Yoshi and Trek
Training Diary - February 2009
By Ellen Clary
(reverse date order)
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Fri Feb 27
Made some more video illustrating the Premack Principal. Now to put it together.
I'll take Yoshi sightseeing at Lori's class - either Open (11:30) or Utility (1pm).
Just found out that Yoshi will be herding geese or ducks on March 7th
(the sheep have a previous engagement). That should be interesting.
He's afraid of geese and ducks have little interest for him.
Back from class.
We went to the Utility class since it's smaller and the dogs are more steady.
Did some heeling with the class and then broke off to watch the more detailed utility exercises and get massages and play LAT.
3 of the dogs he knew: Ariel, Hazel's Saint, Hank the brick (a cool
Bulldog who Yoshi likes after some weeks of grousing at him and Hank
never taking offense), and Mozart a sweet BC. He's iffy about
Riley the Brittany who was there and there were 3 other dogs he didn't
know and was uncomfortable about: 2 Goldens and a Mallenois (who wasn't
Calli who wasn't there).
In general he did very well though it still reactive to unknown moving
passing dogs and even was low throated growling at a Golden who was
just standing there but standing only about 7 feet away. I
insisted he cope for a little while then gave him a break
outside. He's so funny though, when outside he wants to drag me
inside as that's where all the treats are (He just needs to make all
those unknown dogs go away.)
When we went back we hung out by the door to watch some directed
jumping. He actually did better with the other dogs further away
even though they were more often coming at him in that position.
More than one time he laid down to get skritches though the time wasn't
very long, but it was still incredible that he felt comfortable enough
to do that.
There was some excitement though. One of the Goldens was
struggling some with the directed jumping. Once he went off to
sniff on a go out and that made me pay even closer attention. (I
have more trouble when I get my guard down.) So the owner
physically placed the dog where he was supposed to be. Right then
the Golden looks curiously (not threateningly at all - if he had we
would have let) right over at us. I joke "Don't look at us." and
break eye contact with the Golden. When the owner went back across to
her position, things seem fine. She releases the dog to jump and
the dog immediately gets up and heads right for US. I said
something like "Oh Shit." though in a surprisingly conversational voice
and tackle Yoshi. Yoshi seeing the approaching Golden is trying
to Get That Dog (which was a perfectly valid response according to Lori
and the best response is to catch the other dog, but right or wrong I'd
rather he not have success with this method). I'm successful at
keeping a hold of him and he manages not to have a meltdown and the
Golden is immediately captured.
Lori tells the owner that she really needs to work through the Control Unleashed exercises (like read the book tonight sort of emphasis).
they do some more basic exercises with the Golden on a flexi and Lori
standing guard to keep him away from Yoshi. After we've all had a
moment to chill out and have some further success, but before the
Mallenois gets a turn, I put Yoshi away in the car. He's done
well today.
Thu Feb 26
The New Clean Run is out...
Some notes:
- The Editorial (My comment) Contemplating what it must be like to train in sub-zero degree
temperatures and concluding that I am a wuss.
- Backyard
Dogs: Marveling that Sharon F. is quoting Wikipedia. How come
Sharon never uses the term "environmental stimulus and situation" in
conversation? :)
- Backyard Dogs: Trying to visualize Backyard Dogs Course #1, and being amused at how well I could muck it up.
- Backyard Dogs: would have handled #3 on the other side and I would have been way out
of position for obstacle 6, so I prefer the way she first suggests.
- Backyard Dogs: I alway lose focus on these articles after studying 3 or 4 courses. Must be limited attention span.
- Ad: The "tug it" mesh tug toy (p. 16) looks clever - hope the dog doesn't catch a tooth in it.
- Oh cool an article on Nancy D's Hawkeye. I have many early
memories of Nancy yelling for Hawkeye who had run off or was looking at
something other than what Nancy wanted him to focus on. Nancy's
dedication to him was more than admirable and they went so far.
It really shows that a dog needs someone to believe in him/her.
- The Table (Sandy Rogers) - (My comment) Best thing I ever did was make the table a permanent yard resident and
make sure great treats were associated with it. I can't keep Trek off
it.
- Running A Frame Contacts (Rachel Sanders) (My comment) It's so
cool that people are finally doing running contacts. 2 on, 2 off is a
hack. A useful hack, but still a hack.
- Back
cover ad: Leslie McDevitt's Control Unleashed DVD - Excellent! - I need
to buy that when I get the $ together - perhaps after ski season.
Yoshi walk at night. Fine till a GSD and owner came out of
nowhere from a cross street. We turned around and Yoshi started
to bark and whine (so did the GSD), but it was all under control which
I liked much better than the flailing mayhem of the past. The GSD
crossed the street and things calmed down.
Trek walk - uneventful.
Tue Feb 24
Cathy came over to watch a The Wire DVD. I was leaving to walk
Trek and I saw her on the landing. When we got back, Cathy and
Terri told me that Yoshi was much less frenetic and stressed this
time. Apparently Trek and my's presence has an effect on
him. Terri jokes about him not giving a hoot about her, but it
seems like the factor is Trek. I think if I don't have her out of
the house that we'll crate her in the back for a short while just to
see if that has an effect also.
He really is genuinely chilling out some. Of course as soon as we
noticed that he started alarm barking but I got his attention with
"leave it." Cool.
The CU_Dogs_SF list is continuing the discussion about herding and
working dogs. There are now 4 published (5 if you count
unpublished) examples of CU dogs in 4 difference disciplines (field
work, herding, dock dog, and weight pulling) where the dog is miles
more focused doing their job than they are in any other activity.
Now we just need to figure out how to carry that focus and confidence
over to other areas.
Sat Feb 21
Yoshi Herding
Much improvement. At least on the outruns. I put him on a
stay walk to the sheep and release him with "out." I stand in
front of the sheep until he picks a direction and I then step in the
other direction. He gathers them, comes around the circle and I
stop him with SIT (sit stop sit sit, etc). Then I put him back on
leash and do it again a few times. He was much better about this
after he was tired.
Herding along the fence is still a chore but it's at least doable
though I'm still dancing to keep him from ducking in between the sheep
and the fence. HTrainer3 says that the JHT is easier than the PT to
run, so I think I'll ask her if we can work on running one of those
since we've done it before.
Herding is definitely getting a lot of the credit for his improved behavior.
A post to CU_Dogs_SF
This is an unpaid semi-commercial announcement.
Yoshi's behavior is gradually getting better and better. The CU
exercises, DS/CC, and just simply getting more mature (he's 5 1/2) have
all helped, but the thing that is very definitely having an immense
positive effect and really making him work on his self control is
learning how to properly herd sheep. It also helps my thinking about
his training. If he can muster the self control to stop/sit/down while
SHEEP(!) are around then he certainly can learn it when another dog is
around. It teaches me that I can raise my expectations of him and have
a reasonable chance at success. We're not quite there yet, but the time
that it takes him to get control of himself has reduced a lot.
If you have a CU herding dog a lot of their misbehavior can be explained
by mis-directed herding instinct. Yoshi's thing is motion control. A
moving animal (but luckily not a human animal) must be controlled.
Getting him to listen to my opinion of whether that's necessary has been
a months long effort. Deciding to commit to herding has helped a ton
with that. Sure herding is a hassle when you don't have your own stock,
but the rewards really pay off. Yoshi was herding this morning and he
is happily crashed at my feet.
Finding a herding instructor who speaks even remotely similar positive
reinforcement language is tough, but it's getting easier.
Ellen
and Corgi Yoshi (ZZZZZ)
Fri Feb 20
Terri has a gig tonight so both
dogs are going with me to agility. Hopefully Yoshi can spend some
time outside the Scion once the little white fluffy dogs have gone home.
[later] He got the opportunity and did fantastic, there was one time
when Penny the golden walked right up into his face while he was on my
lap and reacted to her and Tracy was very apologetic for letting her do
that, but I wasn't paying proper attention either. Actually
that's not quite correct, I saw the whole thing and was just sort of
idly fascinated to see what would happen ("Wow, Penny's coming right up
to us, surely she won't keep coming, oh she is, wow look at that, you
know Yoshi might not like that" without really thinking it
through. Fortunately, I already had my thumb in his collar and it
was easy enough to tuck him under my arm and walk away so he could have
his little Get Out Of My Face temper tantrum. Then afterward, we
were able to get closer (even though he was still jacked up, but able
to work through it) and he could play LAT on her and also on Cash
the Whippet and Charlie the Mini Aussie.
I'm still really pleased with him, as he's light years better than he was.
Thu Feb 19
Yoshi walk - no dogs actually - greeted a human in a happy licky way that was much appreciated.
With no warning Leslie took the main list CU_Dogs offline.
Clearly, she doesn't have time to keep up with it and isn't able to
just let it be inherited by other folks. The list is 2000 people
though and from a Community Organizer perspective it seems a shame to
just set all those CU dog owners loose. I've sent her email
asking if isn't there another way to do this. We'll see.
Trouble is stepping back takes some willingness to let go and that's
hard to do (especially with concepts that you've invented.)
I keep wondering what the difference is as I invent concepts on this
blog all the time and just give them away. Maybe that's the
difference. This is not my livelihood. I am not financially
dependent on the dog ideas I come up (I'm a computer professional by
trade and would be unlikely to ever make the same amount of money in
the dog world) with and I'm solidly in the "Open Source" / information
should be free camp. I.e. the information is free, the expertise
is what you pay for.
What there needs to be (and someone can steal this idea), is a Dog Geek
Squad. a company where we have a small army of positive trainers
(?Behavior Geek Squad?) that we can send out on various calls.
I sent Leslie email asking about it and she says it's probably on
temporary hiatus (my wording) while she finishes her puppy book.
The archives are still open just no more posts. People are
reeling some and CU_Dogs_SF is disappointed but I'm hoping they take up
some of the slack.
Mon Feb 16
Yoshi walk. Only saw one dog who was crossing his path at a 3
house + 1 street width distance. He saw the dog, tensed, and
vocalized just a little, and that was it. Though we did stop and
eat goodies instead of close the distance till the dog was obviously
past.
Trek walk. There was a kid making noise in a garage that she
wanted to drag me past. I made her go slower and eat goodies and
she did it. We then did the don't drag me home dance which has
become "Trek" she comes back and gets a goodie, starts to go back the
the end of the leash, "Trek" she catches herself and comes back, eats,
and starts to head out "Trek" she catches herself. With in a few
times I had a heelling dog. Hmmmm.
From a corgiherders post of mine:
I'm hooked on podcasts and love a lot of Terry Gross's interviews on
Fresh Air.
On Jan 5th the show was an interview with Temple Grandin, and her latest
book Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals
and in the interview she talks a lot about how to read stock. While
it's very basic stuff to this group (e.g. Don't have people standing at
the head and tail of the animal and expect them to know where you want
them to go - well duh - scary that she has to tell them that), I still
find it refreshing that someone as insightful as Grandin is able to
reach a national audience. Even more remarkable is that she is high
functioning autistic who is also an engineer. There is also a brief
aside where she talks about the difference between Autism and Asperger
Syndrome.
Word of warning, her main focus these days has been how to make animals
more comfortable in slaughterhouses, so there is a lot of discussion of
that, but the principles carry over to anywhere.
You can download a podcast of the show here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99009110
Ellen Clary
and Yoshi and Trek
Sun Feb 15
We transported our garage doors to Lynn Martin in Sebastapol who is a
carpenter who also herds (how we met). It was pouring rain and
the truck was running rough and there was enough potential for mishaps
that I decided to spare the dogs the adventure. Fortunately we
got there and back fine.
Sat Feb 14
Trek Eye Appt. About the same left eye tear level is still low,
but holding steady. Dr. Friedman is wanting to see us try putting
the gel based tears (like Sooth XP or Genteel) at night because they
last longer.
Wed Feb 11
Yoshi Training Walk. Sometimes I'm too close to see his
improvement, but this time it was plainly obvious and I'm so thrilled
with him. Noontime: we went out of the house, turned right as
usual and following us 3 houses down was a yellow Lab. that Yoshi
hasn't seen. After some debate and some prep (treats at the
ready) we pause and I tell him to look. He sees the dog and we
immediately start walking again and I say leave it. He takes one
more anxious look at the dog makes a gutteral sound, and then
completely reorients to me (wow - treat, treat, treat). I let him
look again and say leave it and the same thing happens but no growl or
other sound. Ok that's definite improvement.
Then around the corner he stopped to poop. I'm hoping that the
dog isn't going to follow us but they did. I pick up Yoshi and
start to cross the street, not having realized that the other dog has
done precisely that. We immediately turn around and I hold Yoshi
- who is trying to get a look at the passing dog but I'm really not
letting him. I could have been feeding him then but wasn't ready
having searched in vain for the poop bag that was deep in my pocket,
but the dog passed without much incident. We then parallel walk
with the dog and when they stop I let Yoshi have another look and he's
fine.
We did have another dog sighting, a smaller one but I don't remember
much about it. Again he was pretty much ok though this one was at
a distance that he can handle.
Improving bit by bit.
Sat Feb 7
Yoshi Training Walk. I was going to take him to the park to walk
on the outside but it was mid afternoon which is prime dog walking time
so I thought I'd see what we could find here in the neighborhood.
DingDingDing. 3 different pairs of dogs, and one single, all with
varying degrees of success. The drill is that I see the dog(s),
get us to a place and distance where I think he can sort of cope, have
him sit - not facing the dog(s) though he's aware of them, while
keeping my hand in his collar and kneeling down, I calmly tell him to
leave it and when he engages with me I feed him. If he tried to
bark or start to lunge I steer him back into a sit facing me and say
"No [neutral voice] leave it" When he connects back to me I say
"yes" and he then gets to eat. If he relaxes we can then play LAT
though there's not usually time in these cases.
- Pair 1 Bernese Mountain Dog and other medium size dog. I
hear them approaching one half house width. I stop and have Yoshi
by the collar and cross the street and while holding him ask them what
direction they're going. Since they're going in the same
direction, we retreat some and do our sit and eat routine. This
entire dance amused the residents of both houses since both were
outside. One of them statyed out of the sidewalk and watched me
with interest for a while for which I was quite happy about since I've
heard him saying those odd clucking sounds to his dog (a JRT) that had
to have come from Caesar Milan. Maybe a seed was planted.
In the meantime, Yoshi did pretty well.
- Pair 2 Two Boston Terriers I think (they were across Central
Ave.). This one took more effort as he really wanted to bark at
them and the single dog who followed closely, but he managed to mostly
hold it together with guidance. There was one instance where he
wanted to turn and lunge and I basically held his head very close to me
while he got ahold of himself (he was struggling hard at one moment.)
- Pair 3 Two Beagles. This turned into an awkward enough
situation that I finally just picked him up. What happened was
that as we were turning down Gibbons St. I saw the Beagles
approaching. So I crossed over to an island that is on that
street. Then I watched to see what they did next. The
trouble is if the dogs follow us as the street after the island is wide
and really not the place to train a dog. Sure enough the Beagles
started to follow us. Time to opt out. I asked the owner if
he could hang on a second, which he did. I picked Yoshi up and
crossed back to where we were, but in a different place than where the
Beagles were, and the Beagles then continued on. What was most
interesting about that is that Yoshi wasn't struggling at all. He
seems to trust me now about this - though if a dog were approaching
directly he would still be barking and struggling. Though I may
try this more often. It worked when the neighbor's Rotweiler was
out and I needed to cross the street right then.
People often say don't pick your dog up as the other dog will climb up
you trying to get to your dog. I think that more applies to very
little dogs that don't look like dogs and I don't buy it in either
case. I am not afraid of dogs trying that. At all.
Trek. She seemed to be trying to barf so I took her on an easy
walk to see if anything would happen. Nothing happened but we
deliberately walked around the school which is always good for her to
do when it's calm so the smells will be familiar which will hopefully
make it easier for her when there's more activity. At least
that's my theory, so far as soon as anything weird happens she wants
out of there. Weirdest thing to happen was there was a bird
flying around and it was a seabird, not a bird of prey (it was night so
very unusual to see a seabird then). One cool thing was that a
kid with a high pitched voice came out of a house leading her parents
right as we were walking past and Trek didn't freak even though there
were small rapid foot steps following us (though she didn't ask to see
Trek). Individual children seem to be ok. It's groups of
them banging on things that stress her.
Tue Feb 3
Noon: Yoshi Walk. It's possible he's getting less reactive if
he's walking away from an approaching dog. We were going to be
crossing the street to see Teri the school crossing guard (not my
Terri). Another dog was approaching so I instead decided to cross
to an unoccupied corner away from the dog. He was looking over
his shoulder at the dog but I hat the leash somewhat taunt and told him
to leave it and while he was growling some he did not have a barking
fit. We reached the other side of the street and I looked to see
if that dog was following us and they weren't. A soon as it
became clear the other dog was walking in the other direction he
relaxed.
Another thing I was happy to see is that he's no longer reacting or
even stiffening to baby strollers even those coming right at him.
I give him his head and he checks them out sees there are no dogs and
relaxes. It seemed important to let him make this
ascertain. What's a shame is that allowing him his head with
other dogs never worked. He would always put on this bluster and
with obviously weaker dogs he was just horrible, and would take
advantage.
Archive - Go to:
2009
Yoshi
and Trek Training Diary - Jan 2009
2008
Yoshi
and Trek Training Diary - Dec 2008
Yoshi
and Trek Training Diary - Nov 2008
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and Trek Training Diary - Oct 2008
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and Trek Training Diary - Sep 2008
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and Trek Training Diary - Aug 2008
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and Trek Training Diary - Jul 2008
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and Trek Training Diary - Jun 2008
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and Trek Training Diary - May 2008
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and Trek Training Diary - Apr 2008
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and Trek Training Diary - Mar 2008
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and Trek Training Diary - Feb 2008
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and Trek Training Diary - Jan 2008
2007
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and Trek Training Diary - Dec 2007
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and Trek Training Diary - Nov 2007
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and Trek Training Diary - Oct 2007
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and Trek Training Diary - Sep 2007
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and Trek Training Diary - Jul 2007
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and Trek Training Diary - Jun 2007
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and Trek Training Diary - May 2007
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and Trek Training Diary - Apr 2007
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