Yesterday and today I pulled out a couple of little folding stools and working Bella and Zane on getting on the stools and sitting, and occasionally asking them to do their contact behavior on them. This is exhausting for them! They are doing massive work on core muscles, working hard to balance, and also getting nice, tucked sits.
This evenings for his dinner, Zane started learning to "put it in". He doesn't understand the concept yet so no cue is added yet, but this shows the very first training session for this. Instead of asking him to pick something up, carry it to the bowl and put it in, I'm backchaining it. The retrieve object (a toy for now) is in the bowl. He looks at it, then touches it, then picks it up, etc, all for clicks/treats. Eventually he drops it outside the bowl. For awhile I put it back in the bowl - that's where it belongs, right? Finally, I don't click for getting it out. I wait, and wait, and wait. Eventually instead of trying to give it to me, he turns and puts it back in the bowl! Yes! This is a bit more stressful for him than most of our training. He is not understanding the concept yet. That's ok - he has to learn to work through stress, and this is a nice way to do it.
Yesterday we went hiking too. Here are a couple of posed pics from that.
And Zane kind of disappears into Arizona colors:
I learned a lot from your video! First, it never occurred to me to back-chain this behavior. Brilliant! Second, it was a 'bingo' moment for me to think about my dogs vocalizations etc. as 'stress', and to give them a chance to work through the stress. I finally am getting that concept of patience/letting them work it through/letting them experience the stress. Third, it helps so much to see how to work through shaping a behavior with all the little nuances - do you speak here? Move the toy? When to ask for more? When to backtrack a bit?
ReplyDeleteWhen I started this with my two, they showed almost the same patterns as Zane (they are 'paw' dogs, too!), the same signs of stress, offering other behaviors, etc. It's been three sessions, and Tess finally put the toy into the basket; Liam is not far behind!
Thanks for sharing - I learn so much from you :-)
Go Sharon! I actually learned this concept from. .. a youtube video! I had to try it.
ReplyDeleteSome trainers think all stress is bad. But. . . I'm finding that with Bella, I didn't let her work through the stress enough, so now that she's competing, she's unsure how to sometimes handle the stress of showing. So I'm letting training sessions have a bit of stress - nothing major, but enough to show that yes, stress can end in fun!