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Bird Killer

Picking up in the middle...

I blog most of this elsewhere, but thought to myself, why don't I xpost this to Blue's personal page! :) So quick overview before I post the current stuff...

Then: All of my previous pets have been "easy" dogs to train. After the death of my beloved Greta Garbo, Kaya (my other dog) and I were left with a whole. It did not take me long to go to the local shelter and search for hours, determined to select a dog to bring home. After a painstaking search, I came home with Stella Blue (formerly Lacuna), a pointer hound mix of some sort. The complete opposite of my former companion.

For 3 years I tried to train Blue using my traditional methods. Treat training was a part of the equation, but a small part. I taught a very good recall this way. But for some reason, I never extended the concept elsewhere in our regiment, and over the years, many problems began to arise.

Since my methods of training were not working on this pup, I decided to find a trainer to help me with clicker training and R + training in general. I have begun to work with a trainer named Ali Brown (the other of Scaredy Dog and Focus not Fear). We have been working for a month now, and I have seen some nice improvements in Blue and decided I need to blog / keep track of this progress.

Now:

I haven't had much time to walk and really work with Blue alone, so I decided it was time to up a criteria anyway. I want Blue a notch less stressful yet while we are out and about. Certain areas are lines we cross that just set her up. Not nutty but on edge. Squeaky. I used to settle for squeaky. I don't want to settle for squeaky anymore! :) So the lack of time and the new needs fit in with the idea of just working her up and down and up and down my block. Focusing on me, but relaxed about it and looking around calmly. Working on not having to have her stare at me the entire time as a crutch. She did pretty good. I walked her past the spots that sends her level up a bit and would take her back to comfort zone, pushing a little further and further into the zone, but only rewarding for silence (regardless if she was looking at me or the object of desire. If she was looking at me I would reward her with allowing her to sniff or tossing a treat to the ground, if she wasn't looking at me I rewarded with a food reward so that she was being rwarded for looking calmly but had to turn to me for the reward. I repeated this exercise with Kaya too. Both were rewarded for waiting calmly while I worked the other dog (Blue I put in the covered crate in the car - Kaya was in the yard so she would get used to us being away from her, but I could reward her for not acting silly)

In the house today I worked on refining some things she knows.

1. Plotz (down with smaller hand signal and a verbal cue). Good. I would mix this u and was combining it with sits, stays, come, trying to get a quicker response with plotz.

2. Bow - she is starting to get the cutest play bow :P Need to catch it on video. I still haev to use food lures, and I misclick once in a while as she ends up putting butt on the floor to, but we are getting it. Had a couple really cute ones, and she held it, didn't start to put the butt down, so I must have caught a few good clicks in there. (The key is not just timing the click right but moving the lure hand away fast enough that the dog stands up and knows the behavior ended with just the front end down.

3. Heel, near me - Just walking around and clicking when she is near my side. Instead of rewarding her from my hand though, I am dropping the reward and continuing walking so she has to keep coming up from behind me. If she would get ahead, I would turn and reward for when she came up behind me again. Only did a short spell of this because she was doing really well.

4. We ended with a bunch of basic touches and the like. She is like a cobra. Target and bam she hits it, so it's a super easy one for her and just kind of loosens her back up. Then I did a last plotz and it was a good one, so I jack potted her with what was left of the food...

It's amazing what she will do for kibble not long after she just ate breakfast (it was a small one... tilapia fillets... it was more like a snack)

Other than those two days, we had a couple nice days where I have had to do work in the yard. I just worked on their general behavior in the yard. At one point, Blue was getting a little stupid with the neighbors dogs, fence running. She would stop and come when I called, bt the moment I was back to what I was doing she would go off again. So I leashed her up and just worked on her being out front with me and being calm. She actually had a touch time with this. She was anxious just standing around the front fencing. I actually just worked on some classical conditioning. If I heard other dogs barking or saw things that might set her off, I stopped and just did some basic touches and the like to try to condition here to nice things when she hears these stimulating sounds. She did start to relax a bit by the time I finished. It's been hard to be consistent with this type of thing. Need to work on it more. Having to shovel will be an interesting challenge... don't want to think about that yet though!

Training Log

Today was a little more challenging. Not the walk part, but trying to get out of the house. In retrospect, things might have been a little easier if I had taken them both for a bike ride first, then tried. But it was raining and it was challenge enough to motivate myself to try and walk Blue again.

When I got home, I let them out for a romp in the yard, but then I have to keep Kaya in the basement (finished) so I can take Blue, because if I try to get out of the house without her she would make my life difficult. Who could blame her, she wants to go too, and I rarely if ever separate them. So she was whining and crying maing it hard to get a calm Blue to get out. She kept wanting to go check on Kaya, but then would "check in" and I would click and treat. At first she was screeching barking, but we finally got it to a mild whimper and a solid sit and look at me, so that was when I got her out of the house. She settled once we were out and couldn't hear Kaya (as did Kaya - I would have been able to hear her outside if she was still howling - it is the most pathetic sound you ever heard... she rarely makes a sound like that, but when she does, it tears your heart out)

The walk was good... I did a different (yet familiar) loop. Again, better on my street and when we were close... she was looking all over like she was looking for something to react to, but kept looking back to me...

While this rain sucks, it is actually a blessing in disguise because I can practice off the property without so much activity going on. Peoples dogs are in and the squirrels and stray cats are not so active. I notice that when we get to locations where we have had meltdowns in the past, she would get a little anxious and whiney, but she would almost have an "oh wait... let me check out the lady with the leash and she'll give me a treat" A few times she took a bit long to "check in" so I just stopped out forward movement ( a pretty big reward in her mind as it is) and when she id I C/T'd and continued our forward movement. Nary a pull... a few times she got to the end of the leash but did not try to pull through it... it was more of an asking if she could go check something out and sniff. A few times I encouraged her to keep moving and a few times, (her fav spots) I let her have a good sniff.

Tomorrow may be a non walk day, only because there is soOOoooo much to do around here (it's cleaning and garbage day), so I will probably do inside work and just work on doing some of our silly tricks and the like. Almost got roll over. :) Will probably still try to do some of those things tonight as well since they won't really get much yard time with the rain. Kaya loves to play those games too and it will be a good chance to try to work on them at the same time. With Kaya I am just using "good" for now because I don't want them getting confused over the clicker. I need to get one of those with 2 tones.

Training log

So it was a rainy day and I didn't attack all my goals, but I got some work in. This morning, I worked exclusively with Blue, my problem child. One thing I want to do is reintroduce her to the calming cap so that maybe I can implement it in the car. I put it on her and just kep treating her so that she wouldn't try to paw it off. Once I got her attention with that, I worked on some of the simple target training we have been doing with targeting my hand. After a bit, I took off the cap, and just kept going with the target training, walking all through the house, getting her to target my hand. She was pretty good. Would get ahead of me a few times, but would return to the target. That was it for the am... that was about 15 minutes worth.

This afternoon, once the rain stopped for the most part, I leashed her up... waiting for calm (for her... wasn't perfect, but I will take what I can get at this point) to put her harness on and clip the leash. I waited for focus going out the door and once we got out side. Again, not perfect, but pretty good. I did the same for the gate. I walked her loose leash. When she would reach the end and pull, I would stop and wait for her to look at me. Then it was click and treat (she heard the click she runs back for the treat.) A few times she got whine when she hit the end and couldn't go forward, but fortunately we didn't see any squirrels for a total melt down... and each time she did look back, got the click and the treat. She was definitely better along our street and got a little more wound up on the alley way where the pittie is, but she actually didn't really respond to him too badly. She seems to be responding pretty quickly to looking at me for "comfort" (ie food :P) Not bad for not using super yummy treats either... we were using kibble.

Afterwards, I put her "away" and took out Kaya and repeated the same exercise. She actuallyy isn't as good at "checking in" with me, but she also doesn't pull... she stops and sniffs, and usually a gentle tug with the leash and a "let's go" gets her on her way again. She might need tastier treats in general as she isn't as food motivated as Blue... but for her, letting her sniff around a bit is a reward. So it was all good... each got about a 10 minute walk... not as much as I would like, but I wanted to have an uneventful walk with Blue... I call it a win because there were no meltdowns...

I'll probably continue the bikerides for the exercise walks for now, because they don't get much chance to react on those, and I can do them together. I'll keep them separate on the regular walks and keep them shorter so I can work on loose leash walking. Blue was still zigzagging a bit, but I am not going to try to get perfection day one! Right ow I am ust happy that 85% of the walk was completely loose leash, and it was our first try in a long time.


Yesterday they had a playdate with Bigfoot in the back of me. They were good girls. Kaya actually started a quarrel over a bonel but Bigfoot stood his ground and put her in her place, and it was quickly over... he is not an aggressive dog by any stretch, but didn't tolerate Kaya's silliness. so that was good. Blue was much less barky and defensive with him and actually got into a playful wrestle with him. We kept Kaya to the side, because when she gets in the mix, she tends to pick on Blue a bit.

Don't think I updated yesterday... but I did do some target work with Blue... it was a light training day. I had a bit to do in the yard... but today was good, and we will keep it up all week. :)