About Turns

How do you teach about turns? How are your results? Here is what we do:

1. The dog must be heeling in straight lines and in a large circle.

2. I use a chair or a couple of cones (depending on the size of the dog) to turn around. This makes for a wide about turn in the beginning. 

3. I use a toy to throw as I come out of the turn to teach my dog to drive around me and accelerate through the turn. 

4. As my dog progresses with the wide turns and toy, I slowly shrink down the turn until I am turning only the length of my foot. 

5. You should never stand still in the turn, your feet should always be moving, even if it means taking tiny steps. 

6. Your shoulder and the dog's shoulder should stay even throughout the turn. 

7. Once your dog has this game, I do it at a fast speed with the toy for fun and to encourage the dog to keep moving quickly around the turn. 

Here's a brief video. The first is Soda doing about turns. The second is Soda doing an about turn from a stationary position (so he really has to move to accelerate around the turn). The last part is Roo playing the game in warp speed. 

About Turns

You Can't Beat the Basics

It is routine for us to focus on making it through the steps of teaching a new behavior. What we often forget to do is go back to the basics.

When teaching a new behavior, the highest intensity of reinforcement typically comes in the beginning. The goal for the completed behavior is to have it on a variable schedule of reinforcement. Often when we experience problems as we train, we back up to earlier steps of the behavior plan. For example, as we teach more advanced heeling such as pace changes, we may back up to rewarding heel position to help clarify to the dog what we want.

With complex behaviors, such as heeling or retrieve over the high jump, I routinely have my students run through early piece of the behavior that have high reinforcement rates. I feel this greatly helps with the precision of the behavior as we add more difficulty.

Helpful Hints:
1. Write out your training plan for each new behavior
2. Remember that your initial steps should be marked by high rates of reinforcement
3. Regularly go back to the basics as part of your training. This will help keep your dog working hard for you as well as helping with precision "tweaking" of the behavior
4. Never move on if you have not succeeded at a step in your plan
5. If you have trouble, back up a step or break your criteria down further

Tug for the Non-Tugger

Driving to a toy is an essential part of agility training. Playing tug with a toy builds arousal for the dog and increases the value the dog has for the handler. Here are some helpful hints for teaching the game of tug for a dog that is not interested in tugging.

1. Use food to build interest in toys. I am particularly fond of toys that have a pouch or container for your to put food in. Roo's favorite is a cheap, home-made tug rope attached to a zip-lock container. I add some duct tape to the container to make it sturdier and easier for Roo to grip. The dogs really seem to like the sound of some crunchy food bouncing around in the container. Soda's favorite is a little nylon pouch with bunny fur on one side.

2. Once you make the decision, stick with it. If your dog elects to ignore the food toy, put your dog up. They no longer get to play on their terms.

3. Introduce the food toy in a relaxing setting without distractions. Remember, you wouldn't expect your dog to do a down in a busy obedience class before you taught it at home. You cannot expect your dog to participate in tug in a class if you have not first taught it at home and then generalized it to several venues with increasing difficulty. A really good idea is to go to your training building/yard during another class and work with your dog on the sidelines.

4. Increase your criteria rapidly. This is where I went wrong with Soda and the food toys. I allowed Soda's criteria to be run to the toy for much too long. Laura Derrett called us out on that at a seminar. She said it was great to have drive to the toy, but I had missed the whole tug aspect. When I started Roo with the food toy, I very quickly increased his criteria to mouthing and then tugging on the food toy before I opened the food slot.

5. Clicker or not? I've heard arguments both ways on whether or not you should use the clicker to teach the tug. Honestly, I found it hard to hold on to the clicker and work with my dog. I tend to use a verbal marker instead. If you can handle using the clicker and dealing with the toy, I say go for it.

6. Do  not leave your tug toys down for free play. These toys should only be used when interacting with you.

Roo Bear with his Tug-a-Roo

Teaching Roo Tug Video

Training Aids, the pro's and con's

A training aid is an item used to help guide a dog through the desired behavior. Examples include:
Front and finish boxes
Guides for go-outs
Targets

Generally, the best approach to teaching a new behavior is to do it with the fewest aids possible. The biggest reason to avoid training aids is the fact that once you teach a behavior with them, you have to wean the aids away. Often during this weaning process, the behavior falls apart.

When should you use a training aid? A good rule of thumb is if you cannot get success in 3 tries, you need to back up in your training plan or change something you are doing. For example, you are teaching a straight front. You are unable to obtain a good response with a method such as luring or utilizing a clicker for quickly increasing the criteria for straight sits. Your dog clearly does NOT have an understanding that a straight front is the proper behavior (therefore you should not be using corrections). Now I would add in a training aid. I would try to use my body first (placing my feet out in front of me to force the dog to come in straight). If that was not successful, I might employ a PVC frame box for the dog to sit in. I place it in front of me and teach the dog to hop in and sit. The pro is you get the behavior you needed to create. The con is - now you have to get rid of the box and keep the straight fronts.

So, think before you automatically use an aid. Be creative. If you can teach something without aids, try that approach first.

Sometimes Simple Works

A friend of ours has been tossing a cheap tupperware-type container of food for her dog to chase and eat out of in class. Roo was really interested. So, I grabbed a little container out of my cupboard, put a little kibble in, and tada! One excited dog. But this just didn't work to encourage tugging. Thus came the container on a rope:

Go figure, Roo loves the darn thing! My agility instructor was running him on Saturday and Roo was tugging on the agility field! I've tossed a few more together for some friends in class. How silly this simple, home-made toy beat out all of the fancy tug toys I've bought over the years. Roo reminds me of a little kid playing with the box their new toy came in, ignoring the toy LOL  

New Year Plans

We took the dogs with us for holiday vacation. Everyone had a blast in California visiting our family, hiking, and visiting dog friends. 6 Maltese walking around Manhattan Beach was a sight to see!

So, what are your training plans for the new year? Here are mine:

Show Roo in Novice and complete his CD title. Complete his RN title. Maybe show him in agility. Continue training the Open exercises (minus the drop until he finishes his CD).

Continue working with Soda Pop's vet to decrease his coughing (I can't show him if he's coughing). Continue to train him in utility with a focus on practicing in a full-size ring. Maybe complete his RE title.

I have 2 students who are starting open with me this week. I'm very excited to teach some fun stuff!!! I'm cracking down on heeling in my novice class. It is time to take things up a notch!