"All-Positive Monday 17" - Another Twist to Object Discrimation

This video of a dog performing object discrimination is the inspiration of this week's All-Positive Monday. 

Yes, that's not something new, but this is a new way to approach it. Instead of trying to have Wally match by name (not that we are going to give up on that), but instead by appearance.

In the video, it goes through how she taught her dog this.

So, this week's All-Positive Monday had us working the beginnings of this, the foundations as it were.

First, I started with getting him interested in the objects in general. These were all new objects to him (I bought some small stuff animals from IKEA), so he wasn't familiar at all with them. I want him to have a good interest in these objects, which frees him up from worrying about them or being curious, and can focus on the training.

Next, I worked on him just looking at the object. For so long, we've been working on him going up to objects and trying to interact with them. Now, I just want him to look - and that's it. No grabbing, no trying to get it, just look at it.

And not looking at me. That's another thing. He's used to looking at me and not what he wants (derived from part of "leave it" training and self-control). Sometimes, that makes him turn from the object to look at me. I'm going to have to put a cue to it to have him look at the object. We did this today as well.

Believe it or not, this drained him pretty good. I didn't think this would be too much of a challenge for him, but it worked him mentally it seems. He was crashed out after this session.

After a nap, I started with some basics of matching. I used just one pair so I had one object and the match was some distance away from us. I cued him to look at the object (and worked on that) and then used our "Dónde está?" cue to have him go finding the match.

Now this, I can see being quite the challenge for him. He had no choice but to succeed, since the only object there was the match. He picked it up and brought it back, and earned a reward. After a few trails with that pair, I switched pairs. Still the same exercise and cue.

After being drained some more, he crashed out again and sleep a LONG time this time around. I had to wake him up to eat! I really taxed his brain and between that and dinner, he slept really well all night long.

I suppose there's no better ending to an all-positive training day than a good night of peaceful sleep!

Object Discrimination 5: First Attempt At Three Objects

Tonight, I upped it to three objects. All three objects where down, including a new one, "perro" a little stuff dog. This was different in lots of areas and would present a challenge to Wally.

At first, I introduced him to "perro". I pointed to "perro" and when he touched the little stuffed dog, I clicked and rewarded him. I repeated this multiple times and then put out two other objects, his first new ball (still using "pelota") and the same bone as before, the soft, big one.

Once done, I called for "perro" again. He did go to the dog toy again, but then again, it was in the same spot and the same object he was rewarded for, so it follows that it would be his first choice. I called for "hueso" next, his bone. Now that confused him. In fact, the bone was a hard object for him to find! I don't understand why that was, but he just was at a loss to find it.

He did eventually find the bone somewhat consistently, and then I threw in "pelota". Another bit of confusion and he went back to the bone a lot. The ball was just sitting there, in plain view and he wouldn't turn around to find it. I think what happened was that his usual search pattern kicked in. Too bad for him, the ball was in the opposite direction!

Wally did get the ball, and now it was time to have him looking for an object at random. He was challenged, at times he seemed to want to give up, but I wouldn't let that happen. I don't know if I was pushing his limits, but with encouragement, my constant calling out the object, and the rewards I used (the new treats I got at the last trip to Petco) kept him going and he did find the object I called out for.

After that, I gave him a two minute break. I stroked him slowly and gently while he sat in front of me and just let him have a little time to recover and unwind.

Then I tried to add 'dónde está?' so I would say 'dónde está perro?', for example, and he had to at least go to the proper object, the dog toy in this case. Once I did this, he got the object a couple times and brought it to me, but I think it was too much. Also 'dónde está?' is the "find it" cue so that might have entered his mind. A positive (at least in my view it's positive!) sign is that when I said 'dónde está?', he was ready to look, but waited for me to stay the object name. He may have been waiting for the object name to know what to go looking for - something for me to watch going forward.

I switched to "go get _____ " and that helped him. For now, I think I'll stick with that, at least for these exercises.

We had been working for about 30 minutes, so I ended the session, let him jump up on me and let him unwind and process things (he's currently sleeping next to me).

Blend of Object Immersion and Discrimination

Not sure what "catchy" title to call this. It's not just object discrimination or object immersion, but today we did some of both, with also giving him his first all-Spanish "sentence": 'Donde está ____ ?' which sends him looking around for the object in the blank.


Where's That Bone?

Since the bone, 'hueso', is the object we've spent the most time with, that was the first object. I pulled out his big soccer ball (not his new ball) and put that in the floor. I tossed the bone a little past the ball, so he'd have to cross the ball's path to get to the bone.

As I thought, he would try for the ball a lot. After some simple "nope" whenever he would even try to interact with the ball he started looking around. He found the bone and that got rewarded heartily (with homemade cinnamon banana bread).

Now that he's all hyped up because there's now a super reward attached to this, he kept going for the ball again! This was likely excitement combined with the fact that in the past we've worked only one object at a time - so the concept I might be wanting something else has a hard time sinking in so far.

But, once he got some more "nope" from me, he started looking for that bone. I kept calling "hueso! hueso!" and he kept looking around. After some successes with the bone in one spot, I tossed it somewhere else, again so he doesn't just get used to going to that spot.

He got into the groove and I hid the bone behind my back and kept calling "hueso!". I wanted to see if he could recognize the bone wasn't there at all. I wanted confusion because that means he's looking for the object, can't find it, and he's looking around and "asking" for help. Once I saw that and he wasn't looking at me, I'd hold the bone out. Once he turned around and saw it, he came running up to it, and I rewarded him.

Then that's when I threw in "Donde está hueso?". He already knows "Donde está?" as his cue to find it. So hearing that question will already put him in the "find it, find it!" mode. This time, I specified "it", the bone - hueso.

He looked around, and a few times wanted to go for the ball, but didn't! He pulled away and kept looking around (the bone was on the bed, not hidden, but not in plain sight). Initially, he was confused, still looking around the floor, but got a thought to try the bed. He jumped up and found the bone, brought it back, and got his reward.

Did this for about 10 minutes or so, and then switched objects.


Now, where's the ball?

For this trial, the soccer ball was replaced by his new ball (this would be the target) and I put down one of his favorite toys and another random object as the decoys.

To help his mind change gears, I did a quick touch exercise with the ball (pelota). I said "pelota" with the ball right there near him, so it was easy for him to touch it. What's interesting is the first few times, he was tentative - as if he knew that before he wasn't supposed to get the ball! That was interesting to watch.

Once he was touching the ball eagerly. I tossed it up on the bed (while he was getting the reward so he couldn't see it) and called "Donde está pelota?" He looked around and didn't see the ball. He went for his favorite toy, drawing a "nope" from me. He brought it to me anyway, and I just took from him and tossed it back and called for the ball again.

After a little more searching, he found the ball and retrieved it. He didn't try to bring back the other objects too often, which was good to see. A few times he went for his toy, but that was it.


Observing His Search Pattern

While he looked for the objects, I watched his searching. Often, he searches the same area repeatedly before thinking to move to a new area. It seems he's also broken down the room into three parts: the area with the bed, the area around his favorite corner (with the TV as well), and the area between the two. I'm not certain why he searches the same area multiple times - perhaps he thinks it will appear or show up and he doesn't want to miss it.

Of course, once he finds the object in an area, he will go back there the next time, usually as the first place he looks. He did go look in the "TV part" of the room a few times, but not particularly often (mostly when looking for the ball - wonder why).

Perhaps that could be the next thing down the line, trying to improve the efficiency of his searching. That sounds like a real big challenge!

Wally's Spanish "Vocabulary" Grows: ¿Dónde está? (Where is it?)

Yet another cue fell under the influence of the improved learning when switching to a Spanish word (or in this case, a short sentence).

Well, perhaps, not so much "improved" but he certain took to it immediately, and I'm wondering why.

The cue this time was "find it!" which, as you might guess, cues him to start searching around trying to find "it". Part of the quest for object discrimination is to be more specific than "it" but, right now, this is where we are. Changing over to "¿Dónde está?" (Where is it?) took hardly any time at all. This was really interesting because usually, there's some period where he's still trying to figure it out. But with this, he just got all over it.

Don't know why! Perhaps it's that it's connected to sniffing? Maybe it ends up being self-rewarding as he enjoys the sniffing and then of course if there's something for him to eat, he'll love the food.

As usual, we played something of a game with it. I hid lots of treats around in various places and I would take him to the places and cue "¿Dónde está?" for him to go find the treats. He does seem to not quite understand that the one cue is for all the treats he can find, so that's one place he will need to figure out, but given the early returns, that should be no real problem at all.

Adding on the object names one day will probably be where the challenge skyrockets in using this expression. That will certainly be an adventure, and probably take a lot of time and practice. 

Of course, I'm still wondering why the "new language" is working this well. There is one expression he just can't get at all and that's "Buenas noches" (good night) in place of "bedtime". Now this one is taking a lot longer for him to get. It's got to be a sounds thing. I wish I knew of a good way to test which phonics sounds he hears well and poorly! Anyone have an ideas?