Cllicker Training - Cocker Pup (9mths)

[trekmoor]

I'm not fond of chewing gum but I must try some without putting my teesh in and giving it a really sair suck !

Wullie

[Muirdubh]

I've taken a step back with Molly and the starting pistol... I've got her to the stage where I can fire the pistol and send her (running in) for a retrieve but found she would go any way but towards me with the retrieved item. I guess she is still wary of the source of the noise...

So, every now and then, when I get to go out in daylight I'll take them all to the dump (my training ground is an old land fill lying fallow) and while she's running off playing with the other dogs I fire a shot... She's now at the stage where, although she's coming back to me on the shot, she's wagging her tail and generally being a cocker (read jumping up and stuff) so it's progress at least. So far I can only get one shot off because after that she doesn't go far enough away from me to feel comfortable about firing another. She does however retrieve anything and everything I throw for her and will hunt around my feet quite nicely... I work alone with my dogs 99% of the time so this'll do for now. It would be helpful to have someone else fire the pistol from a distance but I don't have that luxury for the time being.

She's becoming pretty manic about retrieving now, even to the point where she can at times come back and drop the item then spin round and get all excited about it... of course if that happens she gets a 'no reward marker' and i back off and send her for the item where she left it... this usually works but if she needs some prompting i'll send (or even just line up) one of the other dogs. Good old jealousy does the trick every time

Part of the deal of me getting this dog was that I wasn't allowed to give her a name... That was to be the job of my family. I wanted to call her 'Menace' but the kids and the wife settled on Molly. This is a bit of a pain for me because If I have a whistle between my teeth, Molly and Bonnie sound very similar... So I've changed her cue to 'Out!'...

My other dogs will retrieve either on the cue 'Fetch' or just their name... So using out for Molly is going to take some getting used to but hey ho, thems the breaks.

Today I sat the dogs up just where they were at the time and walked backwards from them ensuring a good stay from Molly. I threw her favourite dummy (the tennis ball dummy thing) up and over my head so that the movement ended with my right hand in the hup/stay position. This helps to remind Molly not to run it. If she moves, then I'm between her and the dummy and have a chance of interrupting her running in.

So, here's the result so far... The dummy landed in a bit of thicker cover which wasn't intentional but a bonus since this wee dog loves to hunt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_ZA8xU20kQ

After a shaky start, I'm actually very happy with this wee dog now... I'm glad I got her and she's very, very like-able...

[bluebell]

lookin glike a cracking little dog there Graeme!

[t jack]

Well done Graeme

I'll pm you shortly.

[Cockerman]

Reagrding the clicker training of the retreive
Can somebody give me some more suggestions how to get passed stage 1.5 in the write up on page 1 of this posting.

Its the holding bit I do not seem to be able to move on to, I do not seem to be able to get passed on touching stage.

[Muirdubh]

Step 1... Offer the dog the tennis ball....
Handing the tennis ball to molly, it became apparent that although interested, she didn't want to open her mouth to 'take' the ball so the click was given for looking at, then sniffing, mouthing and eventually taking the ball...
Step 1.5... Offer the dog the tennis ball and click/reward if she takes the ball... repeat this until consistently taking the ball.
Step 2... Give me the tennis ball...
At this point I started adding the cue 'Fetch' when Molly took the ball from me... While she was deciding what to do with the ball in her mouth I encouraged her towards me (without getting off the chair) and when she approached I took the ball from her and click/treated... This was repeated and was also the point where I added the paint roller.
Because she liked having the ball or paint roller (and would every now and then lie down and attempt to dissect them) i started to encourage her towards me and count to 2, 3, 5, 10 etc before taking the object from her. This is when she would either offer me a sit or I could 'shape' it by standing up... eventually she only got a click when she sat and looked at me...

Step 3... Move to the long hallway...
This step is just an extension of step 2 with the addition of me throwing the ball the length of the hall... Because my hall is only 3ft wide she had no option but to come straight to me.... Any attempt to go past me was blocked very easily by stepping in her way... This was repeated with the tennis ball, paint roller, tennis ball dummy thing, and small canvas dummy then full size 1lb dummy...

Step 4... Take it outside...
Same as above but without the restriction of the hallway...
We are still working on this because she can still tend to wander with the retrieve object... but she is improving every time. The usual walking backwards encouraging her to me or just walking away totally disinterested technique is used to bring her to me... I've stopped clicking the deliver now because it's fine when she gets to me... She gets a treat on a variable schedule (puggy machine style) on delivery.

I've also mixed the above up with the odd seen 'memory retrieve' thrown in. Something she has done up to 80 yards so far.

Now, I'm not claiming that all went smoothly... There was a lot of trial and error and there still is at times. But the reward for the success and no reward for the errors works great. Now and then if she drops the retrieve too soon (i.e. before my hand gets to it) she gets a 'no reward marker' which for me is 'ah, ah', then we move on. No chastisements only reward for getting it right... Because using this method the dog cannot do it wrong... She doesn't necessarily get it right but nothing is ever wrong if that makes sense...

What has happened is that because she's a wee timid thing, she'd been offering me a calming signal (lifting her paw) when I'd clicked and she was doing this as I took the object... That behaviour is starting to fade now but it's not an issue...

Hope that makes sense...
After a few repetitions she

So, the sequence you should be at is... (if i'm reading you correctly)

Offer the ball to the dog...
Dog sniffs or noses the ball
You click then treat

Making the switch to the new criteria requires the dog to experiment to see what works. Once the dog is automatically sniffing/touching the ball when you show it then the next step is to offer the ball but don't click for the sniff/touch. When the dog doesn't get the reward for the behaviour it just did it will try harder. By that I mean like... if you put £1 in a coke machine, press the button and nothing comes out... the next thing you do is push the button harder, right? or push it again and again (some people at this point say "no, I just punch it").
If your dog doesn't get the reward that it's used to getting for sniffing the ball then it will 'experiment' to see what works. You can help it along by animating the ball a bit to try to induce mouthing and when it does (or at least opens its mouth slightly as my dog did) you click and reward and that becomes the new criteria. Then you build on that until the dog only gets the click when it's holding the ball.

I should point out here that my dog at that stage was pretty much into tennis balls already...

This series of videos shows it better than the path I took... there's 7 videos in total...
http://www.youtube.com/user/clickergund ... rKu26LlMTU Rather than handing the dog the dummy he/she is putting it on the floor and clicking when the dog looks at it. As my dog was already into tennis balls, if I'd done that she'd have been off with it... but the criteria raising is on the same principle...