Wally's Art Lesson 5: Introducing White and More Observations

It's been a while since we worked on colors, and this time, I wanted to introduce another color. I picked white for a couple reasons.


One, to test a theory about contrast, or perhaps the lack of, being an issue in the room. Two, to also see if it was a sound issue between "azul" and "amarillo" that was at the root of the confusion for him.

Another change was a change in objects. I switched to some different colored strips of rabbit skins I had bought for him for a different purpose (trying to teach scent discrimination) but the colors came in handy for this. The thinking here was that texture might have something to do with it. The "flashcards" and the cones have a shiny texture - perhaps reflecting light oddly and interfering with his color vision.

Immediately on starting, Wally seemed to have no problems picking out white (using "blanco" as the cue). This points directly at the contrast issue. The carpet is a sort-of dark gray (I guess you could call it "medium gray") and the white stands out tremendously. The blue was also on his bed, which is lighter colored. He seemed a little better at finding the blue color in this case. Putting it back on the carpet, though, and it was more of a challenge.

The same occurred when I put the colors on my bed. The dark red sheets on the bed probably look just like the carpet, which brings up the same issues with the blue. In fact, he could see the white color so well, he would pick it up when I called "azul" in hopes of being right! He was like "I can SEE this one, isn't it the one you want?"

When I swapped out the blue for the yellow, he could find the yellow better. Another notch in the contrast theory. The yellow stands out much more than the blue in all cases.

This makes me think it's a combination of the lighting (perhaps not strong enough) and the colors in the room as well. I don't think, yet, the sound of the cues ("azul" vs "amarillo") is making the difference at this point. After all, he gets "abres" and "abajo" and "arriba" just fine, even if I use them in ambiguous contexts (like saying "abajo" near a door)

The strips of rabbit skin

The light levels in the pictures attempt to illustrate my thinking with light level impacting our progress. The top picture was taken with no flash, and is a better representation of the light level in the room. The bottom was with flash. The blue especially comes through much better with the higher light level. The other colors seem more rich as well. The shadows also disappeared (granted, the flash was right near the objects so I don't know how well that effect can be reproduced "naturally), and I know shadows are something dogs see well (it's how they detect and track movement so well, they can see the change in the shadowing on an object as it moves).

I could try this in a brighter room, like the living room, where there's more natural light coming in. The natural light could also do more to help his vision (dog eyes might work best only with natural light - could be the UV rays in the color spectrum, etc, that artificial light doesn't really give off.) I would take this outside, but then I think I'll be fighting more than just the colors.

May be on to something, and best thing is that there's hope yet for teaching colors to him!

New Game Idea: Wally vs Me or Competitive Training

I just got this idea in my head and have started to flesh out how I'd go about it and what the competition would be like. But first, I'll explain what I mean.

Competitive Training?

"Competitive Training" is what I call it because Wally and I will be "competing" for a common high-value resource that we both want. Badly.

If he performs the required behavior correctly, he'll get a piece. If he does, he gets to watch me eat what would have been his piece.

But this won't just be with Ye Olde Bread Balls (at least not this time, and he does love them) but this will be what might be his highest-of-the-high value, the penultimate food prize, the true to-die-for morsel he could ever think of...

Lemon cake.

I have some, and I will use it as the bounty.

Oh and we'll keep score, and I'll post it, just like a baseball box score.

Fun With A Practical Side

I love games and think they are a big help to training dogs. These "competitive training" sessions will help him learn the skills that are the subject of the day and also give him more opportunity to practice them in a highly positive emotional context/environment, which seems to help him learn things very quickly. It will also take some of the edge/frustration of getting a no-reward marker and he'll have to control himself enough to understand the situation, listen for the cue, and then think about what the right behavior is.

Doing this will also allow me to mix up the training sessions for him. I can be more animated and dramatic because I'm not as concerned with picking up the behavior as I am making it all this big deal to him. I'll also do this to up the challenge subtly as I'm now being as big a distraction as anything else and revving up his emotions to higher than usual levels. Oh yes, I plan to get him barking and wagging and jumping up.

Plus, if it's easy, what does he learn?

There's also another practical purpose - the days he "loses" or "barely wins" are areas in which we need to work more on during "formal" training sessions. Gaps/weaknesses in what we've done so far will show up, giving me a better picture of where we are.

Rules of the Game

Here's the rules:

1. The only "behavioral rule" will be to stay engaged in the game at all times. This won't be a problem, though, unless something unexpected happens and freaks him out. We'll put the game on "pause" if that happens to let him settle down.
   
   
2. Each day, a new skill will be picked and at least 20 trials will be run through but there could be any number at the high end (realistically, probably about 40 at the most - I only have so much lemon cake and can make the pieces only so small!)
   
   
3. Any known context is applicable and can be called upon.
   
   
4. Only reasonably well-known behaviors/cues will be required. For example, asking him to get his dumbbell from a pile of objects is fair game, asking him to get "azul" instead of the "conejo" is not.
   
   
5. A success gets him a treat, a failure means I eat it instead.

And the preliminary schedule of "events", so to speak:

Day 1 - Abres y Cierras (opening and closing doors)
Day 2 - Arriba y Abajo (going up and down stairs)
Day 3 - Vámonos y Pare (going and stopping)
Day 4 - Pelota y Conejo (determining his ball and rabbit)
Day 5 - Azul y Amarillo (the return of the blue and yellow cards or cones)

If I think of more stuff he'll have fun competing against me with, I'll add them in somewhere and the schedule can change.

Oh, and yes, all the cues will be the Spanish words I've been using.


Hopefully, we'll be able to kick this off tomorrow. Also, I hope Wally wins and beats me badly! That would mean he's learned everything very well and in more than just one situation!

Wally's Art Lesson 3: First Go At Color Discrimination

Having introduced him to both colors for some days and then let him take a break from colors training, I felt it was as good a time as any to give him a run through with both colors and calling each color out randomly and he has to indicate the color in some way (pawing, nose touches, picking up, etc).

To begin, I refreshed his mind with the colors. I left both flashcards out and then called for just one color. We did this before, so this was a review of sorts and to bring the concept back to the top of his mind. It would also warm him up for the next exercise by getting him used to looking at both colors again and picking out the right one.

As usual, I would change the positions of the flashcards after some repetitions. I'd send him back to his bed for a bit while I switch the cards and get some more treats out. Did this for some sets and then sent him back. At this point, we would start the first testing of his color discrimination.

The cards were set out again, and I'd start calling out the colors. No pattern to them, and I'd go slowly. I gave a few "hints" (a soft 'ah-ah') if he went to the wrong color, and a click and treat if he picked the right color, even if it wasn't on his first try. After a few trials, the "hints" stopped and it was all on him.

At this point, I would simply, re-call the color name if he went to the wrong one. He seemed to pick up on the fact that if he got the click, he picked the right one. If he got the color name again, he was choosing the wrong one. He was getting better at picking the right color on the first try after about a dozen repetitions.

There was still some going to the wrong color (this happened especially with the blue flashcard, perhaps there's something there I should explore), and some of the problem was that he wasn't waiting for the color called out. He would pick the color he just got rewarded for - something else I'll have to think about as well.

It looks like he at least is getting the idea and wasn't bad overall. I think he can get better with this, and, as usual, he'll probably show me any "glitches" in the previous training that I need to iron out as we go forward.

Tomorrow will be the sixth "All-Positive Monday" and I need YOUR help! (is it wrong that I "heard" that in my mind as Dora's voice?) I know one thing I will be doing and that's the picking up. We'll be working on picking up objects. Any other good ideas to try that might could be taught/introduced in an all-positive (meaning only using positive reinforcement) way.

I'm looking forward to hearing some ideas!

"All-Positive Monday" V: Of Colors and Looking at Kids

Today, we worked the colors a lot. The day started with working with yellow and doing some more of the usual show->call->he touches->mark and reward procedure and getting him "into the game" so to speak.

But this time, I also introduced a new scenario using them.

While we are still working on the teaching of the colors, I started introducing both colors to him in the same session. Not so much of discrimination just yet, but alternating which one I show him to get his mind used to thinking about both colors at the same time.

I randomly displayed a color and called out it's name, and he touched it as usual. To keep him from just zoning in on which side the color was on (the cards were in my lap each resting on one of my legs), I would switch them around a few times every so often before showing him a color and calling it. I also changed up how fast the colors displayed so he didn't get into a timing rhythm either. Hopefully, it also made his mind shift gears a bit from waiting to seeing the color, to waiting again, making him focus attention and stay alert since he never knew when I'd show a card.

After a little bit of a break, both to give down time and let his mind process what happened, I went back to one color, but added a new dynamic: distance. I put Wally in a sit-stay and moved some distance away, then showed the color and called the name. He had to come and touch it as normal, but after getting the mark and reward, I moved back more and called the name again. This put a spin on the game while also getting him into the swing of seeing the color/card from a distance and on the move, not just while largely stationary and only a foot away from him. At the end, I even did a couple where I went completely out of his sight. This was something of a challenge for him, but it was a taste of the next level, so to speak.

The other part of the day was playing the "Look At That" game, but only with kids. After seeing still some hesitation and uncertainty around kids, especially ones that tend to run to get to him, I decided to devote the outdoor portions of the day to this. With Spring looking like it is actually here to stay (maybe - never know with April weather!) and Spring Break coming up and the longer days, kids will be out more often when we go walking and some might come to pet him or just the general activity and movement from their play near where we happen to be walking. It will be good to help build his "resolve" around kids some.

I'm also going to have to remember to have treats in my pocket, both for the Look At That game and for letting them offer him the treats. I noticed that the girls (and I say girls all the time because it's ALWAYS been girls) that he's taken treats from before, he seems to warm up to faster, even if they startle him a bit, so that seems to be a winning strategy.

After that it was dinner time and time for him to get some much deserved rest. He had a rather mentally challenging day.

"All-Positive Monday" IV

The fourth "All-Positive Monday" included the color training as planned. We did some more reviewing mentioned in this post with a little more added challenge in that I bypassed the showing him the color. I just went straight to putting the flashcard somewhere, and telling him "azul" and he had to go find it and touch it (or bring it back). I believe he's getting the idea of the name as there were times where I put it almost right under him (he couldn't see it and didn't think to look under his own body) and he was looking around in previous locations for the card, scanning for the card. When he found it, he moved quickly to it. I think this is a good sign of progress. I also introduced the card being attached to an object at about eye level and continued to reward him touching the object, creating another little twist and another way to get him familiar to how the card might be presented.

Doing this kind of work with him might have shown me one place where going all positive reinforcement could be easily viable - creating associations. In this case, it's between a familiar object (blue flashcard) and a name ("azul"). Creating the initial attraction/attention on the object also was nothing but positive reinforcement. Basically, just marking and rewarding any attention he pays to the object and I let him just go with it in terms of how he wanted to interact. The other association case I can think of is connecting a name or signal to an existing behavior. For example, during "touch" training, Wally would reliably offer putting his nose on the object. Just before he completes the behavior (before the nose hits the object), I would say "touch", then mark when the nose hits the object and give a reward.

Then of course, there's the "charging the marker" which is creating that first association that the click (or whatever reward marker(s) you choose to teach) signals that the dog earned a coming reward.

It may be time to give "azul" a bit of a break and start introducing "amarillo", the yellow flashcard. Or perhaps I'll try transfering "azul" from 'off the flashcard' and onto a blue object, and have him retrieve it by it's color - well, that might be too ambitious, but the card maybe could be mixed in with another object, increasing the challenge a little more. We'll see. Part of me wants to let "azul" rest for a few days to settle in his brain. As always, thoughts are welcome.

Wally's Art Lesson 1: Azul means Blue

Wally's color training began today and we worked on blue. At this point, the main focus is trying to teach him the name of the color and how to indicate the color.

Of course, I'm using "Azul" which is blue in Spanish. The process is pretty simple at this point:

1. I show him the blue flashcard and say "azul".
2. Wally already knows nose-touching and he goes up to the card and pushes it with his nose.
3. I mark and reward that (using a clicker at this point, though I'll use my voice eventually). 
4. After doing 1 through 3 for about 20 times as fast as I can to keep him alert and engaged, I start moving the card around so he has to move to get to it.
5. After doing step 4 about 20 more times, I put the card down somewhere in a not-right-in-front-of-him-but-not-hidden place and say "azul".
6. Now he has to look around for the thing he's been touching upon hearing "azul". Hopefully, this will further emphasize in his mind what the color looks like, since he has to actually find it to get the reward.
7. Upon finding it, I accepted any indication that he was deliberately stopping and interacting with the card. I would take a deliberate paw touch, a nose touch, or he can pick it up and bring it to me (which is what he ended up doing after a while). Just brushing his nose past it or stepping on it in passing did NOT get him a reward. 
8. If he looked lost, I gave no indication of where the card was. If he looked at me for more information, I would calmly re-state "azul" to him. That was the only information he was going to get. He had to find the card on his own.
9. I did steps 5 through 9 about 20 more times before giving him a reward for working with me and then I let him unwind. He went to sleep in my lap not too long after that and slept for a good 3 hours straight!