Re: (Canadian) Maisie's Training Log Sounds like you had a fabulous, positive time! Good news after your previous experience
Re: (Canadian) Maisie's Training Log Yes, it was quite good! Much better than the last. I did feel very nearly close to tears during the puppy play… she is just SO rough and high energy, but at least she is able to focus on me during the breaks if we do the "down + treats" work, which is great, and she isn't any worse than the other puppy. Her and another lab cross are drawn to each other as they are both very high energy.. she seems to seek out the ones that are a similar level of crazy to her and rile each other up! One thing I'm not looking forward to is the return of my landlord and her puppy (I live in a suite). I was letting them play together with leads dangling when we both met outside if both the pups were out at once.. .but now I'm thinking that may have contributed to Maisie's bad play style, as we never interrupted them and they rarely took breaks, just played crazy straight for 10 minutes. If I were to let them play together now, I would want it to be structured, allowed to break Maisie off if she was too crazy with a "too much" and have a quick calm/refocus session, then try again… but I don't know if the landlord is really willing to control HER puppy while we do that. I can have a conversation with the landlord about it, but I feel like it's a little awkward, plus they do like playing with each other and I'd like them to be able to play together. Maybe she will be happy to help, who knows? We'll have to see. Worst case scenario, I'll need to keep an emergency dried sardine in my pocket to lure Maisie back into the house or away from the other puppy when we meet. Oh yes! We now have sardines! Unfortunately yesterday I thought Maisie needed more variety in her treats and more high value treats, particularly for being left alone in her crate (noticed signs of discomfort, like chewing on her blankets and trying to tug the one overtop in through the wire crate) - so I bought dried sardines, tinned sardines (for kongs), a new type of fish/sweet potato jerky (very smelly and tasty I think) and some chew sticks. I was very dumb and let her have quite a bit of all of these and it culminated in a throw up in the crate moment after I gave her a whole dried sardine at night. Luckily just on one blanket, she didn't seem inclined to eat it at all, threw out the vomit, washed the blanket, all good. She had a very liquid poo when I took her out after that, but since has had somewhat soft but still shaped stools, not even diarrhea level, just slightly soft stools. I prepped her a banana + a bit of soaked kibble kong for while I was gone and she's just had kibble today, but seems fine. I'll reintroduce the other food SLOWLY and maybe one food a day, since she did love the sardines! We're working on our walk manners and greeting other dogs politely. She still does a bit of jumping up by their heads, but mostly to sniff - I'm optimistic she'll stop doing this when she is bigger as her head will be closer to their heads, so no need to jump up (at least the jump and sniff behaviour). I give her reinforcing praise when doing a nice sniff. If she starts trying to play and the other dog doesn't want to, we do a "too much" and I interrupt it and get her to calm down with me. I've also started LIBERALLY rewarding any turning and looking at me (or my treat hand) when we are walking towards a dog. Sometimes I'll make little noises to get her attention back on me, and reward that, but she also does it a bit herself, which is great. Anytime she is focused on me rather than the other dog (or anything besides the other dog) is great. For example yesterday we walked past a dog, had a bit of a sniff of the dog, then sniffed the grass - I told her good girl and gave her a treat for sniffing the grass. Today we walked past a dog that was a bit snotty as Maisie was only sniffing, but it did kind of a warning snort-y thing and hopped away from her. Instead of pursuing, Maisie did a shake and I said "yes!" and treated her. I think on Sunday we are potentially going to be able to bring my boyfriend's golden retriever over here to play with her and go for a walk. My trainer said it is good to get her doing stuff with dogs that *isn't* playing, so I think walking them together (and allowing them to play at times) will be a really good idea. And now that I have a better idea of the kind of play I should be allowing versus not allowing, their play together would be really beneficial too. She should also have another playdate with a big lab soon and again I can practice intervening when it's too much or the other dog isn't interested and work on creating those good habits. I think she'll be an okay player eventually. We may also go to the dog park and have a few meet and greets for 5 minutes, then leave. It's a bit rainy today! There are also 7 more weekly puppy classes to attend, which include a little bit of supervised play time, so that's another area where she'll start to learn. I get very anxious over her learning how to play properly… like my stomach feels a bit sick when I think about it. But I think she doesn't need to have to learn how to play with EVERY DOG, she needs to learn how to greet politely, how to play appropriately with certain dogs, and how to walk past other dogs on a leash and focus on me or her dog walker in the presence of other dogs. I had thought a doggy daycare might be good when I'm working full time,but now I'm thinking getting a dog walker in once or twice a day might be a better option. Maisie and I are just working on the same stuff right now… adding a bit of calmness reinforcement when I catch her being calm, making the crate a really fun place to be, playing together when it's play time (she's starting to learn wanna play), etc… nothing much new except implementing strategies with other dogs. I know what to do now, so it's just a matter of implementing it. She is very smart, so hopefully she'll start to learn her "too much" cue.
Re: (Canadian) Maisie's Training Log Try not to worry about it too much, she is still very young.. I'd be wary of always only doing 5 mins though, dogs need to get over the initial madness of meeting another dog and settle down. So make sure she doesn't only experience the first mad few minutes. That's the least helpful bit really. If you can leave her for a while with older dogs who will get bored with her, and do other things, that would be ideal.
Re: (Canadian) Maisie's Training Log [quote author=JulieT link=topic=9495.msg139080#msg139080 date=1422047239] Try not to worry about it too much, she is still very young.. I'd be wary of always only doing 5 mins though, dogs need to get over the initial madness of meeting another dog and settle down. So make sure she doesn't only experience the first mad few minutes. That's the least helpful be really. If you can leave her for a while with older dogs who will get bored with her, and do other things, that would be ideal. [/quote] The 5 minutes approach is only referring to taking her to the dog park, although perhaps I'll just try to spend a little longer there when there aren't very many dogs there. It's a short walk away from where we live and we can walk along across the street and see if it's busy or not, so maybe we'll try that and do a bit more time there to get used to the idea of seeing dogs running around and walking along doing her own thing. With her play dates, that's what I'm aiming for as well besides good play behaviour - taking breaks, doing her own thing, etc. Her play dates with a lab included lots of breaks to sniff things around on her own which was great as she self-enforced those. She's spent all day with her golden retriever friend and done a lot of stuff by herself while he was there in the yard (playing with other toys, running around sniffing things) and inside they even slept on the same dog bed together, very chill! So I definitely aim for her to get to that point where she is around another dog but ignores him or her. And yes, I do just need to not worry about it unless I'm in the moment of her meeting or playing with another dog, and then I just manage it and train the best I can and she will learn what to do and what not to do, hopefully. Right now she is snoozing away on the couch, so not much to worry about right now at all!
Re: (Canadian) Maisie's Training Log We haven't been doing much new, just working on old stuff, but here's what I'm focusing on for now: Walks - rewarding when she looks at me. She looks at me a lot now, but I really want to encourage it. I don't mark it normally (she would be staring at me the entire walk if she got a treat the entire time she looked at me) but if she sees something interesting (a bike, a person, a DOG) and then looks back at me, she gets a YES! and a treat, each time she does that. She does usually turn back to look at me, which is great, especially as I try not to make any noise to attract her and let her do it on her own (which I think makes it stronger). I haven't tied a cue to it at all, because it's more I'm rewarding her doing it of her own volition? Reinforcing crate training - I had come home twice to her having thrown her stuff around in the crate and once tried to bring the blanket inside that was draped over it, so I stepped up my reinforcing being in the crate is good. She gets a few bites of sardines fed to her in the crate daily (not otherwise given to her fresh… only for a recall sometimes does she get the tinned sardines), I have been throwing treats in there more often so she'll check, and doing the wait game, etc, in the crate. I think it's working as she went in to have a sleep twice the other night (on her own) and yesterday while she didn't sleep in there, she took a box I had given her to chew and left a few pieces in there, and then took her frozen washcloth in there and left it there. I was happy she felt it was safe to put her stuff there, but I had to take the washcloth out - don't think she would have liked sleeping on a wet bed! To work on… Thinking up some fun puzzle games beyond fetch, tug, and find it Continue making the crate an awesome place to be Continue walk training (watch leash walking video for Wednesday's class tomorrow) Puppy class tomorrow I just found a park that's really close to my house, it's not fenced, but I'm getting a long-line type rope thing for Maisie tomorrow, so I'll be able to put her on that. Won't be able to let her out all the way as there's a children's playground attached so I'll have to be mindful of that if anyone else is there, but there's lots of space for us to run around and play ball. I think it would be good if we go there a few times a week and use it as both a place for her to let off steam and a place for her to learn to calm down… she gets VERY hyped up running around a place like that (as she doesn't have a yard) so I think it would be really useful training to work on getting her to a calm state after. I didn't have enough treats to do a really proper training session at the park, but I think I'll bring a bunch (and some kibble) and her ball and the leash tomorrow and work on it. She did catch me with her teeth today - not really intending to bite, just jumping and my hand got caught, so that was unfortunate (her teeth are still so sharp). But I think it's beneficial to let her run around and spend that puppy energy outside and to chew sticks and smell things and play fetch, and then to try to do some focusing exercises to settle her down for the walk home (quite short since it's close). Also, the fact that every time she gets a treat she has to be gentle or she doesn't get the treat, will also help her control herself/her mouth when she is really hyped up. I think this is going to hopefully help extend to her over-excitement stuff with other dogs, as I'm going to try to work on lowering her down from her highly aroused state. Any tips on focusing exercises to do? Right now we do a lay down, and treats drop down as long as she's lying down, as well as her sitting and she gets a treat for looking at me in the eyes. We might also just do short training sessions to get her focus there - some easy stuff, like touch, etc. If no one is there, we can also work on recall in a distraction environment.
Re: (Canadian) Maisie's Training Log What do you mean by focusing exercises? Giving her attention to you? I don't do the eye contact thing, for a few reasons but mainly I think it's not a natural thing to ask a dog to do. I can tell when I have my dog's attention without having a staring match with him. I reward all attention off lead in very high distraction environments, as I want him to check in frequently. I put the start of doing something together on the cue "ready?" And end things by "finish" or "go free" if he really if free to go rather than have a break and stay by me.
Re: (Canadian) Maisie's Training Log Basically just attention, looking at me (not eyes specifically) when she sees another dog/person/etc, lying down and holding the down (just dropping food on the ground while she stays in a down). We went to the park today and it was brilliant! She RAN full tilt towards us if we recalled her even with other people around, got her to focus away from a dog walking by, and she ran and chased the ball and retrieved and chewed sticks and had a great time. She also didn't get as freaked out excited this time, which was great. Also we went to puppy class and dried sardines were a HIT! I only brought them out during the puppy play time and when she was allowed to go play she stayed focused on me and then another person (hoping for treats from them) for at least 30 seconds before going off to play with the other puppies in the area which is crazy behaviour for her but not the bad sort of crazy. The trainer also said to us that "Maisie is playing better this week" which made me feel good. Once I was like "uh I need to get her right?" because she started getting a bit snappy, but overall she was better. I am thinking I would be okay taking her to the specifically play class this Saturday. We are also going to try (possibly) recalls next week when she's playing to get her out of there… we'll see if that works! I am going to work on doing recall in challenging environments this week, particularly using the park and possibly even the dog park if we can walk by when not many people are there and use the long line… Oh and also doing some "jackpot" recalls every so often with really great rewards. I also really made a fuss over her for recalling in the park which I think I need to do all the time for the recall. Anyways, I think she's improving, we've had some nice cuddles this week, and I really had fun taking her to the park and I'm glad I've found it and gotten her a nice long line so we can go play fetch and run around for one of our walks/outings (the other will be a leash walk to practice lash walking). This should also be a better option than a walk to tire her out before I need to crate her! Also she walked into her crate for a little bit today.
Re: (Canadian) Maisie's Training Log I'm loving going to the park with my little baby on the long line. We played "follow the leader" today where she stayed in a heel ish type position (by my leg looking at me) and I walked around, turning, etc, rewarding her for staying in position. I threw the ball for her as well and she fetched pretty nicely. I also had trouble getting far enough away from her to do any recall work - if I threw a stick for her and let her chew on it and then tried walking away, she got up to follow me! I did get to do a bit of recall and even brought a "jackpot" treat along for 2 of the recalls- a tinned sardine . I'm wondering, should I be yelling her recall word when she is coming running towards me (even if I didn't call her)? Will this reinforce her word? I also had some emergency dried sardines in a baggy in my pocket which I had occasion to use when a dog walked by after I'd used up everything else but kibble, so that was good. Should replenish those. She's been going in her crate more recently both to sleep and putting some of her toys, etc in there with her, which is cute. Her ball is in there right now and I didn't put it there. of course, she did also have the ingenious idea of grabbing the end of the tarp I have down and dragging it into her crate to chew on. Mmmm. No baby.
Re: (Canadian) Maisie's Training Log I think when you are doing early recall stuff...it is great to reinforce a "volunteered recall". In training all the little steps work up to the finished skill, so reinvorcing along the way for spontaneous things are great. I'm working through the total recall book exercises, and recalling away from activities without other distractins in the house...but when I'm out and about on a walk with her off lead - I do plenty of foundation recall work things like give the signal, turn and walk....and reward her for her voluntary recalls too. Coming to me needs to be the BEST and most desirable thing for her to do...so I encourage all zooming in my direction. I do think it strengthens the cue. My Bella is 20 weeks and is making good progress with her recall. The most important thing to remember at this stage is to only use the cue ONE TIME....if she ignores it (which only happened once because she had her sister as a distraction - my fault)...do not give it again, instead get her moving towards me in any other way possible....kissing sounds, claps, etc to draw her attention...turn and walk the other way. And the other thing is to not ask for a recall in a situation/setting she hasn't trained for...better to just go get her than risk the cue. (this theory is outlined clearly and repeatedly in the book).
Re: (Canadian) Maisie's Training Log Thank you for that - I have been doing just that and rewarding her basically any time she chooses to come back to me in the park (or really most times she comes to me, she is just able to wander farthest in the park because I put her on a long line, otherwise she is on a 4-6 foot leash whenever we go outside). Which led to some success today!! We went to the park to play a bit of ball, chew sticks, etc. She was on her long line as it's not fenced. She has a cough so I wasn't really encouraging her to run that much, short throws of the ball, etc. I started trying to get her interested in some sticks, throwing them for her, so she'd have a pause and chew some sticks. She started *retrieving the sticks*!!!!! I feel this is a big leap in her retrieving instinct, before she would just grab the stick I threw and settle down to chew on it. But yay, now she brings the stick back to me! If I recall her after I throw it, she will drop it and run to me, which is nice. She also just randomly came back to me at different times and I rewarded that. After we had been there for a bit, a mom and child and her dog came to the park… the dog wasn't on a lead (which I wasn't too impressed about, if it's not an off leash park you need to at least be using a long line as I was so you have a way of corralling your dog, not to mention it is unfenced!). But luckily he was fairly well behaved, so I just asked her to collect her dog while we got ready to leave (just needed to switch leashes and grab her ball). As Maisie has a cough I did not want her meeting any other dogs as advised by the vet (we have an appt tomorrow to figure out what her cough is, kennel cough or whatever). The lady was nice enough and just sent the dog to collect his ball before recalling him, but as he ran to get the ball Maisie ran to go see him… and I recalled her!!!!! And she turned AROUND and came back to me!!!! Well she got two big chunks of jerky bark right away and then I pulled the dried sardines out and started giving her those as well and fussing over her so much like she was the best thing around (because she was!). I then used the sardines and other food to keep her attention while I switched her lead and fixed her harness and then we walked off. The lady said her dog was fully vaccinated but Maisie was vaccinated against kennel cough as well -I read that apparently that's not always helpful as it can be caused by several viruses, not just the one we tend to vaccinate against. Also Maisie got that vax and she still has a cough. SO I am very proud of her for recalling way from that dog! It was a great test of our recall and it really worked - she turned around and came back and was rewarded heavily. I'm going to keep working on recall . Any suggestions for new tricks to teach, though? I was starting paw but I don't know if I want her pawing at me while sitting anymore, so I might let that one die a quiet death. I've started doing an "up" while she's lying down, which she seems to get quite well. We've done sit, wait, down, up, touch, spin left, spin right, leave it, drop it, etc.
Re: (Canadian) Maisie's Training Log Recall - going well, recalled away from another dog today. Gotta make sure we do something fun when I recall her from that though, because I don't want to be consistently calling her away from fun things without offering her FUN in return (not just sardines!). She has gotten some things she shouldn't… I should be really aware now that she is teething that she is thinking that chewing things she previously didn't chew is a good idea… like computer chargers!!! Ugh. $80 mistake. But I love how she behaves when sh egets something she shouldn't. She does run off with the item if she thinks it's really interesting, and I don't usually chase her but rather go get a good treat and say, "Maisie, can I trade you?" We formally trained drop it and leave it but I don't like to say drop it until I have a treat to trade (as I don't want her to worry about giving things to me, I ant her to know she gets something good if she gives up what she has) and she has learned the word "trade" so when I say that now, she'll drop what she's got and come over to me. If the treat isn't forthcoming quickly enough, she'll rush back to the thing, but I'm pretty happy with what she does. I give her a tasty treat in exchange for whatever I take. She has also learned the word "treat!" Which is helpful as it's kind of an attention grabber I can get outside if I want her to come inside and I just say "shall we go get a treat?" and she gets pretty excited. She's also started paying attention when I say "crate" even if I'm not saying it to her (because I put her in her crate to give her tasty things! Formal training, we're still proofing all the other things, and I could up the focus/look training if I want (and we're working on follow the leader), but our newest trick is "bow!" I just had some success with it just now where before I was having trouble getting her to do the new position rather than just lay down. I actually introduced the cue before the behaviour, which I know is backwards, but I tried adding it in because I wasn't sure if she understood I was asking her to do something different than lie down, because I was luring with food to get her into position. I need to move from luring to doing it without the lure soon though so she doesn't become too dependent on the lure of course. Anyways, it's a fun one, and kind of cute. I've been saying YES when she hits the right position. Sometimes, maybe half the time she ends up lying down but I say YES! and treat when she holds the bow, so that'll come with time.
Re: (Canadian) Maisie's Training Log Haven't updated in awhile… Big things we're working on: - preventing barking (not scared/alerting barking, but nuisance barking) via "enough" command as well as giving alternate commands and/or counterconditioning if source of bark is fear (i.e. give treats while walking up to the garbage can in a new place that freaks her out outside, treats while walking past noisy construction, etc) - playpen/crate transition - continuing to work on play behaviours with other dogs, less excitement when walking past other dogs, emphasis on "leave it" command - working on not jumping up/calm greetings Little things - proofing sit/stay/wait/leave it/drop it or trade (working on giving really high value items once in awhile for a trade, even if it's not a particularly difficult trade, just to reinforce giving me stuff is REALLY GREAT)… maybe more tricks, we were learning a "through" trick to go through small spaces… IDK. I want to transition from her being in a crate to being in a crate attached to a playpen so she can be alone for longer periods. I don't plan to crate her longer than 4-5 hours at a time while not working, but eventually she'll need to be crated for 4-5 hours at a stretch while I'm working, so I'd like her to have more space to move around in, and the ability to have her water bowl in there. Since I have quite a long time to do this (she won't need to be crated for those longer periods until September or so), I'm starting very slowly. Right now my main steps are: - randomly put treats in the playpen for her to find - working on an "on your bed" command to ask her to go into the playpen (her big dog bed is in there, she is asleep in there right now) - give her larger treats in there (chew sticks, anything more "special" although I'll still do this for the crate) - when filling up her treat dispensing toys, giving her a wait command and placing the treat toy in the playpen for her to go get Eventually I will start giving her Kongs and leaving her in the playpen while I'm home, for very short periods with the door shut. Then build it up. I will also move the crate into the playpen area and then perhaps still put her in the crate with the top down, but just have it in the position it will end up in… then start doing the crate/playpen leaving (maybe just having a shower to start and giving her her normal Kongs in there). Anyways, it's basically like what we did for crate training (and she RUNS to her crate very happily when she is given her commands and sees Kongs coming out) but I'm doing it quite gradually, because crate training was very stressful and I'd rather build it up slowly and not have it be stressful at all. Also, my boyfriend and I really are going to start working on car training. She gets very carsick and pulled away from me when I went to put her in the car today and she *never* does that, so we're going to do some rehab work, feeding her in the car and not going anywhere, getting a car crate to see if that helps (she seemed happier in the car crate she had when she was little, but that one is too small now), and also feeding her a bit of ginger beforehand to help her stomach.
