Disc / Frisbee Training

[corvus]

Shaping is the best! :D There is nothing on this planet Erik would rather do than clicker training. Apart from eating a bone, perhaps. He's a freaking machine. He especially loves to learn active things to do with his body, like directed jumping and rolling and weaving through my legs. Aside from being fun and excellent mental stimulation, it's also really cool when your dog can do tricks. People are easily impressed. ;)

[BC Crazy]

This is sounding way cool Corvus, I started Clicker training Stella when she was little then for what ever reason I stopped. I must admit I seem to have trouble juggling the treats & the clicker at one time. Not enough hands or

something as silly as that sounds but she cottoned on to it really fast. Your not suppose to speak either are you(very hard for me LOL). I am always saying "good girl" e.t.c With more practice I might cope better.

Edited October 20, 2011 by BC Crazy

[corvus]

I don't actually use a clicker much anymore. I get it out when I want to shape something from scratch without any hints, but mostly I just use verbal markers and targeting. Erik responds to, like, 6 different marker words. Don't ask me why I use so many. He gets the gist of it. He's been taught to target my fingers, so that makes getting behaviours faster, but also means less problem solving for your dog. It helps not to speak much because it just means everything else you do is clearer to the dog, but I chatter a little bit still. :p When I have a clicker in my hand I tend to shut up and just click and treat and nothing else.

[BC Crazy]

I am glad I'm not the only chatterbox Corvus When you say you get your boy to target your fingers, why does that quicken the process? Not quite getting the concept

[corvus]

Maybe this video will help:

It's just me and the dogs messing around and they were both feeling much more chilled than usual, so it's pretty boring. At the end there's some footage of me teaching Erik to vault off my leg. I pat my leg, which is a cue for him to put his front paws where my hand is, then I hold my hand high and hold up two fingers, which is his cue to put his nose on my hand. I've told him where I want his front paws and where I want his nose. Quicker that way, because without the targets I have to try to somehow set him up so he jumps off my knee naturally, or shape jumps where he touches with more and more weight on his front paws as he goes over, then shape back feet in as well, or think of some other way to shape it with paws on first. He's too heavy for me to hold my leg still for him, otherwise I would have taught him to balance on my leg first and then jump from there, although once I got some speed he may well have started skipping the paws bit anyway.

Does that help?

[BC Crazy]

Maybe this video will help:

It's just me and the dogs messing around and they were both feeling much more chilled than usual, so it's pretty boring. At the end there's some footage of me teaching Erik to vault off my leg. I pat my leg, which is a cue for him to put his front paws where my hand is, then I hold my hand high and hold up two fingers, which is his cue to put his nose on my hand. I've told him where I want his front paws and where I want his nose. Quicker that way, because without the targets I have to try to somehow set him up so he jumps off my knee naturally, or shape jumps where he touches with more and more weight on his front paws as he goes over, then shape back feet in as well, or think of some other way to shape it with paws on first. He's too heavy for me to hold my leg still for him, otherwise I would have taught him to balance on my leg first and then jump from there, although once I got some speed he may well have started skipping the paws bit anyway.

Does that help?

Many thank's for your trouble. I will have a look at the clip.

[BC Crazy]

Corvus, I'm very impressed with your clip. Beautiful dogs by the way. I get the hand target thing now. It is always better for me to watch a method rather than it explained verbally. Your an expert at this training stuff. You make

it look very easy & I know it isn't. Also you cope very well training 2 dogs which was going to be my next question as I have 2 & when I am trying to teach Stella, the older one Sonny seems to always interrupt for two reasons, to

get some treats & to get some attention which makes it hard & I feel mean if I separate them but I might have to for now so Stella concentrates on me more & not on what Sonny is doing. Can I also ask where you got your treat bag

from it looks a good one. Mine is too hard to excess quickly.

[The Spotted Devil]

BC Crazy - I always have one dog in a crate or tied on a stake when training.....unless I purposely want to train both at once. Having a bit of fun getting one dog to heel on either side at the moment

[BC Crazy]

Yes Spotted Devil, I think I have been too soft on my boy not tethering/crateing him will I am doing stuff with Stella. Training sessions end up a circus with the 2 of them. He whines & carries on (tugs at my heart strings) so I

haven't been confining him. Got to tuffen up though cause it is not fair on Stella. She is not getting the training she needs. Gee that would be a challange heeling one on each side. Good luck with it.

[corvus]

Corvus, I'm very impressed with your clip. Beautiful dogs by the way. I get the hand target thing now. It is always better for me to watch a method rather than it explained verbally. Your an expert at this training stuff. You make

it look very easy & I know it isn't. Also you cope very well training 2 dogs which was going to be my next question as I have 2 & when I am trying to teach Stella, the older one Sonny seems to always interrupt for two reasons, to

get some treats & to get some attention which makes it hard & I feel mean if I separate them but I might have to for now so Stella concentrates on me more & not on what Sonny is doing. Can I also ask where you got your treat bag

from it looks a good one. Mine is too hard to excess quickly.

Aww, thanks. It's pretty easy once you get the hang of it, though. There's a lot of little tips and hints you pick up with experience, but the best thing to do is just get training. I've only been clicker training for about 3 years. The hardest bit was getting them to want to do it in the dog park and on the beach and other exciting places. It took a bit of work for my spitz breeds that like doing their own thing, but they will train pretty much anywhere, now.

The trick with two dogs at once is good sits and downs. And remembering to reward them. I walked Erik away from Kivi in a sit at one point in the video and went too far because he got up to come after me. Actually, now that I think about it, that was kinda hard to teach as well. I had a lot of trouble at first getting one of them to hold a sit or down while I worked the other. I had to remember to stay close and reward the one not working often enough so they would stay put. I wasn't very good at reserving a part of my brain for the other dog to begin with. Mostly I don't need to worry because I usually have OH to distract one if he's getting in the way, and they're usually pretty good about working around each other, but it's really useful to be able to plant one somewhere temporarily so they stay out of the way. Erik sometimes has to be watched, though. He sneaks in behind us and bites Kivi's thigh to try to make him leave me so he can come and train instead. He's a brat.

[The Spotted Devil]

It's also good for building motivation! My Dally was having a "don't wanna, don't hafta!" moment with the dumbbell the other day. I said "oh well" and swapped dogs. Of course, retrieving is Em's THING so she did a lovely couple of dumbbell retrieves. Swapped dogs again and Ziggy did the retrieve of his life