  Dogs love getting closer to our face!
- Butt rubs.  Not really "play" but for some dogs it can be very motivating!
- Lying on the ground and letting them attack you!  Not easy to do in a training session, but well worth it!

And then there are a lot of play behaviors that I teach to the dogs.  They're usually tricks that involve movement but are ones dogs wouldn't naturally do. Things such as
- lifting the front feet off the ground to do a hand touch
- jumping all 4 feet in the air
- jumping over your leg
- spins
- and for some dogs jumping up on the handler needs to be re-taught.
- anything the dog just loves doing.  For Lance rollovers are high on the list, high fives are ok too.


For these taught behaviors I initially reward with a lot of food/toys.  The dog does what I cue, and then I reward with an external motivator.  As the dog progresses in their training, past the shaping stage, I start to ask for a play behavior every time before I hand over the food/toy.  The play behaviors start to become strongly conditioned as being fun and since they are movement based a lot of dogs start discovering that they are just plain fun to do.  For most dogs it isn't long before I fade out the external reward that comes after and just throw in play.  I tell my students that anytime they feel the urge to feed their dog, throw in a play behavior half of the time.  That immediately cuts down their rate of food/toy reinforcement in half and the dogs end up looking even happier and more in drive than they were before!  I often go from work-brief play-and straight back to work before the dog even realizes that I didn't give them another reward.  Heeling is great for adding play to the mix as it's so easy to flow in and out of!

If you are struggling with play behaviors start outside of training sessions. You can't use something as a reward if your dog doesn't value it at all!  Practice at times the dog isn't expecting any food and you may initially need to involve the use of toys in order to get your dog used to the games.  It's ok to even let the dog hold the toy while you play without ever touching the toy!  Especially if your dog is prone to playing with their teeth, holding the toy gives them an outlet while they figure out what you're trying to do!

Some people will find their dogs enjoy personal play so much that they start getting higher arousal in their training sessions.  More barking, possibly nipping, and a more difficult time thinking.  For many of these dogs I would first practice the dog being able to move from arousal into doing a simple behavior that I've cued.  Teach them how to think through the craziness.  You will have to start very slow and gradually work up to higher and higher arousal.

Only when your dog has a brain even when excited will you have to look at your play and see if there is any way in modifying it so that you don't get the barking or nipping that comes along with it.  It might mean the same play with just 1-2 second duration and straight back to work, or it might mean just the tiniest first hint of the play behavior without having to go all the way through it.  In practice you could keep doing whatever play the dog likes and then in trials limit yourself to certain pieces.  I think it is a very rare dog that wouldn't benefit from just the tiniest release into play in between exercises at a trial.

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Replicating Trial Issues

At the last obedience trial I had the opportunity to talk to a few exhibitors who asked me for advice on fixing some problems.

One of the exhibitors had a problem on her retrieves and she was also having the same problems during practice unless she managed it by having the dog on leash.  I'm not sure what miracle method people expect to happen if you consistently need to do something in training in order to get the behavior!  Positive trainers are definitely not exempt, as I know many people who need to have the food on their body in order for the dog to do the behavior!

So first take an honest look at your training and ask yourself if you are doing something to mask the issue in practice.  Can the dog do it correctly the first time you ask?  Can the dog do it if you are being formal like in a ring?

If you find you are masking the issue in practice, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to stop trialing. That depends on your goals and your realistic expectations.  I know that even in practice Lance might start to turn and sit before he touches the gate on a go out. He doesn't do it often, but it shows up enough that it is something we regularly work on and do lots of proofing with.  I also know that in a trial this tendency will be exaggerated and thus when Lance starts to turn before I cue a sit I can't be surprised or upset.  I can cue him to "touch" again though if I want to be consistent and try to save it from increasingly happening in future runs!

If you are not seeing your issue in practice and it only shows up in trials there can be a few reasons.
- *Stress, from the dog or human
- Differences in arousal
- Formality
- Anticipation, dog knows the routine
- Pressure from the judge or stewards
- Reliance on rewards

If you have hope of fixing the issue in the ring you need to find some way to replicate the issue in practice.  I put a * by stress because often if it is purely a stress issue and if you find a way to reduce the stress then the issue goes away.  And I would venture to say that most trial only issues are stress related.  But reducing stress can be hard, thus my Ring Confidence classes.  If the stress is limited to a single exercise and you're only seeing that stress in trials, I still focus in trying to replicate the issue in practice and teaching the dog how to work through it.

I find that a lot of people don't try hard enough to uncover the issue in practice.  I can often get the exercise to fail after just poking a few tiny holes.

Dog anticipates in trials?  Try doing that portion of the exercise several times in a row.  The dog who likes to drop before being cued on the DOR might need practice with come-down repeated with the down in the exact same place each time.  It's a very solid dog who doesn't start to lie down in that spot when you finally don't ask for it!  You often don't need to do the exercise in it's completion to replicate the issue.  Repeated cookie toss-downs often work just as well!
Just don't avoid repetition if you have an anticipation issue.  Never doing the drop in practice is a very weak band aid!

Dog becomes grabby on scent articles only in trials?  Try adding lots of arousal to your practice.  Here you can see the boys successfully doing articles with high arousal.

And then here is Vito when I used a ball as a reward.  I was wrong and he was not ready for this!  You can tell how the extreme arousal totally causes both the inability to make a choice and then just grabbing.  I will have to work through this issue more gradually, likely by having the ball off my body and at a greater distance. (Ball send begins at 55sec)

Perhaps the issue is the opposite and the dog is in too low of arousal in trials on say the signal exercise.  Can your dog do signals just around the house when they're tired and not expecting it?

If the issue is one of formality, do you practice long pauses in your practice?  It might be that you are doing your signals immediately vs pausing and waiting the time it takes for the judge to signal.   Or simply breaking eye contact with your dog to look at the judge is enough to cause the issue to occur.

Dog not wanting to front in a trial?  Try adding people pressure of a judge standing close to check your front. No helpers?  Substitute a high valued reward just behind the dog that is hard for the dog to keep their back to.

You can see how there are many ways to add proofing to try to unearth the cause of your dog's trial issues.  In all of it, make sure that while you are trying to replicate the issue, the goal is to still to increase your dog's confidence with the exercise.  It's less about "gotcha" and more about Dr. Seuss "Can you do it when__________?"  It's a fine line between building their confidence and tearing it down.

When in doubt I often reward the dog for their mistake!  A mistake just gives me information about where they are at.  By rewarding the dog for continuing to try I avoid adding continual stress onto the problem area.  The dogs easily differentiate between my "pity cookie" and my very excited rewarding for actually doing it correct.

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The Experiment Begins

Thanks to Denise Fenzi and 2 other people on the Fenzi alumni group, I am re-inspired to begin my no food/toys experiment with Vito.  I have absolutely nothing to lose with Vito, especially considering his recent meltdown in AKC and going back into retirement.

For those who are confused right now, the basis is that I will be taking away all food and all toys in our obedience training for the next 6 months? year??? forever?
The goal is not to gradually fade reinforcers.  Not to see how long a behavior itself can be a reward for another behavior.  The goal is to see if a dog will CHOOSE to work when they KNOW the only reward available is me.

Why?  Because clearly I'm a glutton for punishment.  It is not necessary to do this in order to be successful in the obedience ring.  All dogs if you trial long enough, and usually it doesn't take that long, will learn there is never any food, toys, (or corrections) in the ring.  You might be able to trick your dog into thinking you still have food on you for a little while.  And if you do a lot of matches or CDSP trials it may even hold up.  But good trainers don't trick their dogs.  They systematically teach their dogs how to deal with the formality that trials have.  How to handle working long stretches of time without reinforcement.  How to smoothly transition between exercises.  And usually have some sort of jackpot system, with the reward off their body and out of sight.

What I am fascinated with is the process of building up the value of the working relationship.  The value of personal play.  And if successful, then trials become no different than practice.  There is only you and your dog, no external rewards, and no hope of getting them.  Some "balanced" trainers do this.  But what I am interested in is finding a way to successfully accomplish this when the dog always has a choice.  The choice to say no and stop training at any time without consequence.  Is there a way to trump the value of you over the environment and have your behaviors hold up?

Many positive trainers would say no, at least initially.  Behaviors are reinforced through food, toys, and reinforcement rate is gradually diminished.  If behaviors start to diminish you look at where you've been putting value recently.  Recently the value of personal play has been talked about a lot on R+ obedience groups and people are starting to use it a lot more.  Not many trainers silently hand over a cookie anymore or toss their toy without also inserting themselves in the process!

But personal play is still paired a lot with external rewards.  And it's hard to know just how reinforcing personal play can be if you're always backing it up with another reward.  Take tugging for example.  Most trainers don't tug with their puppy in exchange for food anymore as they find it's not needed.  With good toy mechanics, dogs quickly discover how much they love to stalk, chase, pounce, and even kill the toy.  And dogs will love different parts of those sequences  with some dogs preferring the chase and never want to actually bite and some loving that kill.  Dogs who tug for food look very different than those who tug for the sake of tugging.  A few dogs will start to cross over and love tugging even if it's never paired with food again, any my guess would be those dogs just needed food to get them started but quickly discovered how much fun it is on their own.  And even with good toy mechanics there will be some dogs who value tugging very little.  That's ok.

I suspect that just like some dogs value toy play more than others, there are dogs who naturally value personal play.  Those dogs will be easier!  But I don't want to shy away from dogs who don't seem to hold high value to personal play.  The more you use a reinforcer the more you develop it.  Many dogs find food from their food dish way higher value than the same type of food just handed over to them.  Dogs practice eating out of their bowl twice a day, every day, in most families.  I don't think we spend nearly enough time trying to develop the value for play itself.

So this process is seeing just how valuable can we make personal play.  No tricking the dog into believing food/toys will come.  Just giving the dogs a chance to make a choice- play our game or not.
And at first the process will be very, very painful.  Mainly for me.

The first stage will be Hope.  Vito will keep playing with me because he hopes the reward is coming.  He doesn't see the reward until he chooses to work as it is, so he just won't know if I'm working on a very long behavior chain.  I will see an increase in some frustration behaviors, likely more barking.

But then will come stage 2, Disappointment.  Actually punishment.  If you were to give me a Kit Kat every time I took out the trash and then you suddenly didn't, I would feel cheated.  Even if I knew the chocolate wasn't anything more than a way of saying thank you I would still feel upset.  It's not just about not getting a reward, it's about that feeling of loss as I compare it to my expectations.
I fully expect Vito to check out.  To choose to eat the lovely grass in the yard versus playing with me.  And I will let him.

And we will then see what happens in the long term.  Maybe nothing.  Maybe unicorns and rainbows.
Lance made this experiment extremely easy.  Lance loves to work and while he felt the loss of food, the chance to keep playing with me still trumped other choices.  Vito will be harder.  But there is nothing to lose and everything to gain from this knowledge.  I expect that 10 years from now, positive training is going to look very, very different.

If you are interested in playing along I would highly recommend already having a solid foundation in many obedience behaviors with the dog choosing to work without seeing the reward up front.  An attitude of curiosity and caring more about the process than the results will also be necessary as a positive trained route to this path is still in the experimental process.  But this is me publicly committing myself to this process.  I just wish winter wasn't on its way.

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Teaching a Hold with Reverse Luring- Zen Keeper

* Update Jan 2018- I have been informed that the technique I referred to as reverse luring was not actually how "reverse luring" is done.  I have since renamed the version I use to Zen Keeper- i reference to it as a "doggy zen" version of a keep going signal.
Please visit this new blog post for more details of the method: 

Over 2 years after I posted about using Reverse Luring to train duration behaviors it remains my most popular post.  I am thrilled that while reverse luring is not my invention, I am able to help spread it's use to other trainers around the world!  And by far the most common search landing on it's page is how to use reverse luring in teaching a hold.  While the short video I made demoing the technique does show using reverse luring to teach a hold, the video was never meant as a how to guide and the clip showed dogs at the intermediate level.  Not as helpful to those looking for more step by step instructions!  So due to so many people having questions, I decided to make another video!

Note- I personally almost always train a shaped retrieve to hand BEFORE I start hold training.  I find that teaching dogs to move with an object in their mouth is usually easier and thus develops a strong reward history with the object before beginning more stationary work.  There are many ways to shape a retrieve and I outlined my methods here.

Zumi was a perfect subject for my video as I started teaching her first hold lesson earlier this month and just a few lessons later she has a pretty solid 5 second hold of a variety of objects.  Unfortunately due to the quickness in which she picked up the skill, I didn't have as much video of her struggling in the initial stages as I had hoped for.  For those new to training a hold, realize that the first 3 seconds are the hardest to get!  Typically once I build to 3 seconds it isn't long before I have 5 then 10 then 30+ seconds!

Video below:

And more written steps for those who like to read :)
1. Once I have a dog who already knows how to bite an object and target my hand with it I begin hold training.  My first step is reviewing the concept of don't stare at the food, offer a behavior.  If this is brand new to the dog I usually start this concept with hand targeting.  Can the dog do a nose touch to my hand if my other hand has food visible?  Don't be tempted to cheat and move your hand away!  If the dog wants to stare at my food hand I let him!  Too much staring and I might just reward for the dog offering eye contact, but then I'll help them out by wiggling my other hand.  This is a very important step and can be hard for many dogs, so don't skip it!  I find that working on the concept of moving away from food is crucial to a lot of advanced obedience training!

So at the end of this step the dog is confidently biting the object even with food held out at nose level.

2. Tug backs.  Most new dogs will have a very loose grip on the object as they bite it.  To get more full bites I typically reward the dog for closer and closer steps to actually tugging back on the object.  Downside of this is that many dogs will start offering backing up with the item as they go to bite it.  I don't care, it's easy to train out later :)  Regardless of what you choose to do, try and click for more solid bites vs wussy mouthing!

3. Shaping.  No different than any other method, you need to build duration very slowly.  You can either keep your free hand on the object as the dog bites it, or briefly let go.  I personally have better success letting go.  Remember the click ends the behavior so I don't care if it falls to the floor when it drops!  At this step I try and get to using reverse luring to help the dog with a feedback system.  Open hand=dog is correct, closed fist or removed fist=dog was wrong (ie dropped the object or rolled it in his mouth).  In the super early stages I often don't have time to even open my hand (as the dog goes to bite the object) as I click almost right away!  But very gradually try it.  For many dogs the movement of your hand towards their mouth also helps them as it takes their brain off of what is in their mouth and onto the choice they have to make to not go for the food!

Keep working on it!  Patience!  Build up to 5 seconds slowly :)

4. Proofing.  Now you should easily be able to have your hand in the open palm/closed fist feedback and start moving your hand around to tempt the dog.  Move the hand above the dog and towards the ground.  Try having the food on a table you reach for.  Be creative and build your dog's confidence as you further their understanding of what you want.

5.  Movement.  In the above steps you were likely giving the dog the object while they were already sitting.  The dog moving and then being asked to hold is a novel concept!  Experiment with what is easier for your dog to start this concept.  Maybe picking it off the ground and then holding?  Being given the object and then asked to do a trick like spin, or shake and still hold it?  Carrying the object while heeling and then a brief hold as you stop?

My eventual goal is a full formal retrieve of pick up off the ground, come to front, sit, and hold.  You can see how that is lots of steps!  For my dogs, the pickup and hold is somewhat hard at first, but the hold and then move into a sit even harder.

Good luck!  Feel free to write with any tips!

Baby Vito in levitating dumbbell hold!

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