Hi all, picked up our puppy, Enzo, last week. Let the fun begin, eek! we had a lab before this one that we had picked up as a rescue dog and he wasn't very well trained at recall (or listening in general ) so wanted to start off on the right foot with Enzo. He's already starting to find his feet in his new home. I've done lots of reading on the labradosite regarding clicker and treat training, it's seems very daunting, however we really want to use this method and how we would like to get Enzo very well trained, happy and satisfied with himself. As always, we have lots and lots of questions that I'm sure will be answered here in time, it'll be a long journey Here is the little guy
Oh he's lovely! Welcome to both from myself and my fox red lab Jura, now 14 months, though it seems like yesterday she was Enzo's size!
Hello and welcome from our pack, Casper, Benson and young Bramble. Enzo is gorgeous! Just love red fox puppies!
Hello and welcome to the forum from me and my two monsters, Willow and Shadow. Enzo is gorgeous! Well done on choosing the positive reinforcement route for training your pup. Please do ask any questions you have about clicker training - and anything else
Hi and welcome from me and Harley - fox red girl who is nearly 3 I red puppies Good luck and feel free to ask any questions
Welcome. What a super puppy, he looks as if he comes from working lines, are you going to work him or 'just' have fun with him? I have two Black Labs and do like the dark yellow of your pup.
Hi all, thank you for such a warm welcome and great to see such an activie community for lab owners. Enzo is fast asleep on his bed at the moment so an ideal opportunity to reply, ha. If I could ask a few quick questions here that would be great, before I venture off and create threads, as previously stated, lots of reading has been done but sometimes a quick question answers more appropriately. So I've read this... http://www.thelabradorsite.com/basic-dog-training-techniques/ It mentions rewarding all favourable actions at first, the capturing method. So if I catch Enzo sitting, click and reward, would I also say sit at the same time so he starts to associate the word with the action? Or just silently reward the action? As he goes to lie on his bed, when he lies down I've rewarded with a treat but this just gets him excited and up off his bed again so kind of defeats the point of the reward, am I doing this wrong? I have been rewarding his toileting in the garden with a calm 'good boy' and also saying 'want to go out' before actually opening the door. This seems to work and he's yet to mess in the house since we picked him up (although I think the breeder deserve a big thanks for this early and quick toilet training). From what I've read I should stop the 'good boy' and instead click and treat reward ? Also, he has started pulling at shoe laces and curtains, how can this stop at such a young age using the new methods, I don't want to mis direct with a quick toy play as this to me seems to be encouraging him to pull curtains to get the toy. Would taking the shoe off him with a sharp 'no' be ok or is that a no no. Sorry for such basic questions to you all straight off the bat but want to start off on the right foot with the little dude. The time it's taken me to write this, he's awake again and dragging shoes from the porch And finally, @Stacia he is from working stock with many ftch and cruft winner in his family,mainly the sires side, His mum was more pet. We will not be using him as a working dog, he'd be a family pet first and foremost but would like to get him trained to a good level and then go from there.
One other thing, he turns his nose up at most ALL treats we have tried, that I find strange, so resorted back to a piece of his regular food as a treat. Could anybody recommend a name of treats that lab pups seem to love please. Also, forgot to mention in previous post it's nice to see a few other fox red labs here already!
Hello to you and the gorgeous Enzo from me & Coco. I think you'll be just fine using his regular food as treats...but I have no puppy experience - others will confirm this, or suggest something else. I use roast beef for my adult dog's training treats. I look forward to following his training on here, if you care to share.
Some dogs prefer other types of rewards, like tuggy games with a toy. It's ok to distract him from chewing stuff by offering another toy. The main thing is to show him that there's a better game in town than taking shoes or pulling on laces
Thanks both for your replies I have been taking the shoes from his bed, replacing them back to where they were and then playing a toy fetch game with him, he likes to return his toy to me, just not drop yet haha. I was just worried this would give him the wrong idea and encourage him to chew shoes / curtains etc as he knows he's going to get a toy game out of it. I will document his training when we start, I need to charge the clicker with him but I've waited until I can find a treat he likes. At the moment he snubs his nose up at everything, even the kong puppy paste I've tried in his Kong. I may try cooked chicken and dice it very small, worried of over feeding that way though. Is there a dedicated section on the forum for dog journeys? I've used to car forums and they have a 'car build thread' where you can document the time of you owning the car. Is there similar here or should I keep it all in this thread? Thanks once again both
Hi there and welcome to the forum from me and Lilly who is now 6! Quite a few members have started a "training thread" to keep track of where things are. Can't link you right cos I am on my phone but I am sure you will spot it if you have a browse. Betsy has one as well as Bramble. Willow and Shadow. Charlie. There are loads. Probably what you are looking for! Jac
Hi there and welcome, what a beautiful puppy you have got there, has made me feel quite broody for another pup!
@Sim Have you found the board? http://thelabradorforum.com/forums/your-training-logs.21/ Your Training Logs.
Hello! So cute little puppy you got! Millie is 5months and I miss her being small, she's also from working line and is already 35 pounds! I love how quick they learn and the eagerness to please you. Hope you get your pup to leave your shoes alone, we never had any problems with that so far. Millie been happy with her toys, we had 3 different kind of chew bones when we brought her home (still her favs) and a rope.
You don't need to click for him toileting, just a "good boy!" and some treats when he's done will suffice. If you want to add a cue for going to the loo, then say it when he's going - this can be handy if you want to prompt him to go later down the line. I don't tend to use capturing,really, except for specific things. For example, targeting is pretty easy with capturing because the dog is likely to want to investigate the target you're using. Most of the time, I lure and shape behaviours instead. Capturing calmness is also useful; as you say, at first, you can find that the dog gets excited by the treat, but if you just, for example, pop a treat down by him, and then become boring to him again, he'll work out that there's no point getting up. I don't use a click for this type of calm behaviour, because it tends to build arousal. As for your question about when to say "sit", you don't add the cue until you can guarantee the dog is going to perform the behaviour for you. So, capturing a sit would look something like, you sitting on a stool, watching your pup mooch about, until he decides to sit. C&T (throwing the treat a little way so he has to break his sit). Repeat. He'll probably come up to you to investigate the treat bag, but ignore him until he sits again. Then, C&T. Eventually, he'll start to offer a sit because every time he does, he gets a treat. At this point, when you can anticipate that he will sit 10 times out of 10, you can bring in your cue, before he sits. Again, in time, you want to stop C&Ting if he sits without you giving the cue, so he learns that he only gets rewarded when you ask him to perform the behaviour. The way I taught the sit was via luring and shaping: have a little treat between your fingers and bring it upwards in a line from the dog's nose. As they look up, their bum starts to go down. C&T this movement. Gradually increase your criteria to a bum on the ground. As soon as you can, fade the lure by "faking" it, then showing the dog there was no treat in that hand, and feeding from the other hand. This way, the dog makes the connection that they don't need to see the treat; their reward will come anyhow. Then you can slowly change your finger movement into a visual cue (mine is an open hand with my palm facing up, moving in an upwards direction) and, once this is strong, add in your verbal cue if you wish, in the manner new cue-old cue-behaviour. This means, you say "sit", then give your visual cue, the dog sits, you C&T. Then you say "sit", wait a second, give your visual cue, the dog sits, you C&T. Repeat a few times, until your dog anticipates that the verbal cue means the visual cue is coming, so he might as well sit for the verbal one (you can draw out the time between cues to give him time to respond, because he may be a bit hesitant at first - just don't leave him hanging or he may get frustrated). I wouldn't use any sharp language towards him for training; that's called an aversive (or punishment) if it works; and if it doesn't, it's just a waste of breath! Training through positive methods is far more fun for both of you, as well as helpful in building a stronger bond. Using aversives can weaken that bond, as well as making the dog wary of offering behaviours - think of the difference between being rewarded when you get things right, versus being punished when you get things wrong. Which method would make you more likely to try new behaviours? Distraction is a far better technique. For now, you could roll the curtains up so he can't get to them and damage them; in time, they'll become a whole lot less interesting anyway. It's always difficult to train "don't do that", because it's a very ambiguous concept to the dog. Instead, training an incompatible behaviour works a lot better. So, instead of "don't chew the curtains", "go fetch your chew toy"; instead of "don't jump up", "keep all four feet on the floor" etc etc
Thanks for yet more welcomes! He's grown so much in the two weeks, he already looks huge compared to the pic in my opening post. @drjs@5 thanks, yes I've started a training thread for Enzo, it it in the wrong section under 'Labrador training' before I realised there was a specific 'training log' section. @snowbunny thanks so much for taking the time out to reply in such detail, it's a massive help at this stage, thank you also for the reply in the training thread that I had started. At the moment I'm still charging the clicker, I'm not sure whether he gets it or not yet, I was going to test it later by just clicking to see if it gets his attention, he's definitely began to recognise either his treat bowl (that I try to hide) or the clicker as soon as I get them from the kitchen he is following me. We have now lifted the curtains as you suggested, with regards to shoes, he just likes sleeping on them, if he ever goes out of sight, we got to look only to find him sleeping on a shoe, maybe his chewing was just comforting before he fell to sleep, it's not a massive problem. I haven't started training such as sit or stay yet, just little games of fetch which he is happy to do until I stop, I think this must be his natural instinct at the moment but he enjoys coming back to me all tail wagging with his toy. A Bit challenging getting it off him but I'll deal with that further down the line. He's not so keen playing it with our little boy (6yr old Isaac ) as he's to eager to jump all over him instead of playing with the toy, we are trying to discourage him from doing this by staying calm around him and ignoring him (as best as Isaac can under the circumstances) while he's jumping and rewarding him with some calm strokes when all four feet are on the ground. Hopefully we can get the C&T in to play here once he's 'charged' When we have visitors he's wound but the visitors don't help by also being wound, it's quit challenging to tell the visitors to stop winding him up with out coming across as unwelcoming and rude at the same time, especially if their sole reason to visit is to see Enzo. As we all know, it's a long journey Thank you all once again for your welcome and help
I'd say you're probably good to go with the clicker now. Charging doesn't take more than a couple of sessions. Just keep in mind when you're using it from now on that you're clicking at the exact time that he performs the behaviour you're after - that is, if you imagine the click being the shutter noise of a camera when it takes a photo - when the photo is developed (how old fashioned!), you have captured the exact behaviour you were after on film. If you can, it's a good idea to practice (away from the pup, so he doesn't get confused by the clicking), by bouncing a ball on the floor and clicking at the exact moment it hits the floor. Or, get Isaac to help by playing a game with you - give him a behaviour to do, such as putting his hands on his head, and you have to click when he does it. He's allowed to fake it sometimes to catch you out. Every time he gets a click, he gets a Gummy Bear (or whatever else he likes). He also has a pile to give you, but you can only have one if he thinks you clicked at exactly the time that he touched his head. That should be good fun for him, too
@snowbunny thats a great idea to also get Isaac involved in the training, he'll love that, we will definitely do that once he's finished school today. We've been very sure not to let Isaac become distant from Enzo as it is quite challenging keeping everyone pleased, especially when we stop him from playing with his new friend. The camera analogy is very apt, don't worry I knew what you meant by developing, I still 'tape' programmes on TV
