huski Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 (edited) Huski - I am interested to find out more about your ready to work command - do you only use this when you don't have food on you and do you use it in all your training sessions. I guess my ready to work command is line up or heel or are you ready???? but I am not sure if this is the same as what you are referring to I use it in all my training sessions. I say it before I've gotten food out, or when Daisy doesn't know if I have any or not (although like I said with her sense of smell it's hard to hide it! I guess I just mean I don't present the food to her). Whether I have food or not doesn't matter because I've conditioned her to get into drive when I say 'ready to work' - she knows this means she's going to get food so she doesn't need to see it, or know I have any. It's the way I signify to the dog that we are about to start training and more importantly I use it to cue her into drive. ETA: I test it by doing things like calling her over randomly and asking her 'are you ready to work? Are ya gunna get it?" etc and getting her excited, then doing some heel work and a couple of commands before going to get some food. Sometimes I will put her in a stay in the dining room while I walk into the kitchen, open the fridge, get her treats out and then walk back to her and reward her. Edited December 16, 2009 by huski Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ptolomy Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 I use it in all my training sessions. I say it before I've gotten food out, or when Daisy doesn't know if I have any or not (although like I said with her sense of smell it's hard to hide it! I guess I just mean I don't present the food to her). Whether I have food or not doesn't matter because I've conditioned her to get into drive when I say 'ready to work' - she knows this means she's going to get food so she doesn't need to see it, or know I have any. It's the way I signify to the dog that we are about to start training and more importantly I use it to cue her into drive. Thanks for this.... Its interesting what you say - a while back I was trying to teach my dog to sit up from a down. I could lure her and yes she would do it and I would reward. Take a step away and she had no idea - so like most people I decided that I would start using her dinner as a reward. I would prepare her dinner and have it sitting on the bench - I would leave her in a down take 1-2-3-4-5 steps away and she would sit every time. Take her outside with her dinner and go through the process and once again she didn't have a problem. Prepare her dinner in the morning and leave it in the fridge and set her up for the same exercise and she had no idea - so the food became the precursa to working....... OOps sorry gone off topic here...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
huski Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 (edited) Thanks for this....Its interesting what you say - a while back I was trying to teach my dog to sit up from a down. I could lure her and yes she would do it and I would reward. Take a step away and she had no idea - so like most people I decided that I would start using her dinner as a reward. I would prepare her dinner and have it sitting on the bench - I would leave her in a down take 1-2-3-4-5 steps away and she would sit every time. Take her outside with her dinner and go through the process and once again she didn't have a problem. Prepare her dinner in the morning and leave it in the fridge and set her up for the same exercise and she had no idea - so the food became the precursa to working....... OOps sorry gone off topic here...... That's really interesting Ptolomy! I've tried really hard to avoid the food being Daisy's cue to work, or needing to have food on me to have her work with the drive and focus I like to see, because that was probably my number one concern with trialling. We haven't trialled yet so time will only tell if I've got it right Edited December 16, 2009 by huski Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ness Posted December 16, 2009 Author Share Posted December 16, 2009 (edited) sounds like a certain black and white dog I know doesn't it Ptolomy - her cue to work somehow involves me loading up my pockets or having food somewhere - I do wonder how the hell we ever got a CDX title . Edited December 16, 2009 by ness Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ptolomy Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 Handlers often say "my dog is ring wise" - when the dog is beautiful outside of the ring, but struggle when they get into the ring. These are usually the cases where the handlers show the dog food in order to get it to work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ness Posted December 16, 2009 Author Share Posted December 16, 2009 Guilty as charged I think . Although interesting I took Ness into a ring on Monday night and already had food in my pocket but didn't show her, I had been training Kenzie but Ness was being a bit of a pain in the neck so bought her out as well and she was still fine outside the ring but switched off the moment I got to the start peg. Somehow I think I have taught her that the start peg is the place you line up and then switch off . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
huski Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 Handlers often say "my dog is ring wise" - when the dog is beautiful outside of the ring, but struggle when they get into the ring.These are usually the cases where the handlers show the dog food in order to get it to work. And yet, having a vocal cue to work is kind of like showing her the food anyway, she knows she will be getting some The other thing we will do is let her see me put the food in a container on the ground, and get her working away from it and rewarding her by releasing her to it. Before we go into the trial ring she will probably see me put the container down somewhere so that when we finish I can release her straight to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RubyStar Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 This is a bit off topic to the original post, but flowing on from the most recent discussion of having food on you possibly being the cue to work or give you good focused work. A tip I heard was start carrying food in your pocket all the time. Whether they're a beagle with a good nose or not a beagle, they can all smell that food whether you show it to them or not! (I've had a dog biscuit hiding in my room before I sent my girls in there to bed, and the second they walk in the room their noses are in the air, sniffing out every corner of the room! And it was a dry old one too, nothing too delicious!) Anyhoo, back on track, if you carry food around for most of the day, the dog gets used to it being on you and doesn't become such a big deal because it's like well I may get it, or I may not. It won't be the signal that says "ooh yes food in pocket, work time now cos I'll get paid!" I guess that kind of works in the reverse angle of having nothing on you and trying to get your dog to work without being bribed Not sure if any of that makes sense, it's hard to get out what I'm trying to say ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bedazzledx2 Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 Have a look at these and Snazzy is inexperienced and the distraction of a person next to the dumbbell and the dumbbell next to him for stand for exam were enough. Caffy set his up for success and he got rewarded accordingly.Would the way you work through a distraction vary depending on whether the dog is purely just "distracted" or whether they are scared of it. For instance I was watching some of the distractions offered on the link Aidan provided and some of the flapping type stuff might have the potential to scare dogs, even things like that noisy monkey toy you had in the scent discrim pile. Obviously there are different motivations behind why a dog might be "distracted"and so I wonder if people would work through them differently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bedazzledx2 Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 Exactly!!! You said that so much better than I could Aiden Would the way you work through a distraction vary depending on whether the dog is purely just "distracted" or whether they are scared of it. It should be noted that the dogs in the video I posted are very high drive, purpose bred working line Malinois. We would not expect most other dogs to be able to do what was shown in the video, or at least we would not be able to train them to do it very efficiently. The process of working through things that a dog is scared of and things that a dog is distracted by for other reasons (prey drive, pack drive etc) can be remarkably similar. You have to remember that there are both Respondents (brain chemistry, nervous impulses etc) and Operants (the more outwardly observable stuff that is controlled by consequences). With fearful behaviour the respondents play a larger role, and it will usually take longer to alter respondent behaviours. We can usually change operants fairly quickly, and these will influence respondents to some extent, but it should not be assumed that just because a dog is "acting" confident or calm that he actually is. What I'm trying to say here, in plain English, is that you can teach a dog to heel past an object that he is scared of, but it may take longer for him not to feel fear while heeling past the object. But teaching him to heel past the object calmly will make some difference to how he feels about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
huski Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 (edited) Anyhoo, back on track, if you carry food around for most of the day, the dog gets used to it being on you and doesn't become such a big deal because it's like well I may get it, or I may not. It won't be the signal that says "ooh yes food in pocket, work time now cos I'll get paid!" I guess that kind of works in the reverse angle of having nothing on you and trying to get your dog to work without being bribed Not sure if any of that makes sense, it's hard to get out what I'm trying to say I get what you are saying, RS Daisy always gets excited around food. She gets excited at the prospect of food ;) But for her, when I give her the command to let her know we're going to be training in drive it's even more exciting than food on it's own. To demonstrate what I mean when I say I don't need to have food on me or even show Daisy that I have food somewhere, I did a quick training session about fifteen minutes ago. I called Daisy into the room and went to wash my hands in the kitchen to make sure they didn't have any food smell on them. Then I asked if she was ready to work when I came out. I put the treats in the kitchen sink before I called her in the room so she couldn't see them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHsjFxhrYu8 Her obedience is terrible, she can get over excited training at home, especially as I haven't done anything with her today. Obviously, it's no where near the caliber of some of the videos that have been posted in this thread so far but I just wanted to demonstrate what it is we do Those who don't like barking might want to turn their speakers off (I also realised I forgot to mark her when she sat at heel after offering me the stand and down, so yeah, crappy obedience + crappy handling skills) Excuse the horrid mess in the background, we are in the process of doing a big Christmas clean up ETA: Apologies for continuing to take the thread off topic ;) Edited December 16, 2009 by huski Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiggy Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 The howling was cute . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
huski Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 The howling was cute . It's not cute at all ;) she loves the sound of her own voice, she carries on like that when she's really excited. Sometimes she does it as I'm riling her up just before we train. She doesn't normally bark during heelwork though, I think it's because at home is so boring and has zero distractions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caffy Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 Following on from the youtube video thread with Ptolomy and bedazzledx2's videos I thought I would throw open this topic for discussion -Obviously the videos that have been posted are pretty high level proofing with extremely experienced dogs. My question is for anybody who proofs their dogs - at what stage of your training would you introduce a distraction and what would you do if the dog was unsuccessful at completing a particular distraction. Do you automatically make it easier for the dog and try again. Maybe we could also come up with a list of distractions and somehow devise a ranking from easy to extreme (although obviously this is dog dependant to some extent as what might be a distraction for 1 dog might not be a distraction for another dog). There are a couple of vids with a very green dog in Snazzy doing a SFE and a retrieve on the flat. The distractions were his first and VERY mild. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ness Posted December 16, 2009 Author Share Posted December 16, 2009 Ah yep caffy have seen those now they hadn't been posted at the time . Snazz is such a handsome lad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piper Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 This is a great thread with some wonderful examples. I am getting Jazz ready to trial but frustrated with boring classes, intention next year is to train with a friend outside of class and this is giving me some good ideas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ness Posted December 16, 2009 Author Share Posted December 16, 2009 Pity your not closer piper , still maybe we could arrange to meet on a weekend sometime or another and do something . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bedazzledx2 Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 Dunno what went wrong there....what I meant to link to is this http://www.youtube.com/user/bedazzledx2#p/a/u/0/F5TvOdRCoqc and Hope this works ok. :D Have a look at these and Snazzy is inexperienced and the distraction of a person next to the dumbbell and the dumbbell next to him for stand for exam were enough. Caffy set his up for success and he got rewarded accordingly.Would the way you work through a distraction vary depending on whether the dog is purely just "distracted" or whether they are scared of it. For instance I was watching some of the distractions offered on the link Aidan provided and some of the flapping type stuff might have the potential to scare dogs, even things like that noisy monkey toy you had in the scent discrim pile. Obviously there are different motivations behind why a dog might be "distracted"and so I wonder if people would work through them differently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caffy Posted December 17, 2009 Share Posted December 17, 2009 Dunno what went wrong there....what I meant to link to is this http://www.youtube.com/user/bedazzledx2#p/a/u/0/F5TvOdRCoqc and Hope this works ok. Have a look at these and Snazzy is inexperienced and the distraction of a person next to the dumbbell and the dumbbell next to him for stand for exam were enough. Caffy set his up for success and he got rewarded accordingly.Would the way you work through a distraction vary depending on whether the dog is purely just "distracted" or whether they are scared of it. For instance I was watching some of the distractions offered on the link Aidan provided and some of the flapping type stuff might have the potential to scare dogs, even things like that noisy monkey toy you had in the scent discrim pile. Obviously there are different motivations behind why a dog might be "distracted"and so I wonder if people would work through them differently. Thanks for posting all the videos bedazzled...I had fun doing them and watching Scoota and Brooklyn work through it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serket Posted December 17, 2009 Share Posted December 17, 2009 Gypsy is only 5 and a half months, and the first dog I've trained 'properly', but in our limited experience.... I do ToT with Gypsy, and I think that has helped with distractions, especially in stays, as she knows that even if there's food around, she doesn't get it until she's released to it. So, she's pretty good with food now, I can throw food in front of her, all around her, wave it in her face and she won't break a stay (while moving it might be a different story, but we're not there yet). I can throw toys past her, wave them in her face, etc and she'll hold a stay. I can also run around her in circles, run towards her and away again, etc, and she'll hold. Not sure about other people, haven't been able to test it much. She can be mid-zoomies running around or playing with her tug and then will sit and stay while I wave the same tug around and she won't go for it until told, and then she explodes trying to get it (trying to substitute toys for food more often now) Next is to start adding in food/toy/people distractions while moving, but first we need to do more practice with just a basic 'heel' with the normal distractions of being at training rather than home or an empty oval Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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