Lat Game To Stop Cat Chasing?

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

Gary Wilkes is one of the trainers I'd say was in cross over. He used to use a lot of aversives designed to punish (reduce) a behaviour but he's looking for more ways to reward what he does want instead.

TSD you are an awesome trainer.

My dog's first job as a puppy was to evict cats from my house yard cos I didn't like being woken up by them fighting outside my bedroom window.

Dog is very very good at this job and loves it to bits. So it's very difficult to persuade her that some cats are not for chasing.

But occasionally I've managed it. It really really helps if the cat doesn't run. Which also means I have to work on the training ignore the cat pay attention to me envelope - instead of allowing evil hound to bark at cat until the cat's ears can take no more and the cat runs. Dog always gives it a head start and keeps her distance. But the barking is insane.

What I have to watch when trying to do LAT - is back chaining. Ie accidentally training the dog to act naughty then good to get the treat. Or trying to "lure" or "distract" the dog from the exciting cat with the treat and then rewarding when she gets distracted by the treat - oops.

I found using pats was better. And distance if she could not focus on me (ie don't be close to the cat to start with).

[shekhina]

So we've been implementing a few things and so far, so good. Lots of practice at ignoring cats while on his bed, on the leash, doing some training, walking around the house with me etc. etc. Not anywhere near solved of course, I expect it to take quite some time before he can be trusted not to chase/stand over/paw a cat. But this evening when Lincoln came in after dinner he waltzed straight past Gomez and laid down on his bed. Progress! :D

Edited June 22, 2016 by shekhina

[The Spotted Devil]

So we've been implementing a few things and so far, so good. Lots of practice at ignoring cats while on his bed, on the leash, doing some training, walking around the house with me etc. etc. Not anywhere near solved of course, I expect it to take quite some time before he can be trusted not to chase/stand over/paw a cat. But this evening when Lincoln came in after dinner he waltzed straight past Gomez and laid down on his bed. Progress! :D

You've no idea how happy your post just made me :) xxx

Great work shek! And remember to enjoy the journey - so, so much foundation training you are laying down here and you will be able to use it in the real world and in the obedience ring (e.g. dog playing tug outside the ring? Meh!)

[Roova]

Good on you Shekhina!

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

But this evening when Lincoln came in after dinner he waltzed straight past Gomez and laid down on his bed. Progress! :D

Way to go. Keep up the good work. :)

[shekhina]

Thanks everyone :D

[Papillon Kisses]

Man I love my "leave it" command. It's kind of become a catch all. "Leave it" means stop whatever you're doing and good things will come...

Did not know it could be a bad thing?!

Anyway, carry on...

But the difference is that your "leave it" actually tells the dog what you want him/her to do. More akin to a recall. A traditional "leave it" says stop doing that. So what you've trained is awesome!!!

Thank you! :D

And well done, Shekhina! Great progress.

Edited June 23, 2016 by Papillon Kisses

[Willem]

Can I just add that I really dislike "leave it" commands...because the dog has already got the idea in their heads and then "leave it" becomes a cue. It's counterintuitive but it's true.

Collar grab: touch collar, give treat, touch collar, give treat...etc repeat ad infinitum until your dog thinks that being grabbed by the collar is AWESOME! So you don't use it to punish but as a cue to recall and as an emergency GRAB if pup is being a pain. I can put my hand out and my youngster throws herself into it. Recalls under distraction when pup can't hear you = normal. As I said put pup on leash and practice easy recalls with cats around and amazing treats.

ETA: I have one gate on the laundry and another on the living room to hallway - much more freedom for kitties. And saves pup shredding/toileting etc. Living area and kitchen are puppy safe zones. No shoes, socks, etc

yes, it becomes a cue, but that's actually the requirement that would allow punishment (re. corvus' comment post #7) or corrections as consequence if the dog doesn't respond to the cue. The dog doesn't know that he shouldn't chase the cats - the 'LEAVE-IT' cue, once taught, will communicate the message to the dog and the cats will be marked as 'LEAVE-IT' items.

@ the OP / shekinah wrt methods playing take-it / leave-it games without the flirt pole (Rotties are indeed not suitable athletes for this game - too heavy and not agile enough): you can start just with 'tug of war' using a toy. Use a toy with a flat surface where you don't have problems to retrieve it when you teach the 'LEAVE-IT' cue. Dog is only allowed to take it on the 'TAKE-IT' cue. Lots of rewards (treats and another turn) and he will learn the cues fast. Later you can attach a rope (thick rope, not for the strength but to avoid nasty cuts) to the toy and pull it behind you - that simulates a real chase game better than just 'tug of war' without the risks involved in the flirt pole game.

Eta: the 'LEAVE-IT' cue has also the advantage - once the dog understands the cue - that it can be used for all other animals (and objects). E.g. you walk the dog and bird or other wildlife catches his attention - he might know now that he is not allowed to chase cats, but he wasn't taught that he is not allowed to chase all these other interesting creatures....again, the 'LEAVE-IT' cue would allow to communicate the message easily.

...just to demonstrate how handy the cue 'LEAVE-IT' can be:

dropbox link

Note: in many scenarios a recall would do the job too, but if you want to prevent that the dog launches at another animal that is close to the owner or hold by the owner - the dog might even be on leash - the 'LEAVE-IT' prevents that the dog launches for the other animal.

...if I allow her to chase the seagulls she goes nuts:

dropbox link

[corvus]

The problem with leave-it is the time the dog actually doesn't leave it when told. They get reinforced. Sometimes big time. Both of my dogs had excellent leave-its as pups that lasted for a while, and for both of them, it inevitably degraded in the end, to the point where one in particular hears "leave it" and starts running in the opposite direction. They live in an interesting world brimming with things they might like to eat. All it takes is for me to use the cue as the dog is swallowing instead of as they are picking it up and they discover that not only are leave-its voluntary, but not leaving it is sometimes super smart. I find it much easier to recover and maintain a recall than a leave-it, mostly because I don't practice leave-its with low value things often enough. Why don't I? Because it's a hassle, and it's deceptively difficult. When you have opportunistic, non-risk-averse dogs that have been systematically reinforced for trying things, sooner or later leave-its start to fail. It's the price you pay.

[Willem]

I'm using the flirt pole to train the 'LEAVE-IT' / 'TAKE-IT' cues, and the game itself has the highest value for her - it's above the best treat. Over a while the response really became a strong reflex - when you watch the footage in the link you can see that she really interrupts the chase with a reflex like response. Chasing the lure or an animal - that's the same for her and she responds to the cue always in the same way by interrupting the chase (because she got rewarded with another turn when playing the game). A few days ago one of our guinea pigs managed to get out of the compounds - she went stalking it and was so aroused that she was trembling, but also in this high aroused state she responded to 'LEAVE-IT'....with this tool working I think I can start now her 'guinea pig herding' training without risking casualties :) .

Picking up food is different, and when I train her not to pick up treats or food from the ground I use a different cue - 'NO'. It's part of the agility and obedience training: before and after the official training I put treats with a 'NO' in front of here on the ground, to reward her I pick it up and she gets it from my hand.

[Tor]

This is a very interesting thread as Sebastian also wants to play with and chase our old cat. He will stop as soon as I tell him and will be called away easily but he does go back. I have lots of places for the cat to go and I don't leave them together if we go out. We do LAT and rewarding for being calm around the cat - it's hard as probably 75% of the time he is fine, but when he's feeling active and playful, then he harasses him.

At this stage he clearly means him no harm, he play bows at him and doesn't paw him or try to get closer than a metre but I'm worried it could develop into something worse. He has also managed to get to one of our chickens and did pick her up although he dropped her when I made him and she wasn't hurt. I have no doubt he'd play with them to death though.

I'd like to train the kind of "Leave it" you have with your dog Willem, where she left the Guinea pig. I don't want to do a flirt pole though because of his joints, maybe that tug on a rope game? Right now when we tug I just let him win and he will drop it for a treat - I'd like to train take it/leave it better. I think he'd love lure coursing when he's older but I don't want to reinforce his prey drive without being able to control it if that makes sense?

Sorry for the hijack, this got longer than I meant!

[corvus]

It's not super different between training leave food and leave chasing. And we see the same problems with recalls off live game as we do with degrading leave-its with food on the ground as well. It works until that time you cue poorly and the dog fails to respond even though they heard it. This is why people so often resort to e-collars for recalls off game in particular. It can be tricksy to train and takes a lot of work. It's easy to screw up with a misjudgement of what your dog can and will respond to, and not much in the way of a safety net if you do make a mistake. You can still train a strong leave-it or recall with food or with a chase reward like a flirt pole, you just have to sometimes stack a lot of easy reps in to keep that reliability high.

As far as leaving small pets alone goes, the leave-it is the easy bit. The more challenging bit is to get the dog to continue to leave-it indefinitely. My approach is generally to make sure the dog is set up to succeed with this, which means get their arousal down, give them something they are supposed to do, and work on duration for that alternative behaviour. It's when the "something else to do" is really "anything other than harassing the other animals" that this gets messy. Sometimes dogs just figure it out with a mild punisher like a firm "No". My new dog is like this, which is novel to me! The spitz boys laugh in the face of "no". Other dogs are not motivated enough in the first place to come back to it and persist. But, for the dogs that do just keep coming back, you have to decide how much you are going to manage this and how to make it clear to the dog what you want from them.