Training Session 1

My health and a number of other things going on (Shawnee in heat, Molly with a problematic toe injury, and a sick horse) have prevented me from getting to the training goal before today. I just did a short session with the girls--worked Shawnee while Molly was on mat then worked Molly while Shawnee held a stay (She isn't advanced enough to mat on anything like Molly is). I started with a few post-it targets on hand then quickly advanced to my knee. Once they did that a few times, I moved the target to the doorbell. No problem--they targetted it there. Molly did have her usual "are you sure I'm not supposed to retrieve this?" issues but Shawnee was easy going and confident.

Unfortunately they are not yet pushing hard enough or precisely enough to ring the bell, but I am sure we can work that out with time.

I'm very proud of them for remembering the yellow target when it has been so long since we last trained with it and we had done so few training sessions on it.

Training Goal: Ringing a Doorbell to Signal Potty Needs

The border collie forum I frequent is now adding a clicker training club for those of us who want to so we can help encourage each other to get training and give advice and feedback on problems. HEre is my first goal with these two.

problem: at this point, Molly is pretty easy to understand because she barks when she needs out. Shawnee is more confusing because she tends to just stare at you.

Overall goal: to have the girls ring a doorbell placed at their height when they need to go out to potty.

rough training plan: both the girls already have a strong hand target with their noses. So now I want to add a Post-it note to the target then be able to move the target to other things. That way I can place the target on the door bell itself and get them ringing it with their nose. Then finally I can phase out the target. Once they are ringing the bell and training sessions, I can start trying to teach them to ring the bell when they need to go out. I am not sure whether I should use a cue as an intermediate between training sessions and potty ring.

Current status: I last trained a few weeks ago. I had both the girls relatively successfully nose targeting the Post-it target placed very close to me.I will probably need to back up to having the Post-it on my hand because of the time since I last worked on it.

Intermediate goal one, which is probably actually due on 6 March: getting the girls to target the post it with their nose when it is placed on the doorbell. Hopefully this will at least sometimes ring the bell.

I will try to post progress reports frequently. Maybe even after every training session if I can get the time and energy for it.

L2 Distance Session 2

I forget hwen I did the training, but I think it was sometime earlier this week or late last week. I am trying to film more and more of my training sessions so I can track the progress and have a better chance of finding bugs in my training methods. So here is one of them.

The Great Crate Escape, Caviar, and Other Babblings

We should have named Shawnee Houdini. She's a 4-legged escape artist. We've been having trouble for a while with her finding ways out of the fence. The mask in the fence is too big and she can go right through it. So DH spent hours putting net up and other things to keep her in. We thought we had all the holes blocked, but she keeps finding ways out. We've found and secured a few more of her escape spots but we don't always see how she gets out. So going out in the fence does not mean she is very safe and I have to keep an eye on her anyway (Molly is fine and stays in even when the little one is running around outside teasing her).

This morning she really proved her escape skills. I had to go pour jugs of water into the horse's trough because we still had -10C at 10am this morning. No way we will get the garden pump supplying them water today. Shawnee had been crated for an hour and a half to two hours before I went out. I'd been napping myself for that time. So when I woke up and she was still pretty quiet, I headed straight out to the horses without getting her out to potty first. To make as little noise as possible, I'd left the door to the hallway and the bedroom open--I didn't want to wake her up and make her think she'd get to go out.

When I came back from the horses (who were VERY thirsty and will need more water before DH is home from work), I saw Shawnee come running out of the bedroom when I got in. I took a quick glance at her crate, which appeared to be covered as it was when I left, then hurried to get her out for a potty walk. Good thing, too, because she was in a hurry to go.

When we got in, I shut the dogs in the kitchen properly and inspected for accidents. Nothing! I have no idea how long she'd been out--I was gone 15-20 mins--but she hadn't pottied anywhere. A few minutes later, I had to take her out for more walk, because I'd hurried in too much to check for trouble and didn't give her a chance to poo the first time. This is a great sign of the progress of her housebreaking that she'd been out long enough to go in the bedroom but hadn't left any puddles anywhere.

As my faithful readers have probably realized long ago, we have pretty spoiled dogs. One of Molly's main training treats has been canned shrimp from the start. They got some fresh shrimp a few days ago when we couldn't eat all of the container we opened (DH reports that Shawnee likes shrimp). Last night they got a further luxury when they got to share a small glass of red caviar. DH had gotten it in his Christmas present from work and finally decided he really didn't feel like eating it (I wasn't about to help, that's for sure! I tasted caviar once in my life years ago at a cousin's wedding and it was YUCKY!). So last night he gave it to the girls. Molly got the larger share. Shawnee wasn't quite as keen on it. They didn't eat all of it then and the rest was mixed in their food today. I made them share it. They're spoiled and they probably don't even know it!

Overall things are going well with htem. Molly has been getting more focused and responsive to commands despite Shawnee's presence and attempted interference. When I was lying on the floor with Shawnee this morning, Molly retrieved my blanket off the couch and brought it to me. Shawnee tried to attack her as she handed it over, but once I got the little one under control, she completed the retrieve with grace and eagerness.

Shawnee has been learning both lie down and sit very quickly. She also potties on command and tries to head for the door when she needs out (she is often prevented from going TO the door because she is leashed whenever out of the kitchen). I've also done two types of zen training with her--Molly Zen and Hand Zen.

Molly zen is the fine art of being in the same room as her sister without starting a war by attacking Molly constantly. Molly is fine with leaving Shawnee alone when we ask her to, but Shawnee doesn't have enough "leave it" yet, so has to learn. So far I have mostly done this by giving Molly a mat command into a corner of the kitchen. Then Shawnee gets to wander around and I click and treat for doing things other than attacking Molly. I keep the sessions short, but it is going well and she is less aggressive when not training as well. Every time Shawnee gets a treat for not attacking Molly, Molly gets a treat for staying on the mat and I repeat the mat command. I don't want her to think the clicker releases her and get into trouble and I also don't want her feeling left out. Staying quiet on the mat despite the Shawnee temptation is really a big deal these days.

While I did the dishes in the kitchen today, I had the crate open. Shawnee went in and out several times, often settling down in her crate for a few minutes. This is a good thing, because I haven't been crate training her properly. We just put her in and shut the door, ignoring whines and screams if she is well-pottied first. So I am very glad to see that she isn't hating the crate. I've also decided to do a better job of giving her a chew toy in the crate with her so she has somehting to do if she isn't sleepy and it seems a little more fun. When I put her down a little bit ago, she got a teeth-cleaning chew stick. Molly got one too but didn't get crated.

Molly is resting in the sun at the end of the sofa being a very beautiful and quiet girl.

Okay, my arm and hands hurt from typing so much, so that's it for today!

Playing Together

With my DH off work and doing much of the housework, Molly is mostly off-duty as SD. This is great because it is giving her plenty of time to adjust to her added role of big sister. Here are some pictures of the twosome playing in the fence outside.














Overall, things are going well with Shawnee. She is having fewer accidents and getting better at pottying more-or-less on command outside. She and Molly are pretty inseparable with Molly taking a very serious protective role with her little sister. Shawnee has passed L1 sit but nothing more on the levels training. We're having trouble luring a down, so we'll have to capture it. She definitely understands the clicker though.

Initially Shawnee was very quiet in her crate, but she is in a screaming and trying to dig her way out phase. We are trying to be strong and hopign it will pass soon.

Training Watch

I got a new pair of glasses shortly before the US trip. Before that, Molly was able to make and hold eye contact with me for quite a while. But the glasses were a big change and she had trouble with the exercise again.

Her ability to make and hold eye contact on command and just in general while working is very important. It helps her be focused on me and it will make it easier to train several other exercises.

A few days ago, Molly was "Dog of the Day" on the levels training mailing list. As Dog of the Day and her trainer, we got a lot of encouragement for the progress we've made so far with our training and tips and ideas for continuing our work. It's really a great boost to be "Dog of the Day" because of all the support and the encouragement to talk about our personal training challenges.

Our lost watch is really what is holding us back from finished Level 3. I need watch before I can work on Finish and Heel. Of course she also needs her paw targetting, but it will do her good to work on something else for a little while.

So we've been training watch from scratch--as if she had never learned it. I'm not using a cue yet, just clicking and treating for eye contact. At first I only expected her to hold it for a second, but I build it up slowly, backing up if I go to fast. I am training in two ways.

1. Focused training sessions with treats and the clicker. I click for contact and build up how long she holds it before the click and reward with a treat. In those sessions, we got up to 12 seconds this morning.

2. Incorporating eye contact into play sessions. If Molly brings me a toy and wants me to play, she has to give and maintain eye contact before I will throw the toy. I vary how long I expect her to hold it--going both up and down to keep it interesting. Molly is very toy focused, so we are actually up to 17 seconds of eye contact when playing. I either use the clicker or make a clicking sound with my tongue to mark the end of the eye contact.

I need 30 seconds to pass L3. So once I have her consistently holding around 30 seconds in both situations, I will put the cue back in. Our cue is "watch." It doesn't sound like any of her other commands and it is easy for me to remember.

Unfortunately, spending a lot of time making and holding eye contact is actually quite straining for my eyes and tends to bother my head a little. So it isn't something I can do too much of in one day. It is great practice though and Molly can see where I am planning to throw her toy from how my eyes move when they break contact.

Paw Targetting

Even though yesterday was her birthday, Molly had a training session. She enjoys it, so no reason to skip it.

The last few times we'd trained, Molly still insisted on retrieving her paw target. After a tip from an online friend, we tried taping the post-it target to the floor. So far the tape seems to be holding up to her attempts to scrape it off the floor and she got a LOT better at the behavior in one short session.


Many of her hits did include trying to scrape the target off the floor, so I worked on clicking early, before the scrape, to fine-tune the behavior.

My timing wasn't perfect, so sometimes I clicked for a paw hitting off the target. But she did get less scrape-y in her pawing and actually did almost the whole session standing up! Standing it great progress because initially she thought she was supposed to lie down while pounding her paws into the floor.

I think she'll have this behavior down in no time if I just keep training.

Paw Targetting

I am starting work now on getting Molly to target with a paw. This is part of Level 3 target, but that i sonly part of why I am doing it. I want to teach her to push switches on power strips with her paw. That's my ultimate goal.

Today was our first training session. I put a post-it on the floor. Being very retrieve oriented, Molly wanted to pick it up and give it to me. I just ignored these attempts (no reward), taking the post-it from her and putting it back on the floor. I started by clicking and treating for looking at it. I wanted her to know that this is what it dealt with. She kept persisting with retrieve, so from there I went to clicking and treating for moving a paw, even just slightly. Then I refined to moving a paw near the target. She hit it sometimes, probably mostly by accident, but I reacted by rapid-firing clicks and treats while she was touching it.

By the time the short session ended, she was pounding her paws into the floor, often on the target, and only getting rewards when she hit the target. I didn't want to overdo it this first time (she does seem to learn amazingly quickly), so I ended by jackpotting her--rewarding her with a small handful of treats--when she again hit the target hard with her paw.

Lots of Public Access Practice, Eating, and Training with a Toy

Wow. We've been busy. Too busy to blog enough.

Two days ago when DH and I ran errands, I took Molly into a big store in town. For you Americans, it reminds me a lot of Best, if you remember those. You walk around the store and look at all the stuff. When you find something you want, you fill out the info on an order slip. When done shopping, you hand in the order slip and wait for them to get your purchases out of the back--in nice sealed packages and without anyone in the store having had the opportunity to fiddle with them. Some really cheap and special sale items you can just take out of bins, but most stuff works on the order slip method.

So anyway, the first time we were in the store ages ago, I'd seen someone come in and wander around a little while with a small dog on leash right past store people without anyone saying anything. It wasn't an SD. So I didn't bother about asking for permission, figuring I'd explain, apologize, and leave if asked. But no one said anything. So while DH returned the broken item we had, Molly and I walked around. She was so good!

Then DH also wanted to look at some other stuff so Molly and I went with. She continued being quiet and very well behaved. A very successful PA practice. Also the floor there is superslippery, so it is really good practice for the airport and other businesses.

Yesterday DH needed to go see the dentist for a follow-up so we went into town again. We sat down on a bench and worked on sit stays and mat for a while. Molly did really well and was much quieter and calmer this time. I think she'd just been a little excited the first time in town because of having been stuck home so much while in heat. She only made noise once and it was to bark once at a little kid wandering around alone. No idea why she barked at him. But maybe she was picking up on something I didn't notice. It was a 5-6 yr old boy walking through a busy town without any signs of an adult, so who knows. But parents are much more relaxed here in DK about leaving their kids alone, so it might have just been someone who lived locally.

This morning I started working on clicker training again. I got a lot of tips from Erin (Z's owner) so I am finally feeling confident that I won't devalue the clicker by not giving treats but playing instead. It showed me how way out of practice we are. I tried training Watch, a very important L3 behavior. She used to be able to give me 10-20 secs eye contact on command without much trouble, but I was lucky to get 10 this morning and she wasn't responding well to the cue. I realized I needed to back up and rebuild the behavior.

When I put the toy away, Molly wasn't happy--she really wanted to play with the squeaky yellow hedgehog, the only one she's ever had WITH squeaker (usually DH pulls them out for safety). I decided to use this excitement as a training opportunity and sat down near where the toy was on the shelf and invited Molly up on my lap on the sofa. After a while, she volunteered eye contact so I clicked and treated. In a little while, I got up to 15-20secs of voluntary eye contact. She was even offering eye contact while the toy was in her mouth. A few more days of this and I should be able to recue it and get her back on track for L3 watch.

As for eating, Molly got 1 handful yesterday morning (we went from one kibble the night before to the small approx. 32 piece handful). She immediately ate it and kept looking for more. So last night it was 2 handfuls, again eaten right away. This morning she got 4 and also devoured it.

We're going to stall out here at 4 handfuls for a little while. We want to wait to up it until she is reliably devouring that much _and_ looking for more. Then we can try building up really slowly.

I will try to get some pictures up a little later today if I can find time. I have tons to do, but Molly wants to report on her small friend that arrived in the mail yesterday, so I will try to find time to get pictures online for her.

Training Fronts

With clicker training, it is important to break behaviors into pieces, especially when fine-tuning them. A "front" isn't a cued behavior but a piece that is coupled onto other things, like come and retrieve. It is trained separately to fine-tune the positioning in a way the dog and trainer can understand.

The final goal is to have the dog approach the trainer to sit dead center in a formal sit position (with the hips tucked appropriately and the body straight) then make eye contact with the trainer. That's what I understand anyway. It only needs to be really really perfect if you intend to compete in obedience, but working on the exactness is also good practice for perfecting other behaviors.

To do this in an easy-to-understand and positive way, the Levels Book developer provided this diagram. The A line runs right under the tips of my toes out to both sides. The C line is dead center perpendicular to the A line--it goes out in front of me from right between my feet. The B lines are half way in between A and C on both sides. Adding extra lines in between is a help for shaping the behavior slowly.

To be able to see these lines while training, I set myself up so the line between the two carpets is between my toes. To make my A or B lines as needed, I cut a long piece of white string and taped it onto the floor. The picture to the right shows Molly between my strings, which are placed about half way between B and C.

Now Molly picked all this up very quickly. In our first short training session, I had Molly in between lines halfway between B and C and making eye contact most of the time.

After in our second session, I have her with some part of her body over the C line, making eye contact, and lying down. A down is Molly's "default" behavior--what she does when she isn't sure what we want from her--so I will need to shape the down into a sit in our next session.

But to pass Level 3, she only needs to have her body over the line and making eye contact 3 times in a row out of 5 tries. She could probably pass that here in the living room now, but I'd like to try in a few other locations before I consider the test passed. We're also having fun doing it!

I've also spent some time thinking about exactly what I wanted as a front when I consider my mobility issues and service dog work. I talked it through with other level training people (many of whom have SDs) and considered the pros and cons of different possible ideas. I decided to train the dead center front with eye contact as the program describes. I don't plan to do any competing with her, so the points of this training are to learn to train that way and to control where she should be in SD work. With Molly fronting dead center and making eye contact, she will be easy to reach when I am on crutches or walking, the behavior works well with my DH as well, and she is focused and ready for other commands. I can always follow with a "paws up" onto my lap or the arm rests of the chair to be able to reach her better or reach an item better.

Starting Scent Training

I am starting to do a little scent training with Molly. It's one of the optional behaviors in the LEvel Book and I thought it would be fun to try. The first step is having her find a treat under a piece of cloth. It's to help her start learning that I want her to use her nose.

She just gets this right away. The directions recommend clicking and treating 10 times with the treat on the cloth before moving on to having the treat under the edge of the cloth. Then it is 10x click and treat for that before doing the treat actually under the cloth.

With Molly I did a couple times on then a couple times under the edge then right into it all the way under the cloth. I could tell she understood and just getting a treat off cloth seemed to bore her.

She had no problem with this whether I used a piece of Frolic or a shrimp. We repeated several times and she got in the habit of delivering the piece of cloth after she got the treat.

So just for fun, I went and got two identical cloths from the kitchen. I put them down on the floor and put a treat only under one of them. Molly sniffed both then picked up the cloth with the treat under it to find the treat.

The only problem Molly has is that she is so set on the treat that sometimes she picks up both cloth and treat and has trouble finding where the treat went. But it's really cute and she is still getting the point--finding the treat from under the cloth. She then delivers that cloth, leaving hte other alone.

I'm really proud!

Shaping Success

We did another shaping session yesterday with clicking and treating for looking at the chair seat and moving a foot. It didn't get farther than that.

So today I thought about how I could set her up even more for success. I decided to rearrange so she could only access one side of the chair. That way she would be focused on that side and not running from one place to another. I used a stool on the one side, thinking that if she got onto it to get at the chair I could also shape the behavior that direction.

But Molly stayed at the accessible side of the chair. After lots of treats for looking and moving a foot, she pawed at a few treats. I clicked and treated a few treats for that.

Then she did it--paws on the chair up to support herself. I jackpotted. Then I clicked and treated several times for being on the chair.

Then I said "down," a command she knows for getting off the sofa, and treated her for getting off the chair.

Right afterwards, she was back on the chair again! I did another jackpot and lots of clicking and treating for being on the chair. I said down again. She hopped down and I treated.

We repeated several times until she'd been up on the chair about seven times and was going up right away after a down. She got lots of treats and praise.

When she was volunteering the behavior, I did start saying the cue, "paws up," when she was on the chair. I don't expect her to hop onto a chair on command, but I do want her to start associating the words with the act.

Once again Molly has made us very proud with her progress. She actually got a special dinner tonight. We were out running errands and got some liver for her. So she got cut up pieces of liver mixed with a little kibble. She was very happy.

More Shaping

In a second session tonight, I was clicking when Molly paid attention to the seat of the chair and moved a foot. Then suddenly she had her paws up on the chair. I jackpotted.

Then she hopped down. A few looks later, she did it again. Another jackpot. Then we quit for the night.

I'm so proud of her!

Shaping a New Behavior

I have a new thing I want to teach Molly. Bending down to put her harness on her isn't comfortable for me, so I want to teach her to put her paws up on a chair to make it easier for me to put it on her. It is going to take a while to train and I'm not expecting her to be doing it reliably soon, but we have to start somewhere.

First, we need a chair and somewhere to train. I picked the living room because we train most often there. This one seemed like a good choice because it is light and handy. It also usually has a cushion on the seat, so if her nails scratch it a bit in training, no one will notice.

I took the cushion off. If I had left it on, Molly might start interacting with it instead. I thought it better to take a pure item.

You may notice the cable wrap on the chair legs. This chair used to be in the kitchen and we wrapped chair legs to prevent chewing when Molly was a puppy. We've never bothered to take it off.

I used a variety of treats. I had some shrimp left from a failed watch session earlier that I wanted to use. I'd mixed some kibble in the make them taste better. She wasn't eating the kibble reliably though. Then I also used some pieces of a sample bag of another kibble that we'd gotten. Mixing it up kept her guessing and interested in training--a little anyway.


At first Molly wasn't sure what to do and she wandered around a bit. So I put her leash on to keep her more restricted to the area around the chair. Then I sat and wait for behaviors to build on.

Shaping builds a behavior very slowly based on things the dog volunteers. If I wanted to, I could have held a treat up over the chair and lured her to climb on it, but I want to work on my shaping skills.

So when she lay down like this and didn't know what to do and kept looking out the window, I started clicking and treating for the slightest look closer to the chair. I needed her to learn that today things revolve around the chair. It took a while, but I did get her looking at the chair. Then she got a bit more interested and got up again.

So once she was up and moving around, I started clicking and treating for looking at the chair and being near the chair. This got her really doing. She'd look at the chair and I would click and treat. She even started touching the chair with her body sometimes and I clicked and treated that. She had a few close sniffs that were almost nose bops. I clicked those, too.

At one point she sniffed standing up with her head over the seat. I clicked and treated. After she'd done it a few times, I started clicking and treating only for interaction with the seat. My goal eventually is to get her higher with paws on seat.

After lots of clicking and treating for stretching herself over the seat, we quit for the day. It was a good session, probably about 10 minutes. I don't want to overdo it too much. We'll see how it goes next time.

About Operant Conditioning, the Basis for Clicker Training

My homework for level 2 is to study and describe some of the background of operant conditioning. I want to share this research with my readers to help you also understand what we're basing our training on. If you are reading this and also working on level 2 homework, please find more sources than this for completing your homework instead of copying mine!

An important place to start is understanding the terms "reinforcement" and "punishment" in this context.

Reinforcement is something that happens as a result of a behavior that encourages the behavior to happen again.

Punishment is something that happens as a result of a behavior that discourages the behavior from happening again.

Unlike in many other contexts, punishment doesn't have to be something you do to the dog. For example, if the dog whines and is likely to be looking for attention, you can punish the behavior by ignoring the whining. In many cases, this is more effective than telling the dog to be quiet. Telling the dog to be quiet would actually reinforce the behavior by giving attention, even though it is negative attention.

When you consider these variants of reinforcement and punishment, you get into the basic principles of operant conditioning.

Positive Reinforcement: Reinforcement by the addition of something pleasant. You can reinforce positively by giving treats, praise, or attention. The example of telling the whining dog to be quiet is actually positive reinforcement. You are adding attention in response to the dog's behavior.

Negative Reinforcement: Reinforcement by the removal of something unpleasant. Something unpleasant stops or is removed in response to the behavior. We use this one a lot when teaching young horses to deal with halters and a lead. Their normal reaction is to lean back and pull. When they do that, we hold pressure. At some point the get tired or change positions and the pressure lets up, in that moment, we release pressure completely. In this way they soon learn that moving with us means no pressure. It is especially visible when teaching a horse to stand tied. You use sturdy halter, line, and post that won't break. There is pressure as long as the horse pulls against the halter. As soon as it stops, the pressure is released. They soon learn to stand without pulling, especially when you start slowly when they are young.

Positive Punishment: Punishment by the addition of something negative. I don't think we use this one intentionally very often. It happens occasionally by accident. For example, if Molly bumps into the fence in the horse pasture, she soon finds out that it is electrified. We generally try to warn her ahead of time, of course.

Negative Punishment: Punishment by the removal of something positive. For example, you can stop petting the dog or end the game if you were playing. When Molly was little, she'd sometimes bite us by accident. When that happened, we said "ouch" loudly and took a break from the game.

Extinction: The lack of a response to a behavior intended to end the behavior. Ignoring barking or whining is an example of extinction.

Clicking with a Toe

I've mentioned a few times in earlier posts that I work my clicker with my toe so I have free hands when training Molly. Someone on one of the mailing lists I frequent asked how I manage this, so that's the purpose of this entry.







I have two clickers. I can't use the type of clicker where you have to push on a metal plate even when I click with my thumb. My thumb is too weak in the joints for that. The clicker on the right I bought here in DK. The one on the left I ordered online from the US. It's a i-Click and is very easy to click with finger or toe. Both work for me for toe clicking, but the shape of the i-Click makes it a more comfortable choice.



I don't know if my toes are weird and that is why it works so easily for me. My guess is that most people could click with their foot with a button clicker. It probably even works with shoes on. I am a bare foot person.



I find toe clicking to be especially helpful when I want both hands free for something. I use it a lot when an item is involved. For example, when working on teaching Molly to target a stick, I can put the clicker under my toe and have the stick in one hand and treats in another. I don't have to try to juggle things and I can keep clicking precisely on time and deliver treats promptly as well.



I wish I'd figured this out when I was working on her early retrieve training, because I had a horrible time working on hold when trying to hold objects, the clicker, and treats. The only way I got it to work then was by training hold on a metal pipe that I could hold between my knees.




When I set up to take these pictures, I got an extra bonus from Molly. I used her mat under the clickers for that picture. As soon as I put down the folded mat, she showed perfect mat behavior, even though it was too small for her to fit on. So a shot of that is the extra bonus at the bottom. Of course she got praise and treats.

Practing Shoe Removal

One of Molly's everyday jobs is helping me take off my shoes. She's done it for a while, but I change what shoes I wear a lot and some, like my cowboy boots, are really hard to take off. With all these variations and challenges and because she took on the job quickly out of need instead of having been trained slowly for it, Molly talks a lot when she does the job. This talking makes it unacceptable for me to use this task in public and it is just generally bad manners and annoying. When I really need something I can't always be picky, but it's time I started cleaning this up--she should have enough practice under her belt to be able to do the job quietly now.

So today I'm putting levels training aside and instead I'm focusing on trying to teach her that it's a better idea to be quiet when helping me with my shoes. I've done this before with socks pretty successfully. I knew I'd need to train this soon, so when I bought a new pair of hiking boots about a month ago, I saved the worn out pair for just this purpose. I stripped the laces out so they'd be easier work. When we get beyond that point, I can switch to the new ones. This way she can take them off hundreds and thousands of times in practice and I don't care what happens to them. I can throw them for thousands of retrieves, too. They're also cleaned off so I'm not bringing any dirt or into the living room when I come in to a comfortable spot to train.

One thing I've learned working with Molly is that she needs a reward or she gets noisier or starts throwing oddball behaviors at me. So instead of cutting down on the rewards, I need to give more or higher value rewards for the preferred behavior but still give something for the basic behavior.

Another thing I've learned is to put the clicker under my big toe. That way I can use one hand for treating and the other for managing items. It makes life a lot easier. I don't know how easily it works for other people, but I can move my big toe quite independently, so I just rest my foot on the floor and only hold up my big toe. Then I push it down when I want a click. I have no problems doing multiple quick clicks or whatever I need.

For my first short training session, at around 7 am, I worked with kibble. I wanted to make sure she got a good base of her quality food before I started mixing in other stuff. We worked through probably about half of a daily ration. DH had given her some before he left for work, too, so she'd eaten already.

My initial goal was to make sure she knew to go for the heel area of the boot. So I spent a few moments shaping that. Clicking for attention to the boot, then attention to the sole, then the heel area. She pretty much knew that anyway, but it is good to refresh. I'd never really shaped the job initially. She only had on the job training a day I came in from outside and couldn't do it so kept pointing and saying "PULL" and praising her and encouraging. Then I switched it onto the "boot" command (for both shoes and boots becuase I htink the word is most unique in sound).

Once that was worked out, I started working on the noise issue. I hung the boot heel up (I often don't have a chair when she needs to take my shoes off, so stand up with my foot lifted behind me) off my hand. She was barking and grumbling as soon as she started to take it, so I had to back up. Could she approach the boot without making noise?

I clicked and treated that for a while. I tried to catch her before she made noise, even if it meant she was just looking at the boot. Mostly I could get her to before she opened her mouth without making noise. Unfortunately I wasn't really making progress and it was time for a break. Plus she'd gotten a good bit of kibble and I didn't want her so full she wouldn't eat more for hours.

We took a second session around 9:30. This time I skipped kibble completely and broke out a can of shrimp. She loves shrimp. For a lower value treat, I used the cut up Frolic, a lower quality softer dog food that she likes. In addition to the boot, I got out a pill bottle that she can retrieve quietly. I was ready with another tactic.

I wanted to get Molly handling the boot quietly even if she wasn't taking it off me. This is what I'd done with socks before. If I first started her doing the basic retrieve behavior that she is good at with another object and giving her high value treats for silent retrieves, I can swap in the boot. If she is really noisy, she gets a low value treat. If she is only a little noisy, she gets a couple low value treats. No noise is a high value treat. If she is low value a few time, I swap back to the easier item. Slowly I should be able to build up the difficult until she is removing the boot from my foot. How long it will take is up to Molly, but it's a good positive way to do it and it doesn't make it impossible for me to keep letting her do the job in the mean time when I need it--I just have to reward with the appropriate value of treats depending on her noise level.

So I started with the boot first. She made noise. I gave her a low value treat. I threw the bottle. She was quiet. Shrimp. Bottle. Shrimp. Bottle. Shrimp. Bottle. Shrimp. Boot. Frolic. Boot. Frolic. Bottle. Shrimp. Boot. Shrimp. Boot. Frolic. Bottle. Shrimp. And so it continues. We worked for probably about 5 minutes. I'm not good at looking at the clock. Instead I watch Molly. I want to stop while she is still enjoying it but not so soon that she doesn't get the chance to learn the pattern. When she stayed stuck for a while, I threw in more items she was good with and also pants that she isn't, so she could see that it wasn't just boots=frolic and bottle=shrimp and the exceptions were me being crazy. That helped a lot. I also try to stop on something she does well if I can, preferably with a jackpot, even if it means I have to stop on the bottle.

We didn't get beyond retrieve successfully in this session though. I even tried having her pull the bottle off a finger then put the boot in the same position. She still didn't have quiet and the boot associated enough yet.

We took a third session around 12:30. Another 10 minutes approximately. Things really started clicking. It didn't take long to start getting noiseless retrieves, but it just wasn't working for that next step--pulling the boot off my finger. Then something clicked in my head--when she retrieved, she grabbed the flaps at the top of the boot. She has to grab the heel to pull off.

So I went back to shaping just the grab portion. I held the boot with the heel towards her. I took a big handful of Frolic and started shoving them in her mouth and clicking like mad as her mouth opened near the heel and she didn't make noise. It worked!

She started being able to touch the heel without talking. Then as soon as she made heel contact and started to pull, I used my thumb to gently shove the boot off my finger. YES! She "pulled" the boot off without making noise. Clickity-click-click-click. Lots of frolic and a shrimp. I didn't want to mix tasks yet, so I gathered up the boot from the floor and repeated a few times.

After several successful retreats, I had Molly also pick up and give me the boot. SUCCESS! I gave her a shrimp jackpot and a Molly pet and praise party. Then I took her outside to her fence in the yard that she loves for more petting and to let her have a good break.

When she came in again, the boot was lying on the floor where I'd dropped it to throw the party. She looked at the boot and up at me and back a few times. So I said "take." She quietly picked up the boot and brought it across the living room to where I lay on the sofa. Then she handed it to me without making a sound. Frolic jackpot.

So that's 3 sessions already today--a pretty intensive training. I'm not sure we'll do more. It depends how we feel. If we do anything, it will probably be refresher stuff instead of something as intense as what we've been doing with shoes.

Practicing with Distractions

We spent Sunday afternoon at DH's parents. They live in town and have a fenced yard. Molly loves to go there and is always eager to play in the yard. But this time she had to behave for a while until DH erected a fence around the newly planted vegetable garden. With him banging posts into the ground and messing with fencing and his parents puttering around, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for training with distractions. The neighboring properties also tend to be noisy, especially in good weather.

To start we focused on down stays and sit stays. The picture shows Molly in a sit stay. She's been making great progress at home with both and we'd even practiced sit stays this morning. Sit stays tend to be harder because it is more natural to go down for something that takes time. But she did great and was able to hold both types of stays while I walked to the other side of the yard and back no matter what other people were doing. She's a good girl and really is progressing fast in both service and obedience training.

Once the fence was up and everyone had worked so hard in the hot sun, it was time to relax and get a cool drink. Molly took part in the relaxation, too. She'd earned it.

Of course we then needed to practice retrieve because we couldn't leave cans in the lawn.

Now Molly is normally quite good at picking things up, but by this time the heat had gotten to her. She wasn't showing signs of real problems but her brain was not quite its usual self. She was a little unfocused. To make things more difficult, we had to repeat retrieve and give several times to get decent pictures. Fortunately Molly is a patient and hard working dog, even in hot weather. She got lots of treats and water was readily available.

To finish things off, DH had to water the seeds he sowed for his parents. Molly has always been weird about water, especially moving water like the hose. We speculate whether she had a bad experience before we got her. But with lots of encouragement and help, it finally clicked that it could be a game and she played with the water from the hose with DH and me and looked so happy doing it. That really cooled her down too. But we didn't get pictures because we didn't want to risk getting the camera wet. She barked a bit more than would be acceptable in town in the long run, but she'll learn with more playing here at home in the future. We're just glad she can finally see water as fun.

Another Update

We haven't had many formal training sessions in the past few days. I haven't felt up to them. We have worked enough on mat to start adding a cue and it is going well. We've also done a little work on targeting the end of a stick, but not much.

Mostly we train in everyday things. Every interaction we have is training. It is learning what I expect of her and what to do. Even just snuggling on the couch is training. It's building up a credit of good experiences and trust that helps when I want to call her to me somewhere sometime.

A Great Mat Training Session

Molly and I just had a great session working on our mat training. Mat training is teaching the dog to lie down on a mat or bed and stay there until released. It is sort of like a virtual crate. When the dog is on the mat, it should stay there and be settled down and not go anywhere. It leaves the owner free to do other things but is more relaxed and comfortable for the dog than an extended down stay.

I've tried this with Molly before but didn't feel like she "got" the mat--that she understood she got treats for being on the mat. She was very good about downs even though I wasn't expecting those of her yet, but she didn't get on the mat when I moved it.

I want her to be strong on this behavior for service work. I think it would be great to be able to put her on a mat in the airplane when flying so she can relax but know to be quiet and settled through the flight. I also think this will be a great resource in restaurants and when visiting people. The mat will serve the additional advantage of collecting any hair she may shed (although I intend to keep her well-groomed to limit that) to help make others more comfortable with her presence.

When I was having trouble training it earlier, I decided to back up and really follow the Levels Book 100% and now I'm really glad I have. Not just because it has improved her mat training here, but because I've gained a lot overall and bonded better with her. I thought I could hop around and just take what I wanted, but following the program really has given me a more well-rounded and better grounded dog. The stuff she could already do but hadn't been trained in a completely positive way, we retrained to strengthen the connections she had to the behavior. The stuff she has been trained in positively, I'm just testing her behavior to check her current level. It lets me make sure I don't have holes in her behavior and we're really bonding even more closely.

Now back to this mat session.

Molly's mat is a throw rug that we already had. We can easily get more rugs later to once she is steady on the behavior. It's inexpensive, discrete, warm, sturdy, and easy to carry. The rug is also very washable, so it's no problem to keep it clean and fresh for taking on the road. Molly will need a familiar mat for her trip to USA to help her be comfortable in the airplane, everywhere we go, and in the car.

I hadn't started feeding Molly yet when we trained this morning. To make it really exciting, I used a can of shrimp as her training treats. I started with her mat to the left of the recliner I sat in. I clicked and treated about 10 times for her having anything on the mat, throwing 9 on the mat and the 10th off. I did this 3 or 4 times without moving the mat. Then I moved the mat to in front of the chair. Molly impressed me by immediately getting onto the mat to earn more treats. I repeated the 10 times clicking and treating once or twice then cut down to five times a few more times to see how strong her return was--it was VERY strong. So I moved the mat about two feet to the right. She got onto the mat right away again. I did a couple 5 times clicks and treats then jackpotted (gave lots at once) with the last of the shrimp because I was running low. She got to clean the can out then handed it to me as soon as it was empty. Good Molly!

Even then she stayed on the mat, so I got some Frolic treats and fed her some of those one after the other while she lay down on the mat and I praised her. Then I encouraged her off the mat and put it away.

To really make her feel good, we went outside for a short play session. I am so proud of her that she picked it up so quickly today. I think all the other groundwork has helped. Plus the work we've done before on mat that has had time to sink in during her time off from working on mat.