We spend lunch on the trainer. This is a 4X4' platform about 3' high, with a 4X8 sheet of plywood forming a ramp off one side, and a 14" wide plank forming a ramp off the other side. Yellow contact zones painted at the bottom of both ramps. I start by standing with my toes tucked under the big ramp, facing the ramp. Stitch wants to come find my eyes (aha, our first real use for the Get Lost game!) but this BOARD is in the way. She doesn't really trust it enough to get on it, but she REALLY wants to find my face, so she puts her front feet on it, c/t. And again, and again, and pretty soon I'm tossing the treats onto the ramp, where they roll down, and sometimes she wants to catch them before they hit the bottom, and once in a while a treat will get stuck half-way down the ramp, and before she knows it, she's on the platform at the top. I click her there a couple of times, then turn my body so she starts coming down the ramp. Up and down, up and down, Pretty soon it's no big deal.

Then I come around to the small ramp side. She jumps off the platform once, so I start planting kibbles on the ramp to make sure she goes up it, then planting them to make sure she comes down it as well. OK, she's got it. She starts (as you can see) running the ramps to get to the platform. How often do you get to play Queen Of The Universe and get paid for it at the same time? This is a GREAT game!

Down contacts

 

Retrieving

 

Getting used to the vacuum cleaner

3/4 of breakfast is spent on down contacts. I've run the gamut on what behaviour I want on down contacts - I don't like 2-on-2-off, it looks freaky in the small of the back. I don't like stopping for a sit or down on the contact, it works great until the dog comes down the A-frame at speed. Scuba's been through it all with me changing my mind every season and has no idea what to do with a contact. I've decided I'm going to get the dog thinking about the spot where the ramp meets the ground, then over the year I'll move that spot out from the ramp a bit. So I start by putting 2 kibbles on the ground right at the bottom of each ramp. The first 10 times I also put 2 on the platform between the ramps.

Once she's going up and down, my only job is to make sure the kibble fairy only leaves kibbles in the spot when the puppy comes down a ramp, NOT when she dekes around the trainer and runs over on the grass. We get her looking at the kibble-spot without much loss of speed over the ramps.

The remaining 50 kibbles are spent on on quiet hold on the wooden dumbell. What a clever puppy.

The vacuum's running while I'm writing this. A month ago it didn't mean anything. Two weeks ago it was too scary to be in the room with. Today she can hand-wrestle me, attack Scuba carrying a toy, and solicit pets from the vacuumer, but she's not QUITE comfortable with it yet. Her playing is over the top, much more growling and barky than normal. Still, she can lie down, scratch her ear, wander over and watch the machine going back and forth, go get a drink of water and come back to lie near Scuba.

Sit

 

Down

I feed her supper in the truck cab. The truck engine is not running. I put some on the console between the seats, some on the floor on the passenger side, some on the passenger seat, and some in my hand. I sit in the driver's seat. I put her on the seat, and she crouches for two minutes while I feed her from my hand. She's OK to eat what I offer her. Then I play a game on my Palm and ignore her. Another minute of just sitting there, then she starts leaning closer and closer to the console and finally decides she can probably eat the food on it. Then she eats the food on the seat, and then she's feeling pretty good, so I pick her up and put her on the floor. She appears to think the floor is a chute into a shark tank, but once she's down there she quickly eats the food. I'm still playing my game, and after a minute of thinking about it, she climbs from the floor onto the seat. I continue playing for another 10 minutes, petting her and talking to her occasionally. She lies down on the seat, yaps a few times, then whines intermittently. When she's been quiet for a while, I get out of the truck, and she decides she can climb over the console into the driver's seat so I can lift her out.

I think about how this fear of vehicles could build up if I didn't do the right thing with it, or if she never went anywhere but to the vet because "she's afraid to ride in the car". Anytime I see any kind of fear or refusal, I have to automatically balance it out. "My dog doesn't eat in cars" means she'll be fed in cars until she's comfortable with it. "My dog won't let me hold her paws" means that what we'll be working on until it's second nature to her.

Getting used to the car

 

Getting her collar on

Riding in the car

 

Coming to safety when there's scary noises

At noon we take (people) lunch out to the field. She runs as before out to the car, paws up to get boosted in, and immediately starts vacuuming kibble. I start the car. She doesn't appear to notice, she's too busy buzzing around digging kibble out from under the seats. I toss a little more on the floor and put it in gear. No biggie. Apparently the problem has to do with BEING in the car rather than WHAT the car is doing. We go bomping out into the field over ruts and bumps. When she's eaten all the kibble, she sits up on the seat and watches the scenery go by.

While the guys are eating, we go for a little walk. She avoids a gopher hole when she gets a sniff of it. Then a tractor bucket bangs and she tucks her tail and runs away from me - about 15'. When I call her name, she turns around like "Oh, hi, mom! Didn't see you there!" and comes running right back, all happy. We go sit back in the car and she rechecks it, her tail up, and then we drive back to the yard. Little farmer dog. It really makes me feel good that she comes to me when she's scared.

FINALLY back to "real"  "work". I think the hardest part of Level Two with a new dog is not getting the behaviours, but getting the behaviours ON CUE. Stitch uses my words as a clue, sometimes, but not yet as a cue most of the time. Reading over what she knows about Level Two and what she doesn't, I see that it's time for her to "get a clue". I've evaluated the L2 behaviours thus: a 0 we haven't even touched; 1 we've tried but not worked on; 2 we've worked on, 3 just needs tidying to pass.

2 - Distance (2' around pole)

2 - Go To Mat (5', 2 cues)

2 - Target (end of stick)

2 - Watch (10 secs, 2 cues)

2 - Zen (5 secs off hand, 10 secs off platform)

2 - Sit (1 cue, no treats)

2 - Down (1 cue, no treats)

Go To Mat

 

Getting distance past 3'

 

Sit

 

Down

Well, now that I've written it out, it looks like we've actually been accomplishing something. For breakfast, we work on Go To Mat. I need to get this on cue, and I need to get distance with me standing up, not just sitting down. I put down the dog bed and right away I can start using the cue (Hit The Rack) as she's running to it and flinging herself down on it. She's showing the same distance problem she has with the retrieve articles - if she's within 3', she remembers what to do until I stop. If she's further away than that, she might continue to do it, she might go mat diving for stray treats, or she might start offering me other behaviours. Sometimes I toss the treats on the bed, sometimes I toss them on the floor so she has to get off to get them, then get back on to get another click. When I toss them on the floor, I try to get them around the 3' mark to help her extend her remember-distance. And while I'm doing this, I'm walking around the room. It's a pretty small room, but I can get 7' away in one direction, 4' away in another. It doesn't matter to her where I am, it only matters how far she is from the mat.

Then we work on Sit and Down. Around the house I'm using the Sit cue too often and occasionally getting a stare - huh? You talking to me? I've got to stop doing that. Duh! As she's still not thinking about the voice as an important part of the event, I'm putting my voice up - paark IT - for Sit, and giving her a big ol' deep Texas Daaooowwwnn. Her default Sit has almost taken over the Down, so we work only on Down first. When she's offering it well, I start walking around the room with it as well, and getting some duration. Not bad. 7' away is no big deal - as with the mat, it doesn't really matter where I am when she's doing the behaviour - and we get up to 3 seconds on holding the down. Then we add the Sit. I meant to go for distance and duration on that as well, but end up doing random voice cues instead. 80% correct.

Sit and Down cues without treats

 

Sit Stay

 

DownStay

 

Go To Mat

 

Retrieving leather

 

Trick - weave through Scuba's legs

 

More on the truck

I start the lunch session by asking for Sits and Down before I mention lunch or get the kibble. It takes us a moment to understand we're doing something - she Sits brilliantly but I'm obviously doing a lot of body language cueing with my voice cue to Down - I notice this because when I ask for Down she jumps up out of the Sit and bomps my nose with her skull. When I can see again, I ask without bending down. She's obviously responding to the cues and getting 95% of them right. I reward her with cuddle-wrestles.

Then I get the kibble. We do a few more Sits and Downs, then start working on the SitStay and DownStay. To my amazement, she figures this out right away. I use 15 kibbles on each behaviour, and I get all the way from the middle of the living room to the other side of the kitchen and back. Not out of sight, but a good 20' away. Stitch is calm and secure with the idea that she's doing what I'm asking. For the first time I'm looking at being able to work on MANY behaviours with one meal as we tidy up instead of teaching from scratch. I get a driving whip, show her the butt, and we work 20X targeting, and I tell her that she has to touch the very end of it to make the click. She's mouthing it, but definitely going readily for the end. Then we go out and work on Go To Mat. Again, at 3' she remembers what she's doing. At 5' she forgets and offers other behaviours. At 4' I see some definite responses to the cue - we were, we were, uh, I KNOW we were doing something... "Hit The Rack!" OH YEAH! We were hitting the rack!

Then we do some retrieves with the leather dumbell, clicking for duration on the hold, and get her picking it up and up to 3 seconds of sitting or standing in one place holding it. Then we do some hold-in-hand, where we both hold it and I click her quiet mouth. Not so much duration here, still clicking for 1 second after the third chomp, but it's mouthing now and not releasing.

Finally, we try a trick. I ask Scuba to stand facing me, and lure Stitch to go under her, then around in front of her, and under her again. We do 20 of these. I can't really shape it unless I use a chair or something instead of Scuba. Scuba would very happily go to mat for an hour while I worked the puppy, but standing still and letting the puppy be shaped for running in and out of her legs is beyond even Scuba. Stitch cheerfully follows the lure, even when I back it off to just a gesture, but I can't say she's ready to volunteer any of it. So a very productive lunch!

During the afternoon we have to drive back out in the field. She actually jumps into the truck cab. I didn't think she could do that. I certainly wasn't ready for it!

Sit, SitStay

 

Down, DownStay

 

Retrieving random articles

 

Changing the venue

 

Post-It notes on her nose to get a paw salute

And fun for supper. First we show off our great Sit and Down cues for daddy, then we show him our SitStay and DownStay. She's a brilliant showoff, and I'm amazed at how that one day of intensive effort on the importance of cues has had such an effect on her understanding.

Then we do some retrieving of random articles from around my chair - toenail clippers, a small pair of scissors, a ball of llama yarn (this one went a little too well), a clicker, and a dishtowel. She's not quite as good at retrieving in the living room as she is in the screen room, but close. The dishtowel's hard, she's never been asked to pick up something like this before. It takes 13 clicks for targeting before she thinks about picking it up.

Then we try something brand new. The standard way to teach a dog to put her paw over her nose is to put a piece of tape on her nose and click the motion to get it off. I tried this with my Giant Schnauzer - it was a total failure. She wound up offering me behaviours like barking, backing up, and retrieving - with a large yellow Post-It Note over each eye - and never did think of pawing them off. It works much better with Stitch, although after about 5 clicks for pawing she decides she might be better off doing the Sit and Stare routine. When she gets back to pawing, she isn't anywhere near her nose, but she's giving me a pretty good stretchy sieg-heil salute, so I'm clicking that. She's mostly right-pawed, but capable of doing it with either paw. At one point she's lying down and she offers it with both paws at once, which happens about 4" off the floor and looks rather like she's diving. Makes my stomach muscles hurt just looking at it. She keeps offering the salute after I take the tape off her nose, so we spend the rest of supper on it. My baby has a trick! I don't yet know what the trick is, exactly, but it's there. One of the best things about clicker training is that you can get a behaviour, see where it takes you, and not name it until something really cute hits you. Scuba shows which paw is white. Stitch's white paw is her left, so she might be showing which paw is black. Or she might be saluting. Or voting. Or showing me her poor sore paw which will require me to shoot her. But whatever it is, it's a trick, and it's her first

The new trick interferes with "real" behaviours

 

We work back to volunteer Sits

I can't say I'm quite as cheerful about her new trick this morning. Throwing a front paw out in front of her from the Sit and Down has blown Sit and Down right out of her head. I've thought before that she needs motion behaviours to counteract the stress of stationary behaviours, but it's never been so obvious. I start with the trick. She remembers it right away, so that by the third click I'm adding a cue - I raise MY right foot, she raises hers. Very cute. X20. Then I ask her Sit. She can't. I ask her to Down. She can't. She punches me in the knee with both front feet. She lies down, kicks her back legs out behind her, and raises both front paws off the ground. This can't be easy, but it isn't what I'm looking for. She whines. She barks at me. She looks like she's going to dislocate her elbows, she's throwing them at me so hard. Argh.

I lure a Sit X 5. She can't offer me another one. I lure another one, then rapidfire X20, putting the kibbles right in her mouth so she doesn't have a chance to get up. Then I lure five more. She STILL can't offer me one. Another rapidfire X20, and finally she can offer me a Sit. Only 50% of the offerings are Sits, though, the rest are salutes. I keep remembering Bob Bailey saying "Don't be afraid to let it extinguish", but I am - I don't want her doing that frustrated barking thing, and I don't want her to give up and walk away. We'll keep working on getting our groove back, not do salutes ANY MORE for a while, and reinforce Sit a billion times. THEN we'll let the salute extinguish, if we still need to. Argh.

Working the contact trainer

Go To Mat, Sit, Down, and working on cue discrimina-tion

Watch

Retrieving

After lunch I feel better. We start on the contact trainer, where she runs both ramps looking for the treats at the bottom. In fact, when we go outside I always ask her to pee before we start, but today she gallops right on over and up the ramp before I have time to say anything. 20X down contacts.

Then we come in to the screen room. She runs to the mat and plunks herself down on it, obviously expecting a click, so we do 20X Go To Mat, with me telling her the cue. Then we do 20X Sit, then 20X Down. Then we start playing a cue game. I tell her Go To Mat c/t, then say her name and drop a kibble between my feet, than randomly ask for Sit, or Down, or Go To Mat again. I shouldn't be using the mat cue yet, she generally has to think about it for a second before she does it - wait, wait, I know those words, hang on, oh, YEAH! - but with the three cues, she's about 95% accurate. Ee hah.

Then we do Watch X20, she has trouble remembering Watch. She offers her salute several times, then remembers and we get up to 5 seconds.

There are 15 kibbles left, so we do some retrieving. We get holds of various items up to 5 seconds.

Eye contact and 300-Peck duration

 

Failing again at the Get Lost game

 

Splitting the Get Lost game

 

Duh. Again.

I'm not happy with her Eye Contact. Of course any sane human being would be thrilled to have a 13 wo puppy who likes to Sit and Stare at them, especially since it's a default behaviour that she does, for instance, when we're eating, rather than jumping up and stealing our food. Nevertheless, I'm not happy with it. She's a DO SOMETHING dog, and she doesn't really excel at sitting around - not entirely true. She's not good at sitting around when she feels that she's in a position to be shaped to do something. So when we work on Eye Contact (especially since I taught her that kerflushinner trick), she wants to Down, turn her head, retrieve something, or throw those blasted paws at me.

So we start with just click-for-contact X30. Then we start doing 300-peck contact. We have to start over about 10 times, but we eventually get up to 6 seconds (maybe I should move my decimal - what we're really working on is 3.00-peck contact). It's been a while since I tried the Get Lost game, so I stand up and try it. She still has no clue. She wanders off. She comes back. She stares at my hand. She whines. She Downs. She throws paws. A couple of times she runs all the way around me, but she still can't find my eyes.

Welcome yet again to the Flat Forehead School Of Dog Training. I do most of my training sitting on the couch. Then I stand up so I can turn away from her. DUH. I need a transition... AHA! I get my walker and sit on it. Now my face is halfway between couch-height and standing-height, and my front (knees slightly bent) is noticeably different from my back, even from puppy-height. And DUH she gets it right away. GREAT eye contact. We do straight Contact X20, then from the 21st, I turn around. AND SHE COMES WHIPPING AROUND, LOOKS UP AND GRABS MY EYES IMMEDIATELY. Duh. By the time I run out of lunch kibble, she's doing Contact X3, turn, Contact X3, turn. She isn't holding my eyes when she's coming around, but she's at least starting her turn as soon as I start mine, and finding me immediately when I stop. Duh.

Then for several meals I need to get a life, so it's a matter of just flinging food dishes at the dogs. While I'm outside talking to one of my 4-H kids, Scuba jumps the barrier from kitchen to dining room - which is OK - and Stitch knocks the barrier down and follows her - which is not, because one of the things in the dining room is a full bag of nice clean llama fleece. Wow, she spread it out about 2" deep all over the rug!

She spends the rest of her day piling 6 squeaky toys, 2 empty Diet Coke cans, my Palm holder, two llama lead ropes, 3 meters of Velcro, a 5' longe whip, three large boots, four mixed socks, a towel, a DVD box and the mat she finally got out from under the coffee table on the rug beside the computer, tossing them as far as she can, then gathering them up again. I may not have previously appreciated how much puppy energy is used up by thinking when we're actively training. Ron just mentioned getting a huge hamster wheel.

Her first trip to the basement

 

A whole new set of stairs to work out

 

Eye contact in a new location

 

Shaping bopping a ball

 

Go To Mat

 

Up the stairs