Wally vs Me: Day 3 - Vámanos/Pare

First, no scorecard picture as my camera's battery ran out so I can't get the picture. Sorry about that.

However, I can report that Wally surprised me with his performance as I thought this would be quite the challenge for him, but instead, he mopped up.

The final score was Wally winning 29-7, a 80.5% success rate. This is his highest percentage so far, beating out his Day 1 percentage of 76.3%. This was great to see as at first, he had a real hard time with these two, especially "pare" as he couldn't get the connection that this was the old "wait" behavior.

Wally, though, clicked and clicked often. There wasn't even much of a "warm-up" period where he would struggle and then run off successes. This time, he mostly struggled from excitement. It didn't help that there was a lot of movement going on and without any run of failures, his spirits were always sky high and ready to go, sometimes missing what I would want him to do or not coming to a stop and staying put when I said "pare".

As such, there was no real context that created more problems for him. Even at distance, he was able to get the cues and working well. Granted, his success rate was just above that "magical" 80% mark, observing him carrying out the task, he knew what he was doing, instead of the errors being ones of confusion or him hesitating and "over-thinking" the cue.

The running total thus far is Wally: 81, Me: 33, Rate: 71.1%

Not bad at all. Just really one struggling day, Day 2 with opening and closing the door.

Tomorrow is All-Positive Monday, so no game for sure as he might not always get it right (since the All-Positive Mondays are attempting to find ways where true 100% positive reinforcement training can be used). In fact, I think I'll delay as I reconsider the next two scheduled game days. Main reason being that he may not know them in enough contexts to really give him a fair chance. Those days involve object discrimination and color discrimination, two things we're really just getting the handle on.

We'll see, but for now, a good job for Wally and his part game and part training times!

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!

"All-Positive Monday 8" - Serving Up A Main Course Of Stop And Go With A Sprinkling Of Objects

We devoted much of today towards drilling "pare" in his head - meaning "stop". And we went about it taking one step at a time.

While at the same time, "vámonos" (let's go) was formally worked on as the "let's move" cue. I figured this would be good synergy in training.

To start this off, I first began with "vámonos" to get him moving as he was sitting on the porch. As soon as he stood up and began moving, he got marked and rewarded. Then I cued "pare" and gave the hand signal, and once he stopped, he got another mark and reward.

This alternation between "vámonos" and "pare" literally went step-by-step. The frequency of rewards and the completely different "walk" we were on totally captured his interest. He didn't know what kind of game this was, but he wanted to keep playing and win his prizes (this time, a left over failure of what was supposed to be a belgium waffle).

With the continued reinforcement, Wally was eagerly going into the movements, making it harder for him to stop promptly on "pare". Seeing this, I slowed down the whole process in terms of calling out the cues. Adding in this twist also added in a little work on controlling his excitement. He couldn't start shooting forward on "vámonos" because the "pare" would be coming right behind.

Once he was getting the "pare" down nicely ("vámonos" was no problem for him!), I stopped using the hand signal. Once I did that, he had only listening to tell him when to stop. Harder, as expected, but he didn't do all that badly with it.

From there, we went to more random "pare" cuing. At first the stops came kind of late (but once he did, he still got rewarded), but he must have got in the back of his mind that I'll call for a stop at any time, making him stop more promptly. All the while, he kept getting excited and was watching me intently.

Each walk we went on today went like this, giving plenty of chances for him to see what the two cues mean. The walk before dinner went without treats, as it I didn't want to spoil his appetite, earning him verbal praise and some hearty pats on the side. He got just as excited, maybe because he thought that was the invite to a game. While this wasn't a game, it did give me an idea for one to play with him sometime.


Don't Forget Your Rabbit And Ball

After his dinner and post-dinner name, but before going to bed, I had him work some more with the rabbit and ball, mostly a run through of what "conejo" and "pelota" are, his rabbit and ball, respectively.

Nothing really fancy, mostly the same beginning lessons as before. Mostly it was a review of what the objects are called, but there was more distance between him and the object to get him used to looking in the distance for the object and going to it from farther away.

No real problems here, but there shouldn't have been! Still, this must have been some challenge for him as he promptly went to sleep right after we were done. I mean he went straight to the "dead dog" position!

Maybe it was harder than it looked, or perhaps he made it look easy because he still had to really, really focus and concentrate to remember what the object looked like. I was surprised to say the least to see him that worn out, as if I had taught something completely new.

I had thought maybe it was just the time of day, his body winding down, but he was very active and alert during the actual exercise. Go figure!

Muy bien, Wally. Another good Monday for us both!

A Day of Spanish Cues: A Mini-Test and More Work On Stay

Just to mix things up a bit, I decided to give a little "test" to Wally on the Spanish cues we've been working with for quite some time now and it looks like he has an understanding of them. This was not only a test of giving the right behavior in response to known situations, but what he figures out when given the cue in new situations (for that cue).

Also, we worked more on training stay and did throw in a little more working with recognizing the ball and rabbit, but that was nothing that hasn't already been mentioned before. The majority of cues he got were in Spanish, so it was a day of Spanish for Wally.


The Mini-Test

Abajo, Arriba, Abres, y Cierras

First up would be the mini-test. This would be on the first four Spanish words I really introduced to him and used in training him.

Abajo y Arriba
 
For "abajo" and "arriba", I put him near the stairs and he had to go in the proper direction that I gave. At first, it was easy, I stayed where I usually do and cued arriba or abajo. As expected, this was no problem for him. He got these easily for both sets of stairs. A really good job and didn't really miss any, aside from the occasional "extra" barking before he would do the proper movement, especially, for some reason, with arriba. Maybe the sound of the word just sounds exciting to him!

Having mastered that, it was time to up the challenge some. I moved back from him to add some distance with him staying put. Then, I cued the direction. He was anticipating another instruction at first, and the first few times, he was confused. This was especially the case on "abajo" likely because he was even farther from me and he had to pick out the sound with some walls and such between us. Even though this was harder for him, after a while, he picked up on it.

Next was really tricky. I had him come to the middle of the hall. Arriba was to make him go up one set of stairs, but abajo was for another set. This really threw him for a loop for quite some time! Up until this point, arriba/abajo belonged to the same set of stairs, just a different position relative to him and I (probably, at least that was some part of the "picture" he had). Now, we're in the middle and it was less obvious. Wally had a tough time with this, and I certainly made a mental note of it.

The next test was as tricky as it didn't involve stairs at all, but a chair he could jump/climb into and jump down from. Or at least I though it would be tricky. He figured it out somewhat quickly, though it's probably something we could stand to work on later.

Abres y Cierras

Working these two was more limited as they relate to doors. At first, it was right near the door. A warm-up of sorts was leaving a small crack in the door (so his nose could fit) and cuing abres while a clearly opened door would have me cuing cierras. No problems here, he moved quickly and only got them mixed up when he wasn't thinking straight and just eager to one of them, usually the last behavior he did, regardless of the cue. That excitement. Looks like we need more work on controlled excitement training as well.

Increasing the challenge came mostly from creating ambiguous situations or cuing the same direction more than once (Especially for abres as this has easily practical uses - I may need him to open the door wider for something).

With the ambiguous situation, I put the door with more than a small crack in it, but not quite halfway open to where it would be clear which one I want (or where it would be impossible for him to close due to the angles and position of the door). Now this made him think! I could see him pausing before acting as if he's trying to remember which cue when with which behavior while looking at the door. It looked like he was thinking "okay, where do I need to push the door to do that?".

At first, he sort of just guessed, or took the easier looking action, but after getting some light "nope" markers, he started to think about what was going on, and starting picking the right behavior more often, and once he started getting rewards again, he was making a clearer connection and being right more, and more frequently.

To close out the test, I cued abres/cierras from various locations. I might not always be right by the door, and neither might he, though most of it was me being in different places. This worked well, he didn't get mixed up by where I was, he was focused on the door and manipulating it correctly. He did better than I might have thought initially, but I wasn't too shocked as I probably did this now and then just in day-to-day moving around the house and such.


Stop, Wally! Pare!

He's getting it better. I resumed working on the hand signal and saying "pare" and that's helping to stop a lot faster. I've even been able to move away from him while doing this and he'll stand still. Excellente! I think he'll continue making the connection as I continue drilling it (in a fun way of course!) and using a lot of Premack Principle, which is probably how I taught "wait" and "stay" to begin with.

I'm glad and maybe a bit "relieved" that he's getting a better grasp. I think there's still a little disconnect with the sound (once I gave the cue while on our walk, where we worked on it this evening, and he took a second to even register the sound, but then stopped on a dime. Another thing that will come with continued work and repetition and of course plenty of rewards (read: bread balls)!

Of course, I looked up "Spanish dog commands" in google and found this little chart of cues in foreign languages, including Spanish. Of course, there's a different word for "stay" but, hey, I figure it's fine. He doesn't know - and it's not really "Stay" (as in stay put and don't start moving) but "stop moving" (implying he's in motion) so it's more a wait.

Plus, not everyone uses the same English cues - so, yeah. Still, it's a nice little chart. I'm also using SpanishDict.com to look up meanings and such (Again, it matters to me - of course not at all to him...as long as I can say it consistently!) The link goes to "parar" which is the infinitive verb form. I'm choosing the Usted Subjunctive form for verbs at this point, though I broke from that for abre and cierras... not sure why.

Well, guess that wraps up the day. Muy bien, Wally!

From Learning the Ball To First Spanish Struggle

Today was a mixed bag day. First, we got the chance to introduce the ball. Then after that, we worked on converting another cue to a Spanish word, which for the first time might be something of a struggle.


Yeah, Same Thing As Pushing, Wally.

Here is the ball, the pelota, in question:

La pelota, object number 2

With this ball, he quickly caught on to the idea that he was to touch the ball. He was equating it with the pushing stuff we've done during exposing him to the basics of treibball, which got him quickly into the mindset of poking the ball with hose nose forcefully.

This enthusiasm allowed me to just focus on saying the cue "pelota" and having him wait to make sure the connection is being formed between the cue and the behavior. Since progress was so fast, we didn't need to move so methodically as we did with the rabbit and not nearly as slowly as with the colors. How great! Immediately, we could go with distance and he looked around readily for the ball no matter where it was.

The only reason we had to stop was because I had to go get another piece of bread! I'm glad I chose to use the soccer ball (and this size of ball) after seeing these results. Hopefully, when it's time to add in the rabbit, this kind of progress will manifest itself again!


Say It Isn't So! Our First Spanish Fail?

Perhaps we were due. Perhaps it was working too well and the Dog Training Fates said "enough of this, time to make them have a set back!" and threw this monkey wrench in. Perhaps I wasn't saying the word consistently enough, but...I doubt I've been particularly consistent as it is, plus...it's not a hard word to say.

"Pares" a form of the verb "Parar" which means "to stop". As you probably can guess, this is the new "wait/stay" cue. While trying to think of why suddenly the struggle here as opposed to the other successes, some thoughts came into my head:

1. This is an "old" behavior, perhaps 'stay' is too established in his mind
2. Going in line with #1, perhaps I've forgotten how I 'explained' the behavior to him
3. The sound of the word itself is too difficult for him to pick up
4. We have just one cue that starts with a "P" sound, perhaps he's not used to hearing it
5. The stay/wait wasn't as strong as I thought to begin with, so this just exposed it

I recently read about the "stay into a moving stand", and, thanks to a post on a forum I'm on, I got a lead/tip on a hand signal she used to do it. I can't find the freaking post so I can link to it. I know who wrote it and I'm looking on the right forum. Ugh. Anyway...trying that route seems to be working a bit.

With him walking beside me, I give the hand signal and say "pares" and if he stops, he gets a click and treat. At this point, I'm also stopping since that often triggers him to do the same. Everything to try to get the association going and make a connection.

Success has been hit or miss and so far getting him to wait or stay in any other way while using "Pares" has not worked particularly well so far. Hmm...it's too bad I can't fully remember how I first did "stay" with him so that I could try that. No way we're giving up, though. I know it's just a matter of getting those first few breakthroughs and then we'll hit the ground running from there.