Wally's First Look At New House

With our house now re-built and all new, I took Wally over to start getting him acclimated. Turns out, though, he didn't need any acclimation at all. he was waggy-tailed and wide-eyed about the new house, looking like he just won a million raw steak bones!

He was excited from the start, remembering the neighborhood and probably picking up the familiar scents from the dogs there. He remembered instantly where his spots where and all that. Then once inside the house, he went from room to room (even though they are empty right now) as if he was also looking over his newly built house.

He remembered the basement. He knew where his crate was (he looked for it) and remembered the layout of everything, and with it familiar, he was very happy. He remembered how to open and close the doors, doing so with enthusiasm.

The only thing he didn't like at first was the new carpet. The smell of it was probably very different and that concerned him a little. But with just a little coaxing, he started exploring upstairs and walking around just as happily as he did before once he realized it, too, was the same as before.

He even remembered to sit on the porch like before, even though we haven't done that in months since we haven't been living there all this time.

The "dividers" on the floor are gone so that's one thing he didn't see and remember - staying out of the kitchen. He didn't have has landmark for that so that's one thing we'll have to work on. Probably will use some throw rugs to help give him a spot he can refer to for where the boundary line is.

It was so fun to see him acting like this. I took him for a walk in our usual route before we left. If I had more time, I would have run and played with him.

The grand adventure wore him out. Once he settled down, he was knocked out cold in his crate, snoring loudly and probably dreaming.

Wally's First Exposure To Weave Polls

Wally got his first taste of what an agility dog has to do. Of course, I would start with the hardest obstacle on the course (unknowingly, I swear!)

And, needless to say, Wally was less-than-pleased about seeing these "big white things" moving around while I was putting them together. I got some PVC poles that can angle and connect/disconnect easily to put in how many poles you want.

Of course, I'm not going to make it super easy at first, but not overly hard. And I got my clicker and some top-end treats (leftover fish sticks and fries in this case) at the ready. I started with four poles to try to show him what the weave was and how to move through the poles. They aren't angled at this point and we're going slow.

I'm making sure he's entering properly, which was a big part of the session today. Also emphasized was that he had to go between every pole.

After he started to get the idea. I decided to move back down to two poles, which would take just one weave to go through.

At this stage, I'm going to start with the shaping of it eventually, but for now, I just want him to get comfortable going through the poles and getting any apprehension of them out of his system. Sometimes I bump the supports with my feet (learning process for me too), and sometimes that startles him, but I have him just get over it. I don't accept any hesitation between the poles, he has to just go and forget about it.

So definitely a work in progress, but that was expected. Overall, he did pretty well for his first exposure and seems to have the idea of how to do a weave motion. I know he cares about the position of things relative to him, and I hope I can leverage that. Hopefully, the position of the pole can be information to him that he can read on the fly to guide him through the movement.

I also have some ideas to try teaching him the muscle memory of the motion (something else I know about him is that I have to show him his body can do what I ask him to do - it was how I got him to FINALLY flip over on his back and go up and down stairs some years back). This should also help him feel more positive about it if I can teach it as a game/during our walks outside of the poles.

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.

All-Positive Monday 28 - El Zorro (The Fox)

For this Monday, we worked on a new object and a new Spanish word. The object is his fox toy and the word is, "zorro", which means "fox" in Spanish.

However, there seems to be something about this word that Wally does not like at all because he just looks at me like I'm crazy. He won't go to the toy, or if he does, he looks around a bit and sits. This is really, really interesting because it's the first time he's ever had this type of response since he (and I) have started learning some Spanish words. It was as though he was hitting "dislike! dislike!"

I wonder what he is thinking. I wouldn't imagine someone in his past used "zorro" for anything. Perhaps he can't hear the "z" sound? It's certainly the first "z" word I've used, perhaps he's not used to picking it up.

Well, I used "fox" for now, and he didn't mind that word. Crazy dog. Oh, Wally - don't think I've forgotten about "zorro".

With a word he actually "likes", we were able to get some exercises in with the fox toy. We did a lot of playing with it and I'd throw it and say "Get the fox!" (note to self: learn how to say "get the..." in Spanish) and he was all excited and stuff.

I probably said "fox" about 100 times today, I'm tired of hearing it. Don't even want to type it right now! Oh the sacrifices.

Have your fun now, Wally, because soon we'll be doing some three object discrimination.

Once you get over your dislike of "zorro".

"All Positive Monday 27" - Heel position

Been a while for an All-Positive Monday entry, but today I decided to try to build heel position with this approach.

What I did was click and treat (mark and reward) whenever Wally was in heel position. I gave no cues or anything of that nature. When he reached heel, he got the reward, even if he seemed as though he was going to go too far.

Being the food-monger that he is and of course the "click" is burned into his head, he immediately looked up for the treat. After that, he stayed in the position, aligning himself closer and closer each time, and looking up at me in the process.

The key on my end, other than the timing - which is a constant thing to look out for - is delivering the treat in a good spot. I don't want him to hop up, but I also want to make sure he's eating in heel position. In other words, I want him to be where the treat is delivered and that also to be heel position.

This paints the picture fully for him. I believe if I keep this up, he'll get the position down and he will be better able to maintain it on his own. With it being no cues from me and almost a "shaping on the move" exercise, I'm hoping those same shaping-esque principles 'click' (no pun intended) as well.

The eye contact might be a nice little side effect. The concept behind the phrase "feed the position" is that how and where the reward is actually taken and consumed by the dog also imparts information to the dog. The click explains the behavior, the delivery and consumption of the reward explains the location. Judging by past attempts to adhere to this makes it ring true for Wally it seems. Refining front happened with the help of "feed the position". The treat always came directly down and center from me. If he was off to the side or otherwise not aligned, I would not let go of the reward. In fact, it was out of his reach (and he already learned that raising up to get it made it go away completely so he keeps down on the ground).

The first run through shows promise and even after I stopped the training session and released him for some sniff/fun time, he continued walking in heel position. Very promising indeed.

Granted, in the interest of disclosure, Wally is not "completely green" in heeling. We have worked on this in various forms ("keep up"/"slow down" was the first way with heel being the correct spot - we just never "formally" named it "heel" or worked it until later). Still, we are far from masters at it, so this hopefully will continue to help us build the skill.