Wally Searching - With Boxes

More searching - this time with boxes (searching and him picking them up for whatever reason).

Wally Searching

Here's what Wally looks like doing his searching. He's getting into it. We've done more practice and it looks similar to this.

Wally's New Challenge: Searching

Been a while - but there's something new worth writing about :)

I've come across Nosework. I read about it on a forum I frequent and thought "hey, this might be the thing to make those Find It games a challenge again!"

So I read this thread and started to get into the basics of it.

I got some boxes from the local crafts store and poked holes in a small one for the scent to get out. That small one would go inside the slightly bigger ones - big enough for him to stick his head in.

He'd then have to find the small box (it has treats or other smelly food in it that he loves) and when he does, he gets rewarded from me.

I'm learning it's important to reward on the source of the scent as well as to do so quickly. The goal is to get the dog to linger at the source - that's how he'll tell me he found it. At least for now.

Initially, Wally just wanted to molest the boxes (if not destroy them) to see if there's food inside, but then he started to get it. #1 - the boxes are not the "it" I want found, and #2, stay on the scent once you find it.

Of course, both are still a work in progress considering we've been at this all of two days. It's challenging him mentally, but he LOVES it. He's just almost obsessed about it. He gets so into trying to get the little box out of the big one that he "sticks" to the source (GOOD), but it's also harder to reward him because he's just into that little box!

He's all worn out and sleeping hard after, but it's so funny to watch him not want to stop while he's in the moment and mindset for the searching.

This is definitely something we're going to keep working on for sure! He loves it. I love watching him go at it, and it's a nice new twist on something we already do.

Learning The Blue Boundary

In an effort to give him a landmark between the hall and the kitchen, I used some blue electrical tape and put it at the entry to the kitchen.

The goal was to have him stay behind the blue line, as that would keep him from the kitchen. The line would serve as the new landmark for him, since the floor is uniform in color now.

The trick was, and still is, getting him used to look down to find something not food or toy related. He has never had to look down to find information, so to speak, before.

That became step one, getting him to see and be interested in the line. Shaping this would be on the difficult side since he probably is not aware that there's something of interest there to him. His paws can't detect it since he's not stepping on it, and he is going to be drawn to the throw rug, since that is an easier object for him to see and feel, let alone grab with his teeth and pull at with his paws. He feels he could interact with it to offer behaviors on it.

So I turned to targeting. I pointed at the blue line and asked him to paw it. This was still difficult because he wasn't used to "pawing at nothing". I wasn't pointing to an object or to anything he's used to looking at or noticing. He's like "paw...what?!", then he pawed my hand. That wasn't it. I kept pointing and asking for the behavior.

He did paw the blue line almost like "what...that...blue stuff?" Yes, Wally. That "blue stuff".

Treating took place on the line. I put the reward directly on the line. That way, he HAD to look at it to get the treat. This would be the start of getting him interested in that blue line on the ground.

After a little bit of that, I went back to shaping. Of course, started trying pawing everything BUT the blue line. Then finally, I saw him look at the line while looking around for something to paw. He snapped his head up as if in surprise at getting the marker. He took the reward (again placing the
treat on the line itself), and was looking around like "okay...so what was I doing to get the food?"

When the nose pointed at the blue line (where the nose points, the eyes are probably looking), I marked him again and put the reward on the line.

We repeated that a few times before I got the behavior that would make a good place to stop. He started holding his paw out over the line.

He was becoming aware of it! He wasn't sure how to interact with that line, but he stretched out his paw like he was trying to feel for it. That got him a reward. He did it again. I marked that and give him a nice jackpot and ended the session. After letting him know how proud of him I was and giving him an all over rubbing, I took him to his spot in my room so he could get some water and rest. I wanted him to think about it and let his mind stew on it (latent learning), so that, hopefully, we'd have some progress the next time.

Everything Fine, Wally Gets Some Seizure Meds

Wally's bloodwork and other physical checkups were just fine. So the seizures are considered idiopathic and he got some medicine (phenobaribitol) that, hopefully, will help control the episodes.

So far, nothing seems to be adversely affecting him in terms of side effects, but I'm watching him like a hawk in lots of areas and seeing if there's any drop off in any of his mental and physical activity. He's resting peacefully as well.

Hopefully, this good start is a sign of things to come as we continues on the medicine. Just wanted to give a quick update.

All-Positive Monday 32 - Manipulating Objects: Opening a Bag

I figured I'd try something, trying to get him to do something with an object.

In this case, I wanted him to figure out how to open up a bag that has been twisted closed (no ties or knots) and see if he can unwrap it to get a treat out without biting through the bag or otherwise tearing it.

Interestingly enough, he didn't even try to rip the bag. It was as though he just followed the scent down through the bag, trying to move the bag out of the way to get to the goodies inside.

I captured this on video. It is embedded below.

A Nightmare of a Night, Literally

I don't know what his nightmare was about, but whatever it was, it gripped him hard.

Poor dog was thrashing around, not just the twitching paws but his body flailing around, growling, biting at the air, it was intense. Took several minutes just to wake him from it, and when he did, he wasn't aware of anything in terms of where he was or who I was - even growling at me while I was holding him.

He settled down a little bit and started to recognize where he was and who I was, but he was still terrified. I set him down and gave him some room as he was panting very hard and visibly shaken up. He started looking at me as I moved, but he still didn't want to get up. When he did, he wanted to go hide in his other spot in my room.

Whatever it was scared him so much he had peed on himself and he had an accident trying to get outside. Still scared and skittish, but moving around and following me a bit. I took him out for some air and to let him just clear his head. The walk eventually started settling him down and he got back to his usual self more.

While outside, just wanted him to get back to his usual self and we played some and such. He started relaxing and shaking his body (calming signal, usually a "whew, that was intense" or "glad that's over" type signal) and quickly started coming around to himself again.

I hope he doesn't have to go through that again, though I guess if it happens again, I know what to do to help him out of it and settle his mind.

Scary Moment With a Harmless Cause

Just got a scare not long ago - thought something was going majorly wrong with Wally. He was thrashing about, freaking out, never seen him do anything like that before.

I was thinking he was choking on something, maybe sneaked and ate something or something had gotten in his throat and couldn't get it out, and any number of things.

I got him still enough so that he wouldn't hurt himself with all that thrashing and looked in his mouth. Turns out it was nothing more than a strand or two of his hair had gotten inside his mouth and it was a longer piece so it must have tickled his throat and was triggering some reflex and serious frustration in trying to get it out.

Never before seen him do anything like that! All these years of having long hair everywhere and nothing like that happened and now it does. Scared me out of my mind.

Suffice to say that I got the scissors out and trimmed that hair down and will do so from now on. Every time I give him a bath or a good brushing, I will be checking the length of that hair around his muzzle and jaws. 

Ugh - don't scare me like that, Wally!

All-Positive Monday 30 - Left and Right

Today, I decided to revisit left and right, maybe this time, we'll have better luck in getting this skill down!

To start, I will have two identical objects placed to the left and right of Wally with him sitting front. I'll signal with my arm outstretched as well as voice cue, the ever so creative choices of "Left" and "Right" (I know, such a stroke of artistic genius, right?).

This will set him up to succeed in a lot of ways. He can follow the arm to get a clue to the direction. He has a target on the ground that looks very different from the environment, and there's the voice cue he can use if he wants to pick up on that.

Using a target also gets him into the idea that he's supposed to go until he "hits something" or is given another instruction. The first time I tried this, he went as far as my arm stretched and that's it (because I treated him from the hand there - taught him a bad concept).

I am still giving him the treats, but I'm marking him when he gets to the target (eventually, I'll put the treats ON the targets). That should help him get the concept down.

After each attempt, he has to come back to front position. This resets him and lets him get used to the movement of going left and right. This is opposed to him maybe facing left and then turning around to go right.

The session went well. As he continued to succeed, I mixed up the timing of when I gave the next signal. This helps practice focus and patience to wait for the signal, especially as he gets excited and wants to go for the next target.

Out on walks, we should be able to try something similar. We can either use the targets or pick an object like a street light and position him so that he can go left or right on the signal to the object.

Eventually, we will go with this on retrieves. I'll throw the dumbbell left or right and signal and use the "left" and "right" cues and arm signals to have him go get the dumbbell. Also planned is working the same exercise above with the targets, but with me at a distance from him. 

"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"!

Wally Vs Foam 20-sided Die

I bought Wally a 20-sided die to play with. After all, his person is a RPG fan and used to play AD&D in his school days.

So, of course, he had to have this big 20-sider when I saw it and for a reasonable price.

It arrived today and I introduced it to Wally. He took to it immediately (probably because it looks like a ball at first...and being purple doesn't hurt - easy for him to see), but then he realized it doesn't roll like a ball, but he can put his paws on it and stuff and it moves funny. He really liked it then.

His dreams of being a canine GM have to start somewhere.
Enter - Wally vs 20-side die. Hope you enjoy the video. Forgive the less-than-expert quality, please.

He picked it up on his own just from playing around with it. He might be a natural die roller dog.

Wally Still Remembers, and Loves, Home

Went by the house today to take care of stuff and brought Wally along, figuring he'd enjoy the chance to sniff the old grass and stuff.

Boy did he ever. He immediately wanted to go sit on the porch that I've taught him to do so many times. And then I took him to the fields we ran on and practiced our ball catching and looooong distance recall and retrieving and he was just so intense. Charging at me like he loves to do when I call for a front from 90 feet away and just seeing how BIG his eyes were - like he just got done eating 50 raw steaks. He would literally jump up from the sit when I cued finish like we used to practice when doing this.

He was having so much fun and so excited. He remembered all his pee-mail spots and was checking out the grounds and re-marking his spots. So funny he remembered them all like we came there yesterday.

Was so great to see him cutting loose and giving me his full speed outside since there's OPEN GRASS to actually run around on. For a small dog, he needs a lot of space now because of all the walking and running he's done. He eats up ground almost like he's big and two strides and he's through the strips of grass around here.

It was amazing that he remembered all our tricks and stuff we did. Our route, where he sniffs and pees, that we usually stop at the mail box to get the mail. The go-arounds too. He remembered how he can go around the light posts. It's been months since we did it, and he called it up through all that excitement.

"All-Positive Monday 18 - Another Fearful Object To Battle"

The boxes I had bought at IKEA along with those stuffed animals to work on object matching with presented another challenge to us.

Not with using the boxes, but just approaching them. He avoided the boxes and was very reluctant to come up to them. He got so scared, he started to shaking again, just like he used to.

Things like this are perfect for an all-positive approach. For any interaction with the box, he got a click and a reward, this time a piece of deli ham. I wanted to give him something that he likely finds more enticing than even his beloved bread balls.

This got him at least looking at the box and stretching his next out towards it. I approached this as a shaping exercise, so no cues from me, just clicks and ham or nothing. I wanted him to approach or give attention to the box on his own. I didn't want him to feel like I was pressuring him or to add any more anxiety to what he was already feeling.

Working on this took a lot of energy out of him, something I remember from working on fear issues before. He needed a break, so I took him out for a leisurely walk (more sniffing and marking than walking) and then he took a nap when we got back in and settled (and cooled off).

This is something we'll have to keep working with so he can get over this as well.

Outdoor Plans Ruined By Heat

I was planning on getting Wally outside and having another round of physical play and activities. However, the heat was just too much, even early in the day. Wally pretty much started panting about 5 minutes of being outside...let alone in the sun.

The black top was also out of the question with it being over 130 degrees (yes, I measured, and that's...over 50 degrees for those who use Celsius) and that's just out of the question. I don't want to fry Wally's paw pads.

So, we had to make do indoors, and it was still relatively okay, but not nearly as many options. Most of the physical play was around him running up and down the stairs while playing hide and seek, which is mostly mental anyway.

Having him try to catch some of his toys adding some physical play and did take a lot of him because I make it pretty challenging for him. He has to stand up on his back paws and try to trap the toy, and I make it "attack" him, which gets him dodging and getting even more into the game.

I also had him jump through the hoop again, and that's something he evidently got rusty with. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson about letting skills get rusty since this has happened before. Fortunately, I got him going through the hoop and raising it up to increase how high he needs to jump. That might have been the most physical part of the day.

Unfortunately, the heat is not going to let up at all...Another hot day is expected tomorrow, and maybe through next week. Ugh.

More Object Matching and Naming

Today, we worked more with matching objects.

I used two pairs - the white bears and the blue dogs. At first, I showed the blue dog and threw the other on the bed when he wasn't looking along with the bear. I still have to move the object around to get him to keep looking at it.

I whipped it away and had him go find the match. I made some changes as well in terms of rewarding him. I didn't use the clicker this time, but instead I used a "good boy!" which got him charging back to me with the object. Then I gave him a treat, and tossed the object while he was getting it.

I think using my voice sort of helped him out. Even if it didn't help him remember, it kept his spirits up, which is always a plus in training - especially for hard skills like this.

I also worked him on learning the names of objects. I used the ball ("pelota") and the bone ("hueso") this time.

At this point, I noticed he seemed reluctant to pick up the object. I don't know why, but this is something that I hope doesn't continue.

Just a little testing him on the objects this time, but basically just some review as it were. There wasn't much done with this as he was really worn out from the matching. Still, though, he got into it. When I did "test" it a bit, he was pretty good with getting the correct object, even when I switched.

And, after it all, he was tired and went to sleep - after sniffing out the crumbs from the treats of course!

"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!