All-Positive Monday 31 - Wally The Cornerback

With football season in full swing, and Raiders bandana attached to his collar, I thought it would be fun to have Wally "play cornerback" and try to "cover" me as I run. The goal, of course, is for him to stay near me no matter which way I move and turn and, like a wide receiver, I could go in various patterns.

He would get a click and treat if he's within a certain distance of me within a certain amount of time, say a few seconds. If not, we just line up and try it again.

The game is an attempt to teach him to watch me and keep his attention on me in a more fun and lively way. I figure this would get him psyched up and eager since it's like a game of chase to him (and in a way, it is) while also getting some treats along the way. It'll also be some exercise for the both of us. 

Is this all-positive? I think, overall, it is. Sure, he might not get a treat each time, especially early on, but he's going to be having fun the whole time. I won't be giving any corrections/redirecting/no-reward markers - none of that, we just keep the game going.

Also, I'll keep it simpler in the beginning, as per usual. Make it easier for him to earn the reward so he can get an idea of what the objective is.

"All-Positive Monday 29" - Back it up, Wally!

Today was a mix of some P.E. for Wally as well as an All-Positive day.

I wanted to revisit his rear-end awareness, something that had gotten lost over the months amidst all the other things that we've been working on.

He already has some idea of how to back up, i.e. walking backwards. To begin, I get him warmed up a bit with just requiring a few steps. I think mark (I use a clicker) and reward him and start again. I try to keep everything as flowing and fast-moving as possible to keep him highly engaged and making it seem more fun.

After the warm-ups and seeing that he still remembers how to do the behavior, I keep each trial lasting longer. I want more steps out of him. As usual, each success is greeted with the reward marker and a treat. At this point, I'm going to start increasing the challenge further in some way.

For today, I wanted to work on speed. He's going to be moving all kinds of ways trying to keep himself going backwards - fine for now. I want to work on just one thing at a time. Using speed should help him get used to moving his back legs more quickly and make him more able to control them.

Marking and rewarding is different as I don't really want to stop the action. As he is moving backwards and keeping pace with me moving forward at him, The rewards are coming, all in stride if at all possible. At the most, a one or two second break so he can chew it if he needs be (which means I need to make them smaller so he can just suck them down without getting choked).

It was funny watching him curve around as his back legs just kept moving him in reverse but no idea how to keep going straight! That's something I'll be having to work on in the future. Another further step would be to have him do so just on cue. I could say "back up!" and he just starts walking backwards.

But those are goals off in the distance and difficult for me to figure how to do in a completely positive way (though shaping figures to be a big part - may not be completely positive, but that's a very large component). Guess I should have called this 'segment' "Mostly-Positive Monday"!

PE for Wally 7 - Throwing A Ball

A video this time of me getting Wally to do his throwing. He's pretty good with the ball...not so much with the Post-it Note! Still, I thought it was pretty cute and not that bad.

I'm still thinking of ways to try to hone this. Throwing at a target. Maybe trying to throw it into a bowl, box, basket, etc. Throwing it to me. Things like that. Not quite sure how to go about "explaining" it to him with shaping, but it's mulling around in the brain.

PE For Wally 6 - Working Through Zoomies

Like probably every dog, Wally gets those seeming sudden, out-of-nowhere bursts of energy we sometimes call "zoomies". When this happens for Wally, he blazes around, just running and running.

So I thought - maybe there's some way we can use this time for something other than him just doing...whatever it is dogs do when they get zoomies.

When he gets like this, I tell him something to do. For example, he's having zoomies, I throw his ball somewhere and tell him "Find your ball! Donde esta pelota?!"

Once it gets through to him, he's running around trying to find his ball (it looks crazy too. You'd think he'd slow down. Ha! No.) So he's darting around, and I'm repeating the task. Eventually, he does find it and then he shakes the heck out of the ball and charges back to me.

So I start him going running around again. I pull his hair a little and stuff and he's charging around again. Then I throw the ball and repeat the instruction.

Then I mix it up. I might ask for a recall while moving in a different spot. So he has to find me and follow my voice. I'll mix up a go-around the pole of the basketball hoop or a tree trunk. Then maybe finding the ball again. And so on.

After about five minutes of that, he's slowing down, but I'm keeping it going. Then maybe 5-10 minutes later, he's moving decidedly slower and then it's time to call it.

The look on his face is like he just had tons of fun, almost like a look of relief maybe. One more thing we can do outside, and now at least when these zoomies happen, there's something we can do with them.

PE for Wally 5 - Sprints

With the warming weather (borderline to downright hot), we were able to get out for some more PE outdoors. This time, I wanted to see his speed.

I used trees and a utility box in the ground as landmarks for the start and finish. Unfortunately, I don't know how much distance it is, but I estimated by "counting" steps, and, yes, I measured my foot.

Anyway, I counted the steps and estimated the distance. The first distance was 724 1/2 inches, about 20 yards. The second one was about 14 yards, 514 1/2 inches.

I had him in a stay while I got my phone on stopwatch mode and went to the end point. I then called him and started the clock. When he got to me, either sitting front or jumping up to "tap" (more like slam) my legs, I stopped the clock.

He ran the first distance in 8.2 seconds and the second in 4.2 seconds.

Now, the first distance, he curved because it was on a hill and he took some funky arc to get to me, so that ate into time. He actually ran farther, much like how the outside of a track is a farther distance from start to finish.

The second was flat terrain and he ran right at me, so perhaps it's more accurate.

Converting it into a 40 yard dash time, I estimate it at 10.5 seconds. I don't know if that's fast or slow for a Coton or a dog of his size in general. I put this into a conversion calculator on a website to get the speed in miles per hour, and it checks in at just under 7 mph (6.95). Again, don't know if that's a good speed for his size/breed.

He certainly had fun though. He LOVES to run and especially at full speed like that.

PE For Wally 4: Balancing And Walking With a Ball

Alrighty then, back to training. This is what I'm talking about.

While still trying to get all the stuff we had or at least something similar, there is still that medicine ball - it survived. So might as well use it.

So that was the idea for this. I wanted him to put his front paws on the ball and walk. Of course, he looks at me like I'm some psycho alien dog. "How do you come up with this stuff to make me do?" kind of look.

But, all resistance is cast aside when a bread ball or a piece of ham enters the picture. Food is king in his world.

With that, I put the ball in front of him. Since I choose shaping first and foremost I wait to see what he'll do with it. Well, he remembers the times I had him pushing the ball and that's what he started doing. That nose kept hitting the ball, moving it around. When that didn't work, he put his paw on it. Oh, that's progress (pawgress?) so he got a click and treat. He did it again - okay, I'll give you one for that too. No, not the third time.

So, reluctantly, I went to a bit of luring. I held the food high over the ball. That was all the help he was getting, he had to figure out how to get it. If he tried to go around the ball, the food disappeared. After a few tries of that, he saw going around was not a winning strategy.

After a bit, he put one paw on the ball and tried to lean on it. The ball moved, and he backed up, but I gave him the food anyway for the effort (it's a step in the right direction). He tried the going around thing again, but then he put his front paw again. He did keep it on the ball and was leaning on it.

I waited and he finally put the other paw on the ball. That got him more food. Now we're getting somewhere. At this point, the lure went away. He knows he can make his body do it. So now it's time for him to...just do it.

After some thinking (he was like, "what's up with that?") he put his paws on the ball. That made the food appear, BUT not get it. He was like "now what?"

I didn't say anything, just held the food up there. If he got off the ball, the food disappeared. He learned quick not to do that - so he started whining. Like THAT would work. I just turned away with the food in the same spot, so he put an end to that. He then gathered up his nerve and reached up for the food by standing up. His back legs were standing and his front paws were on the ball. YES! I quickly all but threw the food in his mouth.

But now I want duration. I want him to walk after all. So once he figured out how to get the food, I held out a bit to delay the reward and get him used to standing in that pose. Then gave him the treat.

Next step was the walking. This was interesting. I moved the food further away. He looked at it like it was evil for moving. I left it at this distance and he looked at me. I just turned away again and left him to figure it out. He started moving the ball with his paws - that got rewarded. Now we're cooking. He kept it up and took a step with his back legs. Another reward.

Now that he did it twice - I moved the food farther away. He slipped off the ball - and the food went away. Tough. Get back on that ball and figure it out.

He popped back up on the ball (that part he's figured out already) and tried again. He took a step, but I want more steps. I moved the food to trigger that "get back here" mode in him and he took more steps. Shoved the reward in his mouth.

Now he had to do it with no lure at all. Instead, I used my hand as a target and called for "touch" on my hand. He had to walk with the ball to touch my hand. When he did, I got a reward out of my pocket. A couple of those, and then I called it a session. As usual, he was jumping up and down and acting like he conquered the world!

I don't know about the world, but at least you're a step closer to conquering walking with a ball. I will try to capture some photos of this or maybe even a *gasp* video (maybe - I'm an amateur dog trainer, not amateur video producer!)