Oops... I did it again and broke a phone!!.. So, attmpts to u-pload my contacts list to PC has failed, but... I did manage to get my video content transferred. Normally the archaic phone would not send anything over 20mb..in other words under 17mb prior to upload, tiny.. so here is one which was a couple of seconds too long to share before.
Meet Eric, and if you scroll my videos,you will find a couple of other ones in the sequence..
You'll see that this is Eric literally getting ready for school.. for anyone who has not seen Eric before, no I didn't hand raise him or anything, he is just my guard bird who has progressively trained me over a few years. In exchange for a bit of banter and some good grub, he keeps my property largely gull free! It's a wing-wing
Joy
As promised... two little videos all about Impulse control.
Second video is in comments
Impulse Control.. is not... making a dog scared to move.
(BEWARE any training source which uses the words stubborn/alpha/control/dominant/pack)
But it IS... encouraging them to notice and choose calmer behaviour. To mind their manners.. to CHOOSE polite and considered interactions, encourging the pups to actually engage and notice the responses of whoever (animal or human) they wish or don't wish to interact with)
Puppy Joy, like any healthy confident toddler, finds it really hard to be still. But she is learning to TRY, and for that she gets praised well.
Baroque... and Joy.
Gotta love a naughty puppy!
These two have me in stitches all day.
Joy, Baroque's 'mini-me', is So overJOYed at simple being alive, she finds it orfly hard to ever stay still.
And me... I do NOT want to 'flatten' this 14 week old pup.
Many people are too fast to want to 'control' their dogs, not realiing what a great gift WILLINGNESS is...
So look out for my Impulse Control Videos Post about Joy.
Coming next ..
Panda weighing himself this morning.
This pup is still only 3 months old.
Teaching using platforms and mats... is not only USEFUl , but helps a dog learn.
Just like us (!!) dogs aren't very good at generalising.
Tangible items.... help them. We start with the 'box game'..and scales from young. /then it's easy to progress to 'Bed' 'Ramp', 'Car','Mat' etc.
Encouraging a dog to be aware of their body too, in training.is known as proprioception training.
As well as training and behaviour, I've been an experienced occasional hobby and show breeder of health tested giant breed dogs for thirty years, including St.Bernards for 25 years..one family line. Dogs which compete in the ring but also do stooge and media work.
We don't have litters here often, but life stops for them when we do
So... I've been a wee bit busy raising and TRAINING puppies.
While they were young and vulnerable,and before they were microchipped... for three months I stayed home.
But now.. you can see a few of those tiny training videos...and the odd blooper. All done with R+,ForceFree ... pups have the autonomy to choose..HERE is little Treacle aged six weeks. Treacle now has a new name and a lovely new family...and it's the first time they will see this video. She was SIX weeks old here.
#Alchazandis
#stbernard
#saintbernard
#saintbernardpuppy
#puppyculturepuppies
#puppyculturebreeder
#clickertrainingfordogs
#healthtesting
R+ WORKS
See Erich listening for the next cLue.
Teaching dogs a simple recall... can get you out of lots of tricky situtions. In my client 'simple recall'notes, I stress the importance of paying the dog well, of collar touch desensitisation and making recall pleasant. In real life.. sometimes we may need our dogs to SUDDENLY NOT NOTICE something up ahead, and/or we may need a way to encourage them to come back tothe heel position.. so a little onleash recall is worth practising.. again,always PAY WELL. And the odd time the dog is not paid,because it is real life and you've got no titbits on you ; well that's called random reinforcement :-)
'Heel' ..is a place!
If you don't want your dogs to pull YOU, go easy on them too :-)
Any heelwork questions.. please put in comments.. I will reply :-)
#forcefreetraining ..works!
#positive reinforcement
...works!
Eric, my guard bird..also works.
And is paid well š„°
ADVANCED DOG TRAINING..
is Basic Dog Training done consistently. Gradually adding Duration, Distance, Distractions
16 week old Boxer Jack... until the day of this video, had a reliably unreliable offleash recall, he has already learnt to bounce around out of reach.
So.. we teach
āļø A 'take it gently' cLu for when he may take a treat.
āļø An 'Off' cue for when we don't want him to take the food from our hands (so that you don't get a pup 'napping' at your hands and unable to focus on learning.
āļø A word meaning 'Come here' and we reinforce that word with the treat
āļø A word to signify WHICH dog we ae talking to (Jack lives with several other dogs)
āļø AND we need to introsuce a collar-hold, the start of collar desennsitisation,so that once off-lead again,Jack does not lern to incorporate snack-stops into the zoomies, and once again be incatchable
And finally.. ONLY once all these basic prerequisites are established .. do we start making it harder by moving away from the dog!
Lesson 1 and he smashed it
š
Putting Nose Touch on cue ..aka .. LOSE THE PAW!!
Wanda... learnt really fast that I did not reinforce her default behaviour of 'giving a paw' .
Instead ,we taught her a nose touch.
Something which an owner always has with them is their hand, if we reinforce 'touch hand'.we have a way of breaking our dog's attention on something else in publc, ven when we have no treats etc. Also, the touch command helps with 'handling and gentling' because nose touches must be gentel and the dog does not get rewarded if it mouths.
So.. I taight Wanda first.
Then it was her owner's turn ..
Wanda did SO well at focussing on the new skill, with superb timing of reinforcer by her owner, that when she started the automatic 'give paw' behaviour, she actually consciously overrode the habit and controlled it herself.
So why.. WHY do I not want to reward 'give paw/other paw?
Lots of owners do it, it's fun isn't it??
Erm..it's not fun if the dog 'tries harder' with the paw the one time you don't want them to do it.
When a behaviour which is frequently reinforced, gets ignored, there is a high likelihood the subject, the 'operant' (the dog) will TRY HARDER for anticipated rewards by magnifying or extending that behaviour.
With 'give paw' an extended behaviour, could be.. one paw up,two paws up/ dogs stands up and grab you/push you and or scrabble at you. OR, they could just whack you harder with one paw.
Considering how many dogowners seek training advice in the first place because they don't like their dogs' jumping habits, why reinforce 'paw' which is the first step in jumping? It's not fair on the dog.
Also, if the dog puts paw/s on a third party, that can be misconstrued especially if they bruise or scratch
So..lets lose the š¾
Before I see clients for a residential bespoke training course at Trigony House Hotel, they outline their individual needs.
Apparently the lovely Wanda needs better recall away from distractions.
...could have fooled me!
Isn't she fantastic š¤©
Videos can convey a huge amount of info.
Second day of working with this lovely dog and lovely owner on the Residential course I tutor for guests at Trigony House Hotel near Thornhill.
Videos slightly obscured for a reason !
GREAT DOG< really motivated to work.. for praise, food, toys, sticks,butterflies,fresh air.. anything!
Video 1; this was the 'Touch command' which was new to both of them just an hour or so before.. essentially, we are using 'Premack Principle', so the dog has understood that in order to access the motivator they WAN; they have to do something indirectly related.
The behaviour we were looking to capture and reward, was the nose touch to the handler's left hand. The dog did it reliably..
Even more impressively, said dog managed to inhibit their own previously highly reinforced default behaviour of 'Give Paw'... the dog got half way up with the paw and put it down again.
This is AWESOME!
How did we achieve this? First I, then the handler.. simply rewarded different behaviours, and ignored the paw offerings. No getting heavy on the dog, just waiting for them to figure out what worked today. By praising and reinforcing great decision making.
Far too often, people admonish dogs (and other people,kids,partners,friends) .. for making wrong guesses; it's not great for any relationship!
The best part about working with this dog and handler is that, for all her exuberance and bounciness when we first met, here was a happy dog with total trust in her owner from the outset ..look at that recall in the next post!
