Whistle Wally, Day 2

Another day of working with the whistle and the learning curve is there for the both of us to be sure!

I'm still trying to make my signals consistent so that he can have a clear signal to pick up on. Meanwhile, he's still get used to the concept that he won't hear my voice give the signal and that he can't just key off my body or movement to get 'hints' on what to do.

That said, I did give the voice cues in an effort to teach him what the whistle sound means. That seemed to work before, but tonight, it seemed to regress a bit. After getting some mixed results and starting to see a few signs he was getting confused and uncertain, I decided to try another strategy.

Since I have a hand signal for staying while walking with me (he stops while I keep moving) and for the 'front' (where he comes from where he is to sit directly in front of me), I decided to throw those while giving the end of the whistle signal. So the stay-while-walking signal get tossed out while the long signal tweet is going on and the signal for 'front' comes just before I stop the third short tweet.

This seemed to make more sense to him and he started to respond more quickly and more sharply. He didn't look confused either and I saw that eagerness in him pick up again. While this might have been something of a set back, it's things that let us find more ways to communicate and work together so he can have success again.

One behavior that's still strong is the 'stay' while he's going after something. I did it twice, got him all hyped up and send up to go 'chase' something (there wasn't anything, but he went out and was searching for something and sniffing and all that), and then I gave the 'stay' whistle, and he stopped and looked at me. Great! Then I took the chance to bring him back with hand signal + whistle strategy and he came back nicely. Maybe we're on to something on which we can build on.

"All-Positive Monday" 9: Fronts, Go-Arounds, And...Scary Food Bowl?!

The ninth "All-Positive Monday" happened, and for the most part it was another success, but there was some..."quirks" in it today. Read on.


Fun With Fronts With Finishes Thrown In


This was something of a game. I would move away from him and entice him to come get me. I walked backwards as fast as I could while he comes trotting up to me to catch me. Then I stop. When he gets up to me, he sits down and then I click and treat him. We keep doing this all over, around corners, up and down stairs. He gets really excited with this and after a while I can't get all that far away from him since he's charging after me or mirroring my movement.

At this point, I just keep taking a couple steps back. He follows, and then I do it again. I click and treat after a few of these and then start backing up more and more times. I can hear him start to do his "dog laugh" and he starts "sitting harder" each time.

When we went outside for a walk, I let him get some running in by putting him in a stay and then going quite a ways from him (one day, I'll have to show a picture since I can't judge distances at all) and called him to front. He charges all hard and then comes to an abrupt stop in a front. I give him a treat and repeat the process. He loves this and it gets him some good sprinting in.

For the finishes, we didn't do anything special, but I attached it at the end of each sequence. This made it something of a precursor to a treat and another round of the activity which then became like a double reward for the behavior, making up, hopefully, for fewer "formal" repetitions with it.


Go Go Go-Arounds...Or At Least We Wanted To

For the go-around (where he goes around the indicated object) we played the station-to-station game. Or at least what we could of it. Back when we first played it, the weather was still kind of cool and the days a little on the short side, so there was some time we could go out and have the playground basically to ourselves. Now, with the weather warm and the days longer, kids are out all over the place (and I swear they are all girls, and little ones at that, which we just get no escape from). This was the first "quirk" that got in our way.

With all this activity, there's just no way to get the game in as there would be too many distractions and all they need to see is a dog they thing is sooooo cute and want to pet all the time running around the playground to get their attention. I swear, little kids have their own version of "prey drive"!

Anyway, for what we could get in, we did have some fun playing the game again. Wally remembered the go-around easily and loved the game just as much. I hated to cut it short, and Wally was still all fully of energy and jumping and bouncing around trying to get me to start the game again.


Really? Running From Your Food?

This really, really has me stumped right now. I mean, seriously, he is suddenly running from his food bowl and gets scared when he's laying beside it in what was his usual "CAN I HAZ IT NOW?" place where he waits for me to "allow" him to eat.

In fact, when I give the go ahead (literally, I say "go ahead!"), he goes to open the door and runs down the other end of the hall. Or to the laundry room (go figure that one too). What's equally odd is that if I put the food in a white bowl (one of my bowls) he'll eat it up. And then, as if it wasn't odd enough, this only happens during dinner. Breakfast, he just eats it right up.

Well, he's going to have to eat from the food bowl. So this part of the "All-Positive Monday" was devote to desensitizing him...to his own food bowl. Fortunately, it didn't take much to get him to get up (since he was hungry) and start to come over to sniff my fingers (I had some of the food on them). When he licked the food, I praised him. He kept doing it until he took the food off my fingers, which got him more praise.

Then I used a bit of targeting to get him to put his head in the bowl, praising every movement to the food. He was still a bit hesitant, but with some more encouraging and started to lick/nibble at the food. This earned him more praise and he then started actually eating, which got him more praise and I went away. I noticed that once he started eating, he devoured his food like normal, even licking the ball clean.

I don't get it. He still loves the food, he's very hungry, and once he eats, he's all normal (and looking at me like "Look! I ate my dinner!"). If any one has an explanation for this, I'm all ears. Right now, this has me completely baffled. I mean, when I put treats in the bowl to test and said "go ahead!" he chomped them down (this was before dinner) so it's just when it's his food in the bowl.

I don't know. It's one of those times I wish I could read his mind to know why he's suddenly doing this.


Even with the scary food bowl business, it was a good day and another success.

Re-Training Front and Finish

We took a break from the games to work on sitting in front and finish positions. Wally's drifted out of position for these, and it's hard to understand where he got the idea from, but whatever the case, he needs to be refreshed in these positions. He used to be able to come from a looong distance away (don't know how long it is) and come to a perfect screeching halt-sit-front right in front of me. Then short distances became even a problem and I didn't even want to try the longer distances.

Fumbling Fronts

It got so bad at one point to where he didn't even want to do fronts anymore because he could understand why he was doing it wrong and I probably wasn't giving him good enough clues to help him along either, thinking he knew it and just needed to figure it out. Then, of course, calming signals kicked in as well, making him want to keep space between us, causing him to sit further out of position.

What I ended up turning into was good old targeting. Targeting my hand is almost a reflex at this point and using that to bring him to front position accurately also overcame his tentativeness in performing it as well.

With the clearer picture for him, he was getting the idea again and coming forward much more enthusiastically. He put his nose on my hand and sat down right in position. Getting praised, clicks, and rewards just made him more excited, which made him do the next one twice as good. The target could be faded as well, though at this point he still gets the target sometimes. It's looking like we are getting back to where it was.

Finding Finish

Finish wasn't as mixed up, but there was still problems with his execution. One of the most common errors he'd make was sitting more perpendicular to me instead of parallel to me. This is one of those times where I wish I knew what he was thinking to make him think that was the right thing to do! It was a very creative error, it's too bad there was anything I could do with it...

Another particularly interesting error was when he would sit in what would be front position, except in the opposite facing and location. For example, if I was walking forward where finish would be on my left, he would sit on my right in otherwise perfect position and be facing in the opposite direction! Write up another for the Mysteries Only Dogs Know file. Oh if only to swap places with him for a day...

Anyway, fixing this was another exercise in targeting. This time, my hand to my side brings him around (and this also means he actually does know what it is...) to sit in the proper place. Most of the more minor errors are him sitting too far back, which this corrects. Now as for the perpendicular thing, I don't know. I don't think I'll ever figure that one out...

Like with "front", he's getting back in the groove with finish. I think keeping up with the targeting and keeping up with the review will help him. I need to incorporate them more into "daily life" as well. If anyone has any ideas on day-to-day tasks (even if we have to make them up/start new routines) that can either be used with front/finish, please feel free to share!