Denise Fenzi's Blog, page 2

Crooked fronts? Try this simple drill

Straight and close fronts for dog sports competitions can be a challenge for a variety of reasons.

Some dogs sit too far back; they feel the pressure of our bodies and they want to avoid it, so they hang out just a bit further away than we want them.  Or maybe they sit back because we throw food or toys in their direction, and they are preparing to catch (or run, if we throw the toy behind where they land in front).

Other dogs sit nice and close!  And crooked. The issue, dear dog, is your butt.  It’s crooked.

A simple drill can help both issues; check out the video below.

Close, because after the front the dog will return to the place between your legs after they sit, so they sit close in preparation.

And straight, because dogs tend to line up their rear in preparation for their next direction of travel.  This is why if you frequently finish the dog to the left after a front they will tend to sit with their butt facing that direction, and the same is true if you frequently finish to the right.  To get straight, the next direction of travel should be…straight ahead.  Between your legs.

Give it a shot!  It’s particularly good for those of us who throw toys in training, but this works with all reinforcers

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A few early puppy training lessons

There are many ways to start a puppy or young dog on the early skills required for dog sports.  This video demonstrates two useful things – ‘choosing’ to work and the start of heel work.

In this video, puppy Kismet (11 week old Dutch Shepherd) and her mom are having their first lesson on recall away from distractions, a bit of heeling, and “go play”.  Mom doesn’t always do exactly the right thing at the right time, but it works anyway.  Both mom and puppy will get better with experience.

In this video, I’m combining three concepts in one lesson – choice (work or free time), recall and heeling.

“go play” – you are free to do as you wish.   Kismet chooses to explore when allowed – that will often change as the weeks go by.  By allowing the puppy to choose between what she is likely to want to do (explore) and what you want her to do (work), you can be sure you’re not overwhelming the puppy.

“Come” is rewarded with exciting praise every time and a cookie most of the time.  The puppy is also rewarded with the option to “go play” again.  Recalls don’t end the fun; they simply interrupt it with praise and cookies.

When the puppy begins to show more interest in you, turn your left side towards the puppy and walk away.  Most puppies “fall” into heeling – reward.  That is the beginning of heeling.

What a nice puppy!

The post A few early puppy training lessons appeared first on Denise Fenzi's Blog.

A few early puppy training lesson

There are many ways to start a puppy or young dog on the early skills required for dog sports.  This video demonstrates two useful things – ‘choosing’ to work and the start of heel work.

In this video, puppy Kismet (11 week old Dutch Shepherd) and her mom are having their first lesson on recall away from distractions, a bit of heeling, and “go play”.  Mom doesn’t always do exactly the right thing at the right time, but it works anyway.  Both mom and puppy will get better with experience.

In this video, I’m combining three concepts in one lesson – choice (work or free time), recall and heeling.

“go play” – you are free to do as you wish.   Kismet chooses to explore when allowed – that will often change as the weeks go by.  By allowing the puppy to choose between what she is likely to want to do (explore) and what you want her to do (work), you can be sure you’re not overwhelming the puppy.

“Come” is rewarded with exciting praise every time and a cookie most of the time.  The puppy is also rewarded with the option to “go play” again.  Recalls don’t end the fun; they simply interrupt it with praise and cookies.

When the puppy begins to show more interest in you, turn your left side towards the puppy and walk away.  Most puppies “fall” into heeling – reward.  That is the beginning of heeling.

What a nice puppy!

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Pre-Engagement and Engagement webinars!

I’ll be teaching two webinars for Fenzi Dog Sports Academy (FDSA) on Thursday evening.  Consider these webinars if:

Your dog struggles to engage with your training plans the second you step out of the house.

Your dog struggles to maintain engagement if there is no cookie or toy readily available to magnetize them to the work.

Your dog works, but chronically checks in and out of focus – multitasking throughout the session.

Your dog gives 10 times more effort at home than anywhere else.

You’re frustrated with your role as a cheerleader, always working to “happy” your dog into a better attitude.

The Staged to Engage webinar is basically “pre-engagement”, and is about raising your puppy or new dog in a way that makes the desire to work with you very strong in the future, as a function of your day to day choices as your dog grows up and develops a relationship with you.

The Engagement 2.0 webinar is for any dog that is destined for dog sports.  It will be particularly useful if you find yourself occasionally frustrated because of the issues I brought up above – your dog struggles to either begin or maintain solid work and engagement, especially when alternatives interests arrive to derail you!

After each webinar, there will be ample opportunity to ask questions about the materials.  The webinars are stored in your library at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy so you can watch them later if you’re not available to join me live. Each webinar costs $19.95

Register here.

Hope to see many of you there!  I really do value the opportunity to connect with dog sports competitors who are passionate about their dogs and dog sports.

Watch this short video of my young dog, Dice, to help you better understand the process of Engagement:

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Food refusal for dog sports

One of the exercises in Ringsport is food refusal.  This was fun to teach!  We’re not done yet, but here’s our current progress with small slices of hot dog – next up will be bigger chunks:

Here are the steps:

1.  A solid down stay.

2. Cue “leave it” and throw a non-food item on the floor a few feet from the dog.  Your dog will probably glance and look back at you (remember, you have a solid down-stay).  Reinforce HEAVILY with a high-value food or toy from your hand, pick up the object and repeat.

Stay at this step until you can throw the item at or near your dog – including hitting them, and your dog ignores it completely – staring at you in expectation of the high-value reinforcer.  Obviously, use an item that is harmless, and don’t hit your dog with anything if they find it scary.  It’s a gentle toss, followed up by a party.

3.  Repeat as above, but now substitute in a toy.  Reinforce from your hand with a super high-value toy and make it quite the party.  If your dog breaks the stay to grab the toy, work on your down-stay with distractions before going any further.

4.  When your dog can not only hold the stay but also ignore the toy in preparation for the awesome one that you have, slowly throw it closer to your dog so that you can actually hit your dog with the toy.  Eventually, you’ll throw right at the dog’s face and he should not grab the toy.  If he does – no big deal as long as he holds his down stay.  Simply take it and make the next toss easier and always follow up with a first-class party.

If your dog has no interest in toys, then you will do steps 3 and 4 with the most boring food you can come up with.  But don’t throw at the dog’s face, just around the dog.

5.  Dog actively ignoring a toy thrown right at them?  Ignores low-value food in preparation for the really good stuff from you?  Super!

6.  Now we throw food – at first low value and then higher value, around the dog.  Over time, you will work those food items closer to the dog but make sure that you always reward with something much better.  If your dog fails and grabs a piece of food, don’t get all worked up.  Just quietly put the dog back and repeat at a better distance.  If the dog actually breaks the down stay to grab the food then it’s not a food refusal issue, it’s a down-stay issue.  Focus there.

7.  The final step is to repeat the above sequence (goes fast this time) but delay your reinforcer until you return to heel position, and then the same thing again but this time the reinforcer doesn’t come until you’ve heeled away.  If you get this far, then you’re good to go.  Move on to your next exercise and train as normal, but I’d suggest for the life of the dog keeping the rate of reinforcement high for success.

On another note, I’m teaching two webinars at FDSA on April 1st; Staged to Engage (Pre-engagement work for puppies and dogs destined for dog sports) and Engagement 2.0.  I’d love to see you there!

register here.

I’ll also be doing a presentation on raising a high drive puppy for The Lemonade Conference (TLC).   There are 50+ presenters with a mix of both dog sports and behavior/training presentations – a pretty amazing event!  Early bird registration ends on March 20th.  Right now the price is only $179 and the presentation materials go into your FDSA library (which will be created for you if you don’t have one) for at least a year.  This is truly a spectacular deal – get registered now if you haven’t already done so!  The conference runs from May 7th through 9th with three tracks operating simultaneously.  But don’t worry, with your library to store the materials you don’t need to be in all the places all of the time.

Learn more here.

 

 

 

 

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Distraction Training with Elements of Engagement

This video shows my young dog Dice in a field with active gophers. I want to work. He wants to dig them up. Here you’ll see a combination of distraction training with my Stages of Engagement. I want him to choose to opt-in but that’s not easy under these circumstances.

Over the course of the video you can see him start to understand, make better choices, and eventually, come to be able to work on top of the gopher holes with attention.

This training is far from over. We will repeat these steps and games in many locations with various distractions over a long period of time. Eventually, it will be a habit to turn back to me when he finds things in the environment which suck him in.

The nice thing is that once the dog is mature and the work is done, it really is done and rarely needs to be refreshed. This is all part of developing an attitude of cooperation in our young dogs – from the earliest foundation skills all the way through competition readiness.

If you’re not familiar with my Stages of Engagement or Engagement work in general, search this blog and you’ll get a solid overview.   I will also be teaching two webinars on April 1st, 2021 for FDSA; one on pre-engagement strategies and the second on “Engagement 2.0”, which incorporates my more recent thoughts on the topic since I first began teaching Engagement several years ago,  Both are repeats, so if you’ve seen them, no need to sign up again!

Enrollment will open mid-March.  I will remind you here, so if you’re not subscribed and if you want to attend, please consider doing so!

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Concept (goals) or Criteria (process)?

The majority of behaviors that I teach are accomplished via reinforcing specific criteria. I know exactly how I want the dog to look at each step of the process as they move towards the final behavior. This is a process-driven approach.

Other things I teach as concepts. With those behaviors, I don’t actually care how the dog accomplishes the task; I simply want them to do it in a way that ends with the behavior I want to see.

When I teach precision elements like sit, down, stand or formal heeling, I have specific criteria. I care very much how the dog gets into those positions at each step of the process! The following video is an example of behaviors that have all been taught with specific criteria:

Those behaviors could have been taught as concepts (goals) instead. For example, if I wanted the dog to lie down and if I didn’t care how they got there; front-end first, rear-end first, flopped over on the side, etc., then the answer would be to ignore the “how” of it, and simply reinforce when the dog achieves the down behavior. The dog will eventually understand that you care about the position and not the process; they can choose the route that works best for them.

Let’s look at a second video; in this one I am teaching a concept:

The goal that I want him to internalize is to prevent me from escaping. It’s up to him how he can best achieve that. I can escape forwards, backward, or sideways. I can jump off of an obstacle or dive around it. I can attempt to block him by picking up an obstacle. The only thing that matters is that he has to catch me as fast as possible because for the sport of Mondio, every yard I get away costs us points in competition.

It’s up to him to figure out where he needs to be to achieve that goal. He can be in front, back, or pushing me sideways. He might decide that being on an obstacle is faster, or maybe being on the ground works better for him. To train this, I need to ensure that he gets as much experience as possible while I show him different possibilities – I try and escape.  You prevent that however works best for you.

Teaching concepts versus criteria is not right or wrong. It truly depends on the end goal. The more problem solving and independent you want the dog to be, the more you will want to strive for concepts. If you care about every step of the process then focus on teaching specific criteria.

For example, if I’m in the house and I want my dog to pick up an object, I just point to it and ask them to get it. They understand! They pick it up and hand it to me. Goal-driven. Concept.

But for competition obedience? Not so much! I want you to go directly, pick up super fast, turn on a spot, run back, and sit in front! Criteria make sense there. Process.

In summary, if you are teaching Concepts, actively reinforce a wide variety of ways the dog might achieve the final goal, and put a premium on active problem-solving. If you are teaching criteria, set up your training situation to make the dog most likely to pick the option you want and reinforce that heavily, while ignoring the alternatives.

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What Happens If

A few years ago I had a student in a class who had spent a fair amount of time trying to teach her dog to pick up an object by shaping it. For various reasons she had not succeeded. Since the purpose of the class was not to teach the retrieve, nor was it to discuss shaping, I suggested that we try and work around the issue and call it good enough.

I told her to point at the object, clap her hands a few times, and see if she could talk her dog into picking up the object and handing it to her. Kind of like you would do with a toddler.

She did what I suggested. Her dog picked up the object and then handed it to her. She thought it was a miracle!

There was no miracle.

The fact is, dogs are wired to try and understand us, and often all we have to do is try something different. That “different” might not be traditional. It might not represent good training. It might not be a great idea for all other dogs, or even most other dogs. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth your time to give it a shot because it might work just fine for you. Who knows – maybe someone else could find it useful for their situation down the road and you can share it with them as an option.

Who should use this approach?

If you’re a fairly experienced trainer and you’re bored or stuck, why not? If you’re looking at an exercise where you just want to try something different, then try it. It’s not going to matter if you’re not successful, because if you’re experienced you’ll see you’re making a mess soon enough and you can change direction.

How about if you have a challenge that makes the traditional route more difficult? The obvious examples (but hopefully not limited to) are physical realities: you use my pocket hand heeling technique and if your dog is all of 5 pounds as an adult, you decide that bending over all the time isn’t much fun for you. What happens if you add a stick and have the dog target that instead? And what happens if your dog is extremely tall? Maybe you want to teach that dog with a significant modification, or just teach heeling differently altogether. There’s no greater good here.

Try something new and see. Experiment! That doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you. It doesn’t mean it’s going to work for other dogs, and it doesn’t mean you might not run yourself into other problems down the road. But there’s no reason not to give it a shot, especially if there’s a definite reason not to go with the traditional path.

Dog trainers tend to be traditionalists by nature. Whatever has been done in the past, we tend to do (and recommend) in the future. We can be more flexible than that. And if you don’t like it, try something else.

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Handling errors by making the dog ‘more wrong’

Here’s an entire video of my dog making errors finding front, mostly due to loss of attention. I am primarily demonstrating the technique of making the dog “more wrong”.
 

 

The basic sequence is that he returns to me, drops his toy for another repetition of the behavior (front holding an object) and…then he gets distracted watching his toy roll away.
Intead of waiting for him to re-engage, I begin to pivot/move in a way that he will notice when he does return to work – I’m not where he left me!
By making the work more difficult (pivoting towards him or backing up makes it easier), I’m re-engaging his brain. “Oh, I need to pay attention and solve this puzzle!”.

Looking at this, I should have removed the retrieve portion from this exercise, since he was struggling with a decent percentage of his returns – the dumbbell just created delay.

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Looking at the Fundamentals

What you see here in this video is the basis of all of my training; engagement, requesting work, and operating within a few very basic rules.First THE DOG starts the training session – this ensures that the dog recognizes that work is a privilege and neither a right nor an obligation.Second, the game of switching/dropping toys/ignoring the options. This allows him to constantly opt back in to whatever we are doing together.This doesn’t mean I don’t call him to work or away from other things he might want to do – I absolutely do. But I also make a mental note of it throughout the session. If I have to keep calling my dog back, why is that? Where am I creating stress in our training session that is causing that choice? And if he won’t let go of one toy and go for another, why is that? What weak link in our game of switch do I need to attend to? If I stand still and make myself available for work and after a minute or two of circling or chewing he still doesn’t acknowledge me? What do I need to do to raise my value, the package that I bring to the table, to change that dynamic?What you see here – choosing to start and remain engaged in work and the basic game of letting go of objects voluntarily…that is everything I need for control within bite-work.I didn’t do a classic drive building phase with Dice because he’s bred to bite and it should be hard-wired in. Control, on the other hand, is not wired in, and the last thing I want to do is build what is easy and natural while devaluing what is hard and artificial. That creates frustration which leads to overarousal, and for my dog overarousal leads to aggression, even if the intent is prey drive. In combination, those give frantic and reactive behavior whereas I want a clear and thinking head.When Dice had the basic game of switching and starting work via offered behaviors, I added his first decoy, Ricky Rivera. Then Ricky played the games that he knew. And then we both played it together, keeping both of us in balance in terms of value to Dice.Here is the first minute of our work today:

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