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Summer School blog 21st Oct

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Wed, 10/22/2008 - 12:42 — Aidan

Good turn-out despite freezing, rainy conditions.

Summer School group did 3-person "come game" then pick-up and hold ball. Jane and Frankie were able to transfer an existing behavior to get really fast increases in criteria (being duration).

Remus (6mo GSD from working lines) was just so relaxed his owner couldn't get him into the game - nice problem to have in a GSD from these lines! No doubt he has drive we can bring out, even better if we can turn it on and off at will. "Paying Attention" exercise ( http://www.clickertraining.com/node/925 ) and 100% feeding on contingency suggested until Remus learns to work for food with other dogs around.

While other dogs were playing the "come game", Anna and her reactive dog, Archie, and myself did some clicking and treating at a sub-threshold distance. Archie was just getting interested in the other dogs at 25 paces, but we quickly reduced distance to 10 paces without any problem. Anna got the idea really quickly and used a high rate of reinforcement. I think Archie was quite "operant" tonight and was quite happy to substitute conditioned behaviors for reactive behaviors. Even when Remus pulled a "Houdini" and raced over off-leash, Archie did not get excited until after Remus left (Pug vs GSD - probably quite sensible!)

Koolie can be reactive on-leash around other dogs who bark, but was on his best behavior during class tonight. This is a good thing, but I suspect his being quite used to being in a class situation like this helps a lot so we will do some supplemental work outside of a class situation with Koolie (walk past dogs behind fences who will bark). The idea is not to get a reaction, but to push the boundary while still getting success.

Sabella... what can I say? She hasn't had close contact with many strange dogs in controlled environments since LAST summer. I guess this is like expecting a dog trained in obedience to perform a UD routine in trial after very little practise in 7 months - you will bomb, no matter what the potential or the level of training.

Calm behavior around other dogs is learned for Sabella. It will be interesting to see how quickly she improves - I will put money that she will be even better than last year within 3 classes from now. She is a quick learner despite "Fumbles" her handler.

We did some parallel walking with Archie but instructing Anna and handling Sabella was too difficult for me and I pushed it too far, too fast, with too little reinforcement. Abort mission.

Charlotte and Cath turned up (daughter and wife), which added a bit of fuel to the fire because when it started to rain and they took cover she just wanted them with us. This is something I should work on, but it's something for another time because it isn't a problem which comes up often. I still managed to keep her "in the game" despite these upsets, and she showed some wonderful operant behavior with very little latency.

Remus is very interested in other dogs so we had Cindy be an immovable post while Tricia and Jet approached. Jet has good leash manners. Tricia stopped when Remus pulled on leash, then moved at first sign of relaxation. Remus does relaxation quite well! Jet was able to interact with Remus while Remus stayed in a "down" a couple of times.

Remus bites his handler's sleeve. Apparently he does this to owner's elderly mother, too. Owner was very good at not responding, but apparently mother is not so good. This appears to be a reaction to stress or over-excitement, particularly when things are not going Remus' way. I suspect feeding on contingency only and a few new behaviors in Remus' repertoire will solve this problem as he is only young, but suggest teaching tug game ( http://www.clickertraining.com/node/727 ) as both a reinforcer and stress-reliever for Remus.

Homework - pick up and hold ball, aiming to increase duration of hold. Area Search. Loose Leash to bowl of food using "Be a Tree" or "Penalty Yards"