English For Dogs: Can Wally "Read"?

An idea I have gotten lately is to try to teach Wally to "read" words on a card and perform the behavior written on them.

I'm curious to see if I can teach this to him, and how well Wally will be able to grasp this. I haven't started yet as I'm thinking of way I want to do it. I'm guessing the most direct way would be the best, as in: show card, say the verbal cue, and then reward when (if) he does the behavior.

Then again, the shaping approach is always pulling at me, but I don't think it would work for all of them, and it may slow down learning in this case. We shall see, I suppose!

The first four words are pictured below on the "cards" (I printed them on the shiny side of 4" x 6" photo paper.)

Wally's first four words to read.

I'm excited for this! I may hold of until Monday to do it for the "All-Positive Monday" (I know I missed it this week - circumstances out of my control, unfortunately) and it would give me a couple more days to think and do some research on methods others have used.

Wally's New Bed: A Dog's Life?

Not too long ago, Wally finally got a real, legit dog bed.

Here, see the Coton, named Wally, resting after a long day of messing with the amateur dog trainer's (read: my) head during training sessions.

As you can see, it's a nice-sized bed.  He took to the bed immediately, which is unusual since he is usually wary around large objects. With the bed, though, he warmed up to it immediately ever since he first put a paw on it, literally. He put a paw on it, paused for a moment, and then climbed on and promptly lied down.

It looks like the camera flash caught the attention of Wally, and now I have drawn his interest. I can only wonder what is in his mind.

Even when I picked up the bed (after having to coax him off of it!), he started following the bed, and when I stopped to open the door to take it downstairs, he kept sniffing the bed. This is really out of character or him because he very rarely shows interest in big things picked up and moving around. This bed really has captivated him.

While his interest is aroused, Wally is reluctant to move from his comfortable resting spot and watches with a slightly-lazy curiosity.

He sleeps on his nice new bed almost as much as his favorite corner in my room. Almost. I guess comfy beds are great and he'll gladly take it, but nothing beats an old, familiar spot he's slept in since he's been here.

PE for Wally 2: Catch Practice

I recently discovered that Wally has shown an interest in catching and isn't terrible considering we've never really put much interest into it. Still, though, he seems to want to catch things and gets all excited about the chance to do so.

To that end, I got him a small blue disc, designed for dogs of course, that is rubber and soft on his mouth.

First thing I always want to do with him is introduce the object in a calm way and praise for interaction with it. Then slowly increase excitement level and play around with it with him. I want to do this to remove any concerns he may have about the object and have him desiring the object. This will come in handy.

Fortunately, he took to the disc VERY quickly. This is surprising to me, but I'm glad for it! He's already trying to grab it when I hold the disc in my hand. If I move it around, he's trying to bite it and all of that. A lot of desire for the disc already.

With that out of the way, I'm "throwing" the disc from a very short distance. This serves a dual purpose: 1) I can see how he tries to catch, tracks the object, and how he prefers to make the catch. 2) I can learn how to deliver the disc to give him a higher chance of success. This is a new thing for me, too, so I have stuff to learn and improve on as well.

This is where we are at now and we're both having fun with it. Hopefully, this gets us off on the right foot.

PE for Wally 1: Hopping and Jumping

For the first attempt at bringing in physical aspects for him, I decided to try his hopping and jumping, and trying to get him to get better at both.

Hopping is just a matter of trying to capture it, but he needs to do it more consistently to make that more likely. For now, he still needs something to motivate him to try reaching. I didn't want to use food as the lure as this is a good chance to make an object more rewarding and desirable.

I used one of his rabbit skin strips, and he was certainly attracted! After a bit of teasing, he stood up on his back legs, but didn't make any hops.

I encouraged him to "get it" and he did start hopping. I lifted the object up more and moved it around to get him really tracking it. Once he hopped up to get it, I let go and let him shake it. Then I gave him a click and a treat and started again. Now, he was twice as into it, and started getting higher off the ground and hopping more steadily. Still need some work, but this was a good effort, and I didn't want to wear him out for the jumping.

Now the jumping, that's a different story. He wasn't certain of it, and I think part of this is because he's lost judging the distance past the jump. I think he was as much uncertain of that as he was of the hoop again.

He tried to go around the hoop, like he did way back in the beginning. After much urging, he started jumping through the hoop. I clicked while he was in the air going through the hoop, and rewarded him when he landed.

He got more motivated, but still, he was hesitant. Looks like this is something that will really need to work on to get him back where he used to be comfortable with the hoop.

He also used to jump "in" the hoop and then back "out" the hoop if I held it a little above the floor and flat. This time, though, he totally refused.

That's good, though, because it shows me where he needs work and what we need to keep working on, and that means more chances for the both of us to grow.

"All-Positive Monday 19" - Reading For Wally?

I got an idea from this post on a dog forum I visit often, and it made me want to see if Wally could get started with this.

I figure that it could be another way to teach object discrimination to him as well, and who knows what other cool things.

First, though, we have to start at the beginning. The first thing to do was make him look at the paper. So, every time he looked at the paper, he got a click and a reward. I kept working on this where he got a click and treat every time he looked at the paper and did nothing else.

Hopefully, this will be both a reward history around being shown a sheet of paper (gets him anticipating doing something for the reward) as well as draw his eyes to the paper instantly and with focus. This is going to take some time in all likelihood since a piece of paper is not going to be the most exciting thing ever.

This is a good thing to work on for an "All-Positive" day, since there's nothing to really correct. If the dog isn't looking at the paper, then just move the paper around to get his attention with the motion. He'll get the point over time. I don't want to rush this step because this is the foundation of the whole skill. It would be like trying to read a book without having enough focus to read the pages or motivated enough to read the book and your mind and eyes start wandering.

With some patience and time, maybe Wally can start 'reading' :)