Laundry Duty Problems

I am feeling very guilty and a little heartbroken today. I tried last weekend to film Molly emptying the washer. She started out okay, but then lost her focus. I thought initially that she was just distracted by DH, his friend, and Shawnee outside. It isn't normal for her to be so distracted, but it was my best guess.

Then when reviewing the film, I saw that she had banged into the tripod. It all went downhill from there.

I tried again today. DH suggested putting the video camera in the window sill on the minitripod. But Molly was still hesitant and insecure about her work. Throwing in an item she hadn't worked with before probably didn't help. Usually she doesn't blink at new items, but this was a rug from the kitchen floor with a rubberized bottom. It was hard to pull out and made noise against the sides of the washer. I had to help. (I am totally crashed now from the effort)

So we will be trying a lot of laundry for the next while. With even more frequent and higher quality rewards to help her build up confidence and get looking forward to the job again.

Quick Training Update

Last night I did a short eye contact session with Molly. I used hot dogs as treats but didn't film it. I limited the length by limiting the number of treats to 10.

Today I did an approximately 3 minute session with Shawnee on distance and a similar session with Molly on finish. I filmed both sessions, but I think I want to do a few more before I post anything.

I am moved from the kitchen to the living room, so that I would have a new environment for training. Both girls have worked in the living room before, but I had been using the kitchen because it has more space. I had to move a rocking chair and the dog basket to get anywhere near enough space for the session. The chair for Molly's training does not roll well on the carpet. With Shawnee, however, things went better because treats did not bounce as much.

I use a timer set to a little over three minutes but started it before I started the film. I was shocked when the timer rang because I thought I would have more time than that. This proves to me how badly I need to limit my sessions, because obviously I've been training most of the time for far longer than I realized.

The shortness definitely paid off. After I told Shawnee, she was free and turn off the camera, she went twice around the object to try to get me to reward her again. I did give her one treat, but then I quickly took things up so she wouldn't do it again.

With Molly, I had trouble maintaining concentration for the entire session. The problem was that Shawnee outside suddenly found something to bargain and that dragged Molly away. While she was barking, the timer rang. I called her back and did a quick repeat then quit. I don't want her feeling like she decides the length of the session, but I also didn't want to keep going when she wasn't fully focused.

Despite her lack of concentration, Molly did very well moving when I did. It shows that I really was wrong about how well she understood the behavior. My continued repetition of eye contact made things worse because it made her bored. I thought I need to do it because she wasn't understanding what I was doing. Now I am confident that we will have this behavior mastered soon.

More Distance Training with Shawnee

I tried to focus on some feedback I got on our last distance training session. I needed to make sure I clicked while Shawnee was moving. I also only rewarded her for going around the object in one direction. Last time I had accepted both. I also tried not to move my treat hand before I clicked and treated. I also wanted to be sure that she was understanding this too is going around the object and not using the wall or the oven as reference points.



Although I may have improved on these respects, I found new errors while looking at the video.

This session was way too long. This explains why I was having trouble towards the end with her lacking focus. I should've stopped shortly after changing positions.

Additionally, Shawnee was distracted by Molly complaining in the other room. Although she's usually fine, Molly was whining this time despite the door being closed and the radio being on to cover the sounds of clicking.

At one point, a fly is also distracted her.

I should have repositioned the camera when I changed positions. The second half of the film shows too much of me and too little Shawnee.

No Gold and A Serious Distraction

It's Thursday so we should be posting pictures of gold things, but Molly doesn't wear jewelry and neither of the dogs have anything that would classify as gold.

Instead I am going to talk about training and distractions. Learning to work with distractions is on of the big challenges in a service dog's work life and even the training of any regular dog. You don't always know how well your dog will handle a command in different situations.

Up to recently, Molly has done very well with distractions. She has worked succesfully in a number of unusual environments, including stores, airports, family situations, and even a rodeo. She also came well when called when around other dogs.

But she never had a little sister before. Apparently a little sister is a much bigger distraction than anythign she's ever had before. So we're going back to basics and trying to train and refresh a lot of basic behaviors.

Yesterday Molly had two training sessions while Shawnee ate. Molly needed to eat too, but wasn't very good at just eating with the little one around. So I started giving her basic commands and rewarding her with small handfuls of her kibble. It went very well and she was able to sit, down, stand, and touch reliably (an extended version of puppy push-ups) despite the little one trying to steal the food and come over and talk to her. I even managed to have her retrieve my shoe a few times. She also did some short "watch" commands--moments of sustained eye contact.

We need to do more recall training and I have an idea for where we can safely do it, but I am sick today with what is probably a sinus infection and asthma, so I am not going out in the cold to do it.

Shawnee has learned sit very well and is starting to learn down. Potty training is really progressing well since we started giving her treats and clicks for outside potties. The small problem is that sometimes she is so focused on the treat that she forgets to finish her business. But she is starting to head for the door--try to anyway--when she needs to go and also doing some whining to let us know.