We’ve been doing a shaping challenge on Instagram set by another dog trainer. The last challenge was to get your dog to target an object and move it 6”. Odie did it quickly in his usual thoughtful way! The feedback I got was to get energy in his movement by chucking treats. Well anyone who has been watching my videos with Odie since 2016 (when he was 5 years old) will know that the boy doesn’t really do high energy 😆! But we gave it a go anyway and the attempt is below. He gets distracted everytime he moves from the training area and at the end (I cut it short because this went on for AGES!) he just stops and gazes out of the window! He properly freaked me out 😂. I absolutely love him! We do see a slight increase in energy but the whole mini session takes so much long because he goes off with the faeries all the time lol!
I think I just wanted to post this to say all dogs are different, they are their own “people” and personalities. We just have to work with those personalities. Odie and Sweep were from the same litter and are polar opposites and that is completely fine with me. Maybe if I did more trick training and shaping etc with Odie he would be more energetic, more like Sweep, but because of who he is, his “personality”, my choice was to concentrate on husbandry instead and we have excelled at that so we can be very proud of ourselves! Even if we do stuff at a slower pace to the next dog ☺️
FB won’t let me add two videos so you can check out my instagram @jacktiggermilner if you want to see attempt 1 of this challenge 😁
Teaching Odie to wear a Santa Hat!
It took 2.5 minutes to make him comfortable enough to pose for photos 😍
Merry Christmas 🎅🎄
Martin is having problems with his third eyelid on his left eye. We have steroid eyedrops which need to be administered 2-3 times a day. The vet was going to say 3 times and then decided that would stress him out so opted for two times. I don’t do stressed out lol so this is our second training session with the eye drops starting with simple targeting to hold and touch to eye area to administration of the drops. Look how little handling he needs and how engaged he is! There is no need to fight with any animal to do husbandry stuff 😃😍❤️🐈
#husbandryathome #cooperativecare #fearfree
I have had to give Odie eardrops for 9 days so far, twice a day. Here is the video of tonights session. I do the same thing each time.
Let that sink in - twice a day for 9 days, and I have to administer these until the pot is empty! And he shows no sign of avoidance and no negative body language. The lip smacks at the start are his response to the yellow treat pot. Yesterday he even came to me when he knew it was eardrop time!
Husbandry at home works! And yet today when I described the process to someone whose dog hates eardrops I was told it was bribery. However you want to look at it isn’t it better to have a dog that couldn’t care less about eardrops, and has a positive experience in the process than a dog that avoids you when you bring the drops out, maybe runs away, certainly has a negative experience.
Why wouldn’t you want an Odie in this video rather than scared and miserable and avoiding you? Especially when the procedure could go on for a week or more. And it’s so easy to take just 2 minutes to make them more comfortable 😊❤️🐾🐾
#husbandryathome
I finally bought a DNA test for Odie and then I thought I better see how I need to collect the sample! Today we had a session building on other behaviours to introduce the swab (or cotton bud in this case!).
1. Reinforce the chin rest.
2. Little reminder of our lip lift and rubbing his teeth with my finger using chin to hand (already taught).
2. Introduce the ‘swab’ - I did a bit of targeting with him.
3. Then we use the swab as the start button reinforcing for a chin rest after the swab is introduced. We get a lovely cheek to swab chin rest here.
4. Start to bring in hand over the nose movement.
5. Touch hand to nose.
6. Hand to nose with a lip lift.
7. And finally, for now, lip lift with a touch from the swab.
Further aims now are to build on the duration for the swab before the test arrives 😃
We’ve been working on “in-your-face” husbandry stuff. Here I get close and use a pen light trying to simulate an ophthalmascope. We do so much weird husbandry stuff that Odie is pretty ok with everything at the vets but this was the one thing he was worried about so I wanted to work on it in case it happens again. This is only our second session and he’s already really cool with it. Martin likes to observe 👀🤓
A little session of cooperative grooming tonight (rudely interrupted twice to remove cats with a death wish!). Odie was never a fan of the comb/brush so I taught him to say yes to grooming using a chin target. If he lifts his head (“no”) he still gets a treat but no click. So he knows that he can say no and still get a treat. Since I taught him this he has been so cool with grooming 😎. I love the dialogue with this because he tells me when I’m pushing it too far and helps me learn when he’s comfortable and when it’s too much.
#cooperativecare #grooming #consentmatters
Been working on scent discrimination with Odie, so he has to pick my smell from the neutral (or person off Etsy that made these doorstops smell!!). Today I noticed he gave me licks and stares and then picked the right block, I am sure he’s not but it’s like he’s making sure of my smell before he chooses 😂❤️
#heartdog #positivereinforcement #dogtraining #dogtrainer #tromplo #offcue
Soooo close to a left side pivot into heel position😃🐶🐾
This has been a long road lol! He’s amazing on the right side!
We’re still working through the behaviours from the Tromplo Off-Cue course. Even though the course is complete we still have a lot to do!
Yesterday we started to get a wee bit of duration with our hold! Instead of a grab and drop! I’ve tried for years to teach this with no luck….until now! I was very excited 😃
Hold - Odie 290224
Just starting week 5 of Tromplo Off-Cue course which we are LOVING! It’s given so much food for thought and plenty of training to work on for the next few months (until we can do Volume 2!).
For a couple of days this week we worked on a hold and the outcome so far has been amazing! We always struggled with this but yesterday I got a tiny (v. tiny) bit of duration! Part 2 of the video shows a pick up from the floor which I started by holding it and then fading out my hand being there and it seems to have worked! He doesn’t have the best technique (picking up at the end and not the middle) but I hope we can shape that, for now I am celebrating that he holds and picks up 🥳🥳
Week 4 of our Tromplo “Off Cue” course and we’ve got lots to do, it’s been a hideous week generally (not training wise but it’s stopped us training) and I didn’t think we’d get to the course this week but I’m glad we did because we’ve had fun today!
So this is adding duration to a nose target with help from Martin Moo. It deteriorates rather sweetly towards the end 😉
Just a dog training diary!
