Thanks that sounds great! Me and the Pig don't know that many games, and when we are out I have a limited range of things I ask from her and most are just a single behaviour and reward which is a bit boring. A shake-up in our training is what we need I think, so I will look into it. I just downloaded a mini free ebook which is fairly minimal but seems interesting. Thanks for the info!
I read the free boundary games ebook last night from Absolute Dogs. But I am pretty confused by it (embarrassingly, because it's really simple!). The Pig obviously knows 'go to mat' and 'lie down', but it seems like getting on the boundary in the game doesn't involve a cue. For people who use the dog's bed as the boundary, obviously you can't be rewarding all the time for the dog voluntarily getting into bed all day, so if you don't have a cue for the boundary games starting, is the cue you just going near the bed with treats in your hand? Or would it be easier to start with a mat that you can get out and put away when done? And is it fundamentally similar to teaching a settle? One place I want to use it in is the pub, but if they are expecting frequent treats when in position, would they ever switch off and actually relax? Indie goes into manic treat earning mode and gets frustrated. I guess no 'stay' cue should be put on it? Or should it?
Like everything, we start without a verbal cue; that gets added later, when the dog understands the game. They use "hop it up", I use "place". When you're first teaching it, you reward them choosing to go to their boundary whenever they do, to build the value in it. But you don't need to continue this once that value has been established. Similarly, once that value has been transferred to the bed, you don't need to treat in place anymore. It's become a secondary reinforcer in its own right. You d need to top it up once in a while, but the good thing is, you build value in the release, and being released from the bed becomes the reward for staying on it. It seems a bit odd to our little brains (why would the dog stay on it when getting off is rewarding?), but it really works, because getting off is only rewarded when the release cue is given, and so it's that that brings it all together! Once you start fading the food rewards, the dog will likely start to relax more in a relatively boring environment. Don't be in too much of a rush to get through the proofing stage, though - that's where all the fun is
YAY! My raised bed arrived - we've started! Coco is more interested in the fact I have a bowl of kibble & dinner's come very early, but now we've "finished" he's curled up on the bed I'll put it away once he gets up I think. He can go back to his comfy bed.
@Lara, glad I'm not the only one who gets confused ! I've noticed that there is no cue added in the ebook, I wonder if it's deliberate and part of their marketing -- not a criticism, just an observation. When I taught go to mat at training class we added the cue later, so I guess it's the same. I feel the same as you re settling in pubs. @snowbunny, thanks for the clarification, once again. For the record, I'm teaching the boundary at the moment to be her ordinary bed in the kitchen, which has just replaced the crate. I intend to get a raised bed at some stage, it doesn't have to be does it? To teach the boundary games?
No - any bed/mat will do. I wanted to start afresh so waited for my raised bed (which arrived very quickly from amazon).
Oh gosh, no. It can be whatever you want. I find a raised bed gives a far better demarkation than a flat one, so it's probably a bit easier for dogs in the early stages, but a boundary can be anything - a doorway, a big rock, the boot of your car; people even use lines drawn on the ground
I'll try and catch him on it - I got the Coolaroo in medium - it was the cheapest and it seems jolly good. Coco isn't a chewer of things, only toys, and you can get spare fabric anyway. I measured and measured and measured again because it suggests it's for a Beagle or a Kelpie sized dog. It's fine for a big lummox.
Ah, this is the same as I have. You have to keep tightening the screws, but that's not that big a deal and, if I wasn't so lazy, I would glue them so they couldn't loosen!
thanks @snowbunny ! but I am still a tad confused. Her bed is her bed, which she goes in and out of during the day to sleep. I don't want to have to treat her every time she gets in her bed, and not let her out of her bed until I give a release cue! She is currently downstairs asleep in her bed right now, whilst I am 'working from home' (erm, on the labrador forum) in our study. So if she wants to get up and stretch now, of course she will be doing this with no release cue and she will probably settle back in for another nap, which won't be rewarded with a treat by me. So I understand how to train it without a verbal cue with a mat or towel on the floor that is taken out and put away to 'start' and 'end' the game, but I can't see how this is trained with their everyday bed unless I can make it clear to her when we are playing and when we are not (i.e., by using my cue)? She already has cues for 'go to mat', 'bed', 'go snooze' for all her various beds and nests in the house, so can I not use her cue from the start to tell her that we are playing this 'staying in bed' fun game now? And when we are not playing, she is not cued, so she doesn't expect her getting into bed to be rewarded, and she can get out of bed whenever she wants? So confused, sorry! Ah ok I absolutely hadn't grasped that at all from the ebook. So if the treating in place is faded out, the dog is basically just waiting for a release which is rewarding for them and then hopefully they voluntarily return to the bed for the fun of being released again. You are right, that will probably help with the Pig's relaxing. Thanks, sorry I am a heap of confusion!
Yes, that's it. If you have cued her to her boundary she needs the release cue before getting off but if you haven't cued her onto the boundary she can get on & off as she likes. I'm currently working !!! too & mine two have chosen their boundaries themselves but are free to come & go as I haven't cued them there.
^^ This In addition, I like to use a "ready to work?" cue to indicate the start of a game and an "all done" cue to mark the end of the session. If she's happy to get onto her bed throughout the day, I wouldn't bother treating her for that ad-hoc. It's more for building value for a new "boundary". So, for example, there's a big flat rock a little way outside my garden gate. It's been there since forever, and we had never interacted with it until I started playing boundary games. Now, when we go out the gate, I sometimes use it for playing some games, but not always. If we go to walk past it, and one of the dogs hops up, I will reward them for it, even if I've not asked - because I'm building the value in something where there previously was none. In one of the BG videos, they talk about how they want a boundary to become a bit of a "black hole" that sucks the dog towards it when they enter the space. The dogs should be keen and excited to go onto their boundaries.
Great, that all makes much more sense now. I think I was confused by people mentioning they were using their beds and the little ebook perhaps didn't give enough context for when it would be used. I've kind of done it with a bench on top of our hill, and she does get 'sucked in' by it. I'll carry on doing it with a towel as well and then I can start moving it to new places. Thanks for the clarification!
Quick question based on the 2 trainers and method being discussed on here. Is one better than the other or much the same and just personal preference? Both seem to be similar, I am just trying to way up which way to go as Susan has opened up recallers after her free videos...
From what I can gather, they do very similar things, just with a slightly different approach, and very different delivery styles. As much as I find T&L rather OTT, I don't find myself warming to SG's somewhat dry delivery style either, so I don't think that comes into it for me. I'm just after the content. Both work a lot with boundaries ("Boundary Games" for T&L, "Crate games" for SG) and building relationship and focus. I don't know what the payment plan is for Recallers, but I have a feeling that it's an up-front payment, whereas TA is monthly payments you can cancel at any time. For me, the clincher was simply that TA was open at the time I was interested, Recallers wasn't. Now it's the other way around, so I think if you're interested and can afford it, go for it. You'll get some good ideas to try out anyway
