Denise Fenzi's Blog, page 3

But…drills have a place too!

Here is another one-minute compilation of skills – I call these “Drills” because I probably did each of them a few times before moving on, they are super quick and fluid, and I am likely to reinforce close to every effort.

This was pulled from a session of about eight minutes and I barely moved from that one spot except for a couple of jumps.  Eight minutes is a lot of time if you keep moving.

Dice is coming up on a year of age and he knows a tremendous amount for a young dog.  On his birthday I’ll have to try and figure out what all that is….a daunting task.

He’s truly a join to train.  A pain in the butt to live with but hey…life has tradeoffs, and we’re working on those life skills!

Anyway, here’s a super fast-paced video for you.  If you’re struggling with a basic skill then you might find something in here that will give you ideas.

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Foundation skills don’t need to be drills

This video is a one-minute compilation pulled from a 15-minute training session.  The entire session looked pretty much like this.

There’s a little bit of verbal processing (see my recent blog) but mostly this session is following obvious body cues to build Dice’s enthusiasm for his foundation skills.  Legs apart?  Go there.  Side to my dog with movement?  Go there.  Send out to an obvious target?  Go there.  If I place an object on the ground?  Go there.  If I’m moving backward looking to my front?  That’s what I want!  Throw an object?  Fetch it.

90% of work can be intuited by your dog by your body cues, without any real need to listen at all.

Listening is important!  But it’s hard.  If I throw an object and then cue a down, my dog will listen harder but the flow will be broken; it’s a trade-off. Flow with foundation skills will proceed in a much smoother and more motivating fashion if it’s fast-paced and fairly obvious what is required at the moment by creating patterns and using them to advantage rather than breaking them.

You need both! Listening to slow your dog down and make them pay close attention and flow/fast-paced work to keep motivation strong and rates of success high.

And always always – keep an eye on your learner.  What does YOUR dog need right now?  If your dog gets too high and careless and has motivation to spare, maybe more listening games. And if your dog tends to flatten easily and gets discouraged with a lot of listening games, then make the body cues and patterns obvious so flow is front and center.

Here you’ll see both but mostly motivation games, based on foundation skills, with relatively little listening required.

How many different foundation skills can you see here?  There are quite a few.

I post almost daily videos of Dice’s progress on Instagram and often Facebook as well.  If you’d like to follow along or ask questions as we learn, feel free to follow me on IG at:  @raikasmom or on FB: Denise Fenzi

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A fast paced game to increase “listening”

This is the doggy version of Simon Says – on speed.  We are working on position changes. This exercise will help with cue discrimination for AKC open obedience, the out of motion exercises for IPO, position changes for Mondio or French ring, etc.
Games are my favorite way to encourage fluency; both verbal (what I show here) and situational (one cue under a variety of circumstances). How many ways can we practice these basic behaviors? The more games we think up the less we end up drilling.  Drilling is problematic because it teaches the dog to focus on the reinforcer above all else since nothing else is interesting about the process of training.  And anyway, games are fun for me too!
Do you have specific games that you use to increase your dog’s verbal processing skills?  I’d love to hear about them!

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Position changes without forward motion

I’m working on Dice’s position changes and have been for a few months now.

Getting consistent position changes without forward motion can be a challenge, especially in Mondio ring where the dog will be placed quite far away from me and distractions will be a part of the exercise.  The basic exercise is similar to the Cue Discrimination exercise in AKC Open Obedience, but the distances are greater and the dog does up to six positions at the highest level and with significant planned distractions.

One way to avoid the creeping is to teach the dog that positions are followed by moving further away, which is followed by the reward. An example would be having the dog back up either at the end of position changes or in between each one.  Or, more likely, some combination of the two.

Another option is to end the position changes with a send to a physical target behind the dog. In this case, I’m sending him to the wall. The reason is that Mondio takers place within an enclosed field, which means there is always a barrier behind the dog – same as in AKC. If Dice predicts the pattern then creeping should be avoided, or at least minimized, while we develop the habits I’d like to see.  The first step would be to send to a toy or food behind the dog – this is more advanced, and is a great way to move your dog to a more random pattern of rewards and behavior chains.

Here’s an example. He’s not smooth and fluent yet but that will come with time and experience. At nine months of age, there is certainly no hurry, as I tend to “train early and trial late”.

A few blogs ago I showed this with a cone behind – now I’m moving to an even more advanced version which has excellent ring carryover – the barrier is in the ring.  The cone is not.

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The secret to training a dog to back up straight

The secret to teaching a dog to back up straight is…

reward placement.

Throw the food to where the dog is supposed to back up to – where they happen to be is irrelevant.

Check the angle of your feet – that sets the line of travel and also determines where you will throw the reward – food or toy.

Check where you are looking – you should look where you want the dog to be, regardless of where the dog decides to go.

Now – first teach your dog to back up a few steps, however you want to do that.

When that is solid, add in the idea of “Straight”

And straight is a function of reward placement, the orientation of your body and your gaze.

Check out this video.  My feet face the cone.  I want my dog to back towards the cone.  When he veers I ignore that behavior and toss the treat towards the cone -where he is supposed to be.

He gets better!  With time, he’ll get better still.

Give it a shot.  If you throw TO your dog, you’re reinforcing their choice to go wherever their feet take them.  Give them a reason to back up straight – the reinforcer goes straight.

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Dice – 9 months of age

I have good intentions to write regularly about Dice’s progress and then life happens.

Anyway, here’s an unedited clip of Dice working at nine months of age.  If you’re working cue discrimination or drop on recall you’ll get some ideas here to prevent creeping, via reinforcement/cue a behavior BEHIND rather than performing a direct recall.

I started this with the toy on the ground behind Dice, but now we use a cone.

The rough sequence would be:

Teach the cues/position changes.  Teach the cues and place the cookie/toy behind the dog. When the dog can do each position, one at a time, to the reinforcement behind, then switch to a target, platform or cone behind the dog.  Have the dog perform that behavior before coming into the handler for the reward.

This approach allows you to come very close to the competition reality without ending up with massive creeping.

Give it a week or two before judging if you’re happy with the result.  I believe this is Dice’s first day so he needs a little time to smooth out.

Good luck with your own training!

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Start of Drop on Recall

The drop on recall requires 1) a solid understanding of your drop cue and 2) the ability to process that cue in motion.

You can do this at several levels of detail, depending on the needs of your dog.  To see this exercise broken down into tiny bits, most appropriate for a dog working at a lower level of energy and desire, see this video here, starring Brito!:

For Dice, odds are extremely good that reward placement and a solid understanding of his down cue will shortcut what is required, and since I tend towards the easy way out when that is possible, I will start there.

If this approach doesn’t get me what I want reasonably quickly then I’ll change direction and break the exercise down into small pieces.  But Dice loves movement, games, and hard work, so this is a better starting approach to keep him thinking.

Here’s his first session:

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Eight month update

Dice is a pleasure to train.  I haven’t kept up as well here on my blog as I would have liked, but I am training daily and having a lot of fun doing it!

Here’s our morning session.  What strikes me above all is the importance of keeping him in the game.  If he’s stressed or opting out then training is going to progress poorly and long term, I’m damaging our working relationship.

On the other hand, you can get away with mediocre choices and skills, as long as your dog is happy and unstressed.

Dice is having a ball – and so am I.

We’re working on the start of the high jump pattern for Mondioring sport, extending the length of our heeling, a stay focused on me with an object behind (in preparation for position changes), a bit of defense of handler (substituting a ball for a decoy), and a few silly games.

See his current state of training here:

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Podcast episode with Denise about Conversations with Raika

Okay; this is big news.

I have a new fiction novel coming out about my life with Raika and it’s currently available for pre-order!  I’ll talk more about the book here on my blog soon, but for now….how about a podcast that describes our story?

I hope you’ll take a listen here:

Conversations with Raika Podcast with Denise

Looks good?  You can order worldwide; check this link for pre-orders worldwide.  Pre-orders are signed, include a bookmark and, in the US, are at a discounted price.

This book is special to me.  Very very special.  Our dogs are so much more than their competition careers; they are our friends.  If you’re reading this blog then you will appreciate this book, and you may well want to give it to your dog-focused friends as a holiday gift.  To make that easier, a five-pack is available at a significant discount.

Purchase Raika’s book via pre-order

 

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Dice is eight months old

I’m having a blast training this dog!  He’s full-on teenager right now and not the easiest to manage but he’s a hard worker and a whole lot of fun!

Plus he’s handsome.  Here, you can see for yourself:

 

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