Ella’s PDI Weekend @ Y Agility in Saratoga!

More Trialing and Subsequent Trials

First, a very un-timely update from the Bark-NH trial in Aurburn, MA.  Ella’s regular standard debut!!  (The only standard run she did before that was in Team at All Dogs)  A couple weeks before the trial, there was an ugly moment in Kris’ Masters class involving a dog walk and a right turn into a tunnel… Thus started the 2 week directional extravaganza!!!  I taught her directional using a method I learned about at a seminar with Tracy Sklennar.  Basically I started by holding her in front of me, poking either her R or L side and trating when she turned her head.  Quickly, I added the word “Right” or “Left” before I poked.  Eventually, I waited a second between the word to see if she’d turn her head the correct way.  For a while, she’d just turn her head any way – I don’t even think she was waiting for me to finish to word.  I was able to kick this by saying “Right” or “Left” and if she turned the wrong way jsut waiting for her to turn the other way and simply saying “Yes”.  If she got it right on the first time, reward!  I moved this to 3 jumps – L, R, and “Go” with a food bowl on the other side of each.  This stage progressed quickly.  Finally, I worked her on a contact to tunnel directional.  Lo and behold in our first standard run, there was a directional to a tunnel off a dog walk!  She nailed it

PCOTC AKC Trial

May 9-10, 2009

2 weekends ago, Nemo and Ella both competed in the PCOTC AKC trial at FDR Park.  What was supposed to be a dreary and rainy weekend, luckily the weather on Saturday and Sunday turned out to be okay.  Unfortunately jumpers Q’s for both of the dogs were overshadowed by standard… Ella made her standard debut by jumping off the dog walk, missing the contact zone completely.  She followed up the next day by performing a perfect running contact… except that her criteria is 2o2o!  Nemo showed more of the same.  Both dogs were in contact detention, action steps beginning this past weekend.

This past weekend, Jo and I both focused in on the contact issues we saw last week.  I brought Ella to Michelle’s backyard (thanks Michelle!) for a couple minutes to work some restrained recalls for speed where Ella was greated at the other end of the walk with a bowl of kibble, hot dogs and cheese.  Then I used this as a distractor to start light proofing work.  A positive session indeed!  After she was done, Paul let Tom & Jerry out for Ella to say hi, but she was too busy sniffing at the end of the walk hoping food would appear.  Meanwhile, a couple miles away, Jo entered Nemo in the Skyline NADAC trial at FDR Park to lay down the law.  Nemo must’ve either still been high from his birthday party the day before OR really didn’t want Jo to put him back on his AFrame because he blew his contacts and then proceeded to take the last 2 jumps of the course and excuse himself from the ring while Jo stood in shock by the AFrame.  Yikes.

Jo brought Nemo back home and had a couple very positive sessions with weaves and the frame in our backyard.  His speed was great!  We’ll see what happens to Ella’s criteria this weekend at Y Agility in Saratoga where we will be attempting to get our PDI and/or/neither first PNS Q.  Follow us on Twitter @http://twitter.com/LaureyElla (which I just joined today!).

Hello, Scottsdale!!!

Ella & Her PVP Bronze Medal

So in the same week that I changed Ella’s contact criteria back to 2o2o, we headed up to Manchester, NH to compete at All Dogs agility trial.  I hadn’t priorly registered for this trial because I was still training Ella’s frame behavior and we are completing our therapy dog certification class this month… However, on Thursday when Jo told me that there was a performance team scratch, before I could think I was already telling the trial secretary that I was in!  And the next day we headed up to NH…

Ella & Nemo had wonderful weekend’s and (although we were on different teams because of my extremely late entry) we both got our PVP Q’s for Nationals!  Ella’s team won 3rd place!!  Scottsdale here we come

Team Finding Remo: Rebound & Nemo

I’ll leave it up to Jo to give an update about Nemo, but a little bit about Ella’s weekend: I was so proud of her, especially because I hadn’t gotten a chance to really proof her contacts and I expected her to be a little confused because of the change in criteria earlier in the week… she got all of her contacts and her weaves looked good.  She had decent speed and high drive and was tugging all weekend.  It was an indoor trial on rubber matting so it was a good first trial of the season.  Videos of Ella & Nemo’s runs  below:

The other table at Chili's (Dinner 2/21)

Team Hanging Razors: Page & Ella

Ella’s Runs
Course Notes:
Standard: As Ella’s first ever Standard run ever (haha yes, including starters…) I was exptremely pleased.  However, she did try to blind cross me to a tunnel.  She has done this in class as well and I know it’s something I need to work on.
Snooker: Great Dog Shame About the Handler!!!!  In the middle of the last obstable sequence of the closing (7a to 7b) I thought I was home free and I was so excited.  I forgot to throw up the thredle arm and Ella *correctly* took the frame instead of 7b, the tunnel.  Naughty handing, but a good girl!

Gamblers:

Standard:

Jumpers:

Snooker:

Relay:

Nemo’s Runs

Gamblers:

Standard:

PSJ Round 1:

Jumpers:

Snooker:

Spoiler alert: Back to 2o2o frame behavior…

*Sigh* My attempt to boil the monumental contacts saga down into 2 paragraphs:

It has now been 7 months since I decided to re-train Ella’s contact behavior on the see-saw (4 in the yellow) and the frame (running).  She picked up on the see-saw ask pretty quickly but the running frame has been a huge challenge.  We started with the frame flat, clicking when she hit the 1st slat and feeding on a target mat.  We tried to raise the frame very slowly, but even with the smallest angle possible, she’d fly over the slat.  We also used a hoop.  After doing more flatwork, etc….. (trying to condense the SAGA) I decided she might be confused with what exactly she was supposed to do.  So I incorporated an element of Ali Roukas’ contact regiment into my training since I know Ella is very good at foot targeting.  She was brilliant on the floor pouncing on the target, collecting over a jump to the target or extending out of a tunnel.  But as soon as I put the target on the 1st slat of the frame (still flat, then slightly raised), her behavior changed – she didn’t care about the target (even backchaining her from the 2nd slat).  I even put the target on our contact board (kind of looks like small dog walk end) and she was brilliant.  But the frame?  Yikes.  I took a long time trying to work through this – giving her only a certain amount of the frame so she in theory had to be successful, etc… She wouldn’t hit the target but she was at least hitting the first slat.  So I decided to get rid of the target and use the hoop.  Then I started with the hoop and tried to fade quickly at a low level once she got what I was asking for.

ANYWAY, trying to get to the point, all of the trial & error methods I tried at least kept consistent a contact with the 1st slat.  In my last attempt (which actually returned to the original criteria) she knew she had to hit that slat but she was breaking stride to do it.  I tried to return the frame flat, but she was still breaking stride to get that last slat no matter the speed I ran with her.  I really think she’s just too conditioned to her footing on the frame from doing 2-on-2-offs (also shown when trying to covert the foot target from the floor/board to the frame).  I thought I could break her of this but it’s been 7 months of working every day… I have started to get extremely frustrated and I know she gets that.  There are so many other skills I suck at that basically I have decided that I can’t take the time to dedicate to this endless fight anymore!  If I trained all my other non-existant skills for a couple minutes in the early morning, when I got home from work, and 2 times in the late evening and all day on the weekends I’d have mad skills!!  Now I have no skills and no frame behavior…

SO I have decided to abort mission and return to 2o2o   It’s a happy place for me now!

Club Rental 3/5: Obstacle Discrimination & Proofing Contacts

Last night, Jo, Lindsey and I rented the club.  Jo and I worked on a number of things including (dun dun dun) obstacle discrimination!!!  I am happy to report that Ella had about a 95% success rate with her tunnel/dog walk discrimination, even with challenging angles.  That being said, the bigger challenge will be A-Frame vs. dog walk!  But I was very happy.  I think a lot of times in class, my position isn’t perfect because I’m so worried about her taking the wrong obstacle, so I try to body block among other strange handling maneuvers.  My take away is that I want to always be in the correct position, along the handles shortest path, and really leave the decision up to Ella to take either obstacle.

Lindsey introduced Georgia to the 2×2 weave method!  Georgia doesn’t have a high toy drive outside of her home so she was confused with the reinforcement on the reward line.  Jo played with her with food in a zip lock bag to get her to start driving at a “bait bag” of sorts independent from the 2×2s.

We also worked on proofing contacts on the see-saw and dog walk.  Ella was brilliant on the see-saw but ran off a couple of times on the dog walk.  I did get it so I could throw bags of treats down as she descended the dog walk and she hit position.  Hooray!

As for the frame… the frame in our backyard is now completely flat and Jo and I have been working on backchaining using the acrylic square / purple duct tape to get the behavior that we want before we raise the frame.  Once on the flat frame, a lot of the successes we had in other environment melted away as she runs to do behaviors on a piece of equipment that she recognizes.  This continues to be a challenge but we are working patiently as this stage is integral to the success of our made up method!!  Although I am very anxious to start hiking the frame up… I hope once she has a complete understanding of what her job is, raising the frame incrementally will progress steadily.  Keep posted!

The running contact saga

So after trying two different running contact methods with Ella (clicking contact with a certain area of the contact zone with the help of the hoop and Ali Roukas-Canova’s yellow board method), we’ve decided to invent our own method.  We’ll see how it goes!

Basically we’re replacing the board in Ali’s method with a purple X of duct tape.  For the first part we’re putting the purple tape on a big acrylic target.  We’re aiming for a similar behavior as Ali asks for the board.  Then we’ll tape the acrylic target with the purple tape to the A-frame.  Eventually we plan to take away the target and use just the purple tape.  Then we’ll gradually make the piece of tape smaller and smaller.  Many people teach an up contact behavior using duct tape.

Right now we’re working on Ella driving towards the acrylic target and pressing it down.

Birthday presents!

Just had to post pictures of my birthday presents…

From Laurey, a custom Sheltie topiary frame!

From my parents, an all expenses paid trip to the All Dogs Gym Tournament Trial in Manchester, NH!  Hmm… I wonder if that includes entry fees haha.  And a customized Nemo birthday card from my aunt and uncle with spending money for agility

Good Dog visit to Scarsdale Library

Nemo visits the Scarsdale Library as part of the Good Dog Foundation’s Wag the Tale program.  Here is a picture of one of the kids reading the book, Skunkdog, last Saturday.

Photo taken by Andi Schreiber

On another note, I’ve been working on rear end awareness but realized that Nemo thinks the behavior is not putting his back feet on the book, but backing up regardless of whether he needs to step on the box to continue moving. 

At first I tried replacing the book with a box, since it was higher and would require a more deliberate reaching movement.  That didn’t seem to work so I’m doing a combination of clicking the moment he picks his foot up to reach for the box to isolate the reaching movement (versus clicking when his foot hits the box) and also moving the box away from the wall.  I’d been using the wall to keep the box from moving, but this also meant he just thought back up as much as possible until the wall is behind you and P.S. the box is in the way.

Another lesson learned.  I put the back up behavior on cue, but have since realized he thinks he should only move backwards if I’m kneeling and give him the cue (the position I’ve been in when I shaped the behavior).  So for the future, I need to shape a behavior in several locations and body positions before naming it!

Rear end awareness!

Yesterday I tried to work on some pinwheel work with Nemo in the backyard.  Unfortunately the snow and ice was making footing less than ideal.  So inside we go!

I’ve been trying to not be a lazy dog owner and feed Nemo’s meals in his dish.  Instead I’m taking his kibble and working on shaping games.  This will get us in shape for ClickerExpo in March (Nemo is what they call a “crossover dog” — a dog not originally clicker trained — so he often defaults to a down or sit instead of offering more than a couple behaviors that go unrewarded) and builds in quality one-on-one time into the day.

Nemo really doesn’t have much rear end awareness, in other words, he has no idea what his hind feet are doing.  Let’s put it this way, one time Nemo walked across our living room and his back feet caught on the wire of a friend’s Playstation game.  He dragged the entire system down onto the floor and he didn’t even look back.  He kept walking while dragging the gaming system on the floor behind him!

To start, I put a large book on the floor and intended to click anytime his back feet touched the book.  However, he’s so used to targeting with his front feet that it was extremely difficult to get him to offer anything but the front feet.

So I removed the book and worked on getting him to walk backwards.  I first clicked a slight backwards movement, then I rolled the treat in between his front legs.  This caused him to put his head between his legs and walk backwards to get the treat (reward placement in action!)

Once he was consistantly walking backwards, I put the book back on the ground and had him do a nose touch to position him where he could then walk backwards and touch the book with his hind feet.  This was effective, but I could tell he still thought that he was being clicked for the backwards movement and not for touching the book.  I think he thought that the book was just in the way to walking backwards.

In order to keep reinforcement high (without luring!), I set the book between Piper’s bird cage and a chair.  This way, anytime he moved backwards he was bound to be successful and touch the book with his back legs. I also treated in front of me, so that after eating the treat he was in perfect position to walk backwards and hit the book again (therefore being able to do several repetitions very quickly).

After a few successful repetitions, I fed him farther away from the book so that he had to walk backwards a longer distance to hit the book.  I wanted to be sure he understood that it was touching the book with his back feet that was earning the reward and not walking backwards.  After a couple successes here, I ended the training session.  I think he may be starting to get it!

I just don’t understand the whole Cesar Millan craze…

It amazes me how popular Cesar Millan (aka The Dog Whisperer) is and how millions of people are willing to blindly follow him because he is on tv and trains dogs on an (edited) show.  Just a little research uncovers how his methods may mask a behavior problem in the short term (convienent for tv) but can make it worse in the long term.

I’ll quote Dr. Andrew Luescher, Veterinary Behaviorist at Perdue University’s Animal Behavior Clinic since he can explain it much better.

“Millan’s techniques are almost exclusively based on two techniques: Flooding and positive punishment. In flooding, an animal is exposed to a fear (or aggression) evoking stimulus and prevented from leaving the situation, until it stops reacting. To take a human example: arachnophobia would be treated by locking a person into a closet, releasing hundreds of spiders into that closet, and keeping the door shut until the person stops reacting. The person might be cured by that, but also might be severely disturbed and would have gone through an excessive amount of stress. Flooding has therefore always been considered a risky and cruel method of treatment.

Positive punishment refers to applying an aversive stimulus or correction as a consequence of a behavior. There are many concerns about punishment aside from its unpleasantness. Punishment is entirely inappropriate for most types of aggression and for any behavior that involves anxiety. Punishment can suppress most behavior but does not resolve the underlying problem, i.e., the fear or anxiety.”

And here are just a few of the animal behavior professionals that say Cesar Millan’s methods are dangerous and abusive.  These are people who have been scientifically researching dog behavior for years.

The American Humane Society
“Several instances of cruel and dangerous treatment – promoted by Millan as acceptable training methods – were documented, including one in which a dog was partially asphyxiated in an episode.”

Dr. Patricia McConnell, PhD, CAAB
Doctorate in Zoology (Dissertation: Dog behavior and communication between professional trainers and working domestic animals)
Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist

Dr. Ian Dunbar, PhD
Doctorate in Animal Behavior (Research: Olfactory communication, social behavior, and aggression in domestic dogs)
Veterinarian
Physiology and Biochemistry degree

Dr. Jim Ha, PhD, CAAB
Doctorate in Zoology with a specialization in Animal Behavior
Research Associate Professor at the University of Washington
Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist
“In our practice, we see MANY cases of dogs with severe aggression, and in performing our detailed background interviews and assessments, we find that the dog has gotten worse following treatment with behavior modification techniques similar to those of Millan’s.  These cases elegantly support what we already know from the science of animal behavior, called ethology.”

Dr. Andrew Luescher
Veterinary Behaviorist at Perdue University’s Animal Behavior Clinic
“Millan’s techniques are outdated and unacceptable not only to the veterinary community, but also to dog trainers.”

Dr. Nicholas Dodman
Veterinarian, Professor, and Program Director of the Animal Behavior Clinic at Tufts University Veterinary School
Calls Millan’s techniques “abuse.”

Jean Donaldson
Director of Dog Training at the San Francisco SPCA

Claudia Kawczynska
Editor-in-chief of Bark magazine
Likens Millan’s popularity to the anti-science, anti-academic sentiment she sees prevalent in American culture and politics.

To see his methods at work, this news show contains a few clips which show him using the positive punishment method with a shock collar: http://www.komonews.com/home/video/37440019.html?video=pop&t=a

Victoria Stillwell deals with aggressive dogs on her show, It’s Me or the Dog, except she uses positive methods.  Her show isn’t as popular because, lets face it people want to see crazy fighting and scary reactions when they watch television. 

Even if Millan’s methods didn’t have long term fallout, knowing we can achieve the same results without shock collars or causing the dog stress, why would anyone choose Millan’s outdated methods?

I’ll give him one thing, he sure is good at marketing!