Name Recognition

One of our primary goals with training for the past few weeks has been to get the girls to learn to respond only to commands directed at them. I have worked a lot of puppy push-ups with both girls at once, rewarding only the one I ask to do the behavior. We also played the come game using the girls names, rewarding only the one we called. DH has spent many evenings in the pasture, incorporating play into the training.

Shawnee Learned to Stay

Shawnee passed her level 2 sit-stay and down-stay tests. I think we have DH to thank for this. Here are a few pics from last weekend's pasture play session when he did some stay training.




Before that, I had only worked on sit stay. This is the first she learned a down stay. But if you can stay when Daddy walks that far away with your toy--and turns his back to you--you can stay when Mommy walks that little bit away without a toy even if your sister isn't lying next to you offering moral support.

Shawnee Is Growing Up

I am quite shocked by how long it has been since I last updated this blog. I know I had started blog entry several times, but I must not have finished them.

I have not been doing a lot of concentrated training with either of the girls. Actually, I've barely been doing any. I am struggling a lot with my health issues and have been dealing with a migraine for about two weeks now. I am also trying to do more housework and other things, which makes me too tired to blog or train.

It's hard to believe how much Shawnee has grown. It seems like only yesterday that she was the little puppy that I picked up in the room in the barn where they were born and had snuggle up and lick my neck. Now she lives here and she's quite a big girl. She still loves to snuggle.

At this point, Shawnee is rarely tethered while in the house. I think it has been weeks since she has had an accident here home. Although DH is quite sure that she will never be as easy to keep clean as Molly. She had some other odds potty incidents, such as peeing in the house at my in-laws while saying hello to my mother-in-law and peeing while walking on their terrace, leaving the semicircular trail behind her. A few days ago she went on our terrace here at home. DH told her to go out in the fence and potty but she went before she got into the fence.

Overall, Shawnee is now very reliable at pottying on command in the fence. We take her out and tell her to potty and she goes out in the end of the area the fence and does her business. She then runs eagerly back for praise. She also seems to be better able to understand the concept of going while out before coming in. She is often out of fence for several hours with Molly when the weather is nice.

She is still very odd when she poos and often walks while going or goes several different places. But at least she goes outside.

Shawnee still thinks that the best game in the world is jumping on furniture. DH has started letting her in the bedroom once in a while, usually while I'm still in bed. She thinks there is nothing better in the world than to jump on the bed. However, she's also learning to settle down and snuggle with me. She usually likes to lie down and have her belly rubbed, usually while covering my face with kisses.

In terms of training and behavior, she is showing an increase in her solidness in basic behaviors. This is despite a lack of actual training. However, she is much better at remembering to sit before talking to people instead of jumping. Her sit and lie down on command a very strong. We haven't been practicing rollover or flop. She is extremely quiet and well behaved in her crate and goes in on command.

Although I'm not training the girls still get plenty of playtime. Shawnee low longer relies 100% on Molly to return to the toys to us. She has not yet learned to give in to is in our hands, but she drops them reliably at our feet. If we do not quickly pick it up and throw it for them, she repeats until we respond.

Molly is definitely much happier with Shawnee's company. This is despite the fact that Shawnee is a toy and bone hoard. Shawnee is so possessive that she often growls at Molly if she approaches. We are working on living this behavior and on encouraging Molly to stand up to Shawnee and put her into place.

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 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.

Using Paws Up

It is really a great thing for me that Molly has learned her paws up command so well. Because of my health problems, bending down is very painful for me. To put Molly's harness on and off, I used to have to bend down.

Now life is so much easier and less painful. To put her harness on for a potty walk this morning, I just pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and said "paws up." She hopped up onto the chair right away and stayed still while I fit the harness.

Then I told her to go down. I use a Danish word ("Ned") for this. "Down" means lie down and if I say it, she hops off the chair and lies down on the floor, which isn't what I need when we're on our way out for a walk.

After our walk, I can just cue her up onto the chair again. I don't even need treats for this.

The only reason I needed treats this morning was to get her to stay on the chair while I wasn't handling her long enough for me to take some pictures. But my blog was getting so boring without pictures that I needed to take at least one to share.

A Practice Drill

I'm still lost in migraine-land, so not really training. I spend most of my time sleeping. But last night I pulled myself together to make DH's lunch for work today. Usually he does it himself, but I'd crashed in the middle of making dinner two nights in a row and stuck it with him, so I felt like I owed him.

The point is that I ended up with a slice of meatball and a couple slices of egg leftover. What's a girl to do with these items but run the nice Molly through some practice exercises?

You may have heard of "doggy push-ups" before. That's a drill of downs and sits that ends up looking like the dog is doing push-ups.

At this point that would be a bit boring for Molly. So I did a mix of sit, down, stand, and touch. Stand is a newer one and her touch hasn't been that reliable outside of the living room training forum with a clicker environment. But for meatball and egg, Molly did great! She could down from sit or stand and stand from sit or down. She touched from any position. A few times early on she tried to sit in between a down and stand when she shouldn't, but when I just waited (no repeat on command) she followed through with the right position.

So basically she showed she knows all those commands and earned herself some nice tidbits and lots of praise.

She also picked up and delivered a slice of tomato for me. I tried to give it to her, but she didn't want it. At least she helped me clean it up.