February 06, 2012
"Stand" we're still working on. I don't really like to be handled, and stand seems to lead to that. I'd much rather sit or lie down, maybe I'll get cheese anyways.
"Up" and "Off" are also something we work on. Off is usually fine by me, but I don't always want to jump up on scary stuff.
"Leave it" and "Get it" are commands we just started with last week. I made great progress on "leave it", but now I'm not always sure whether a treat on the ground is something I should back away from or pounce on.
"Come" - are you running away from me with a toy? I didn't think so, if you were I'd already be there.
Training Quasar is teaching me a lot, I've already learned several things in the process that I was able to transfer to Karma and improve her response to certain commands and situations. But a hyperactive, hyper-intelligent terrier puppy suffering from testosterone induced ADD is not always the easiest pupil.
Some things, Quasar picks up so fast it's scary. With "leave it", we went from nothing to him backing away when I drop a treat from waist level just a foot or two from his snout in the course of maybe 15 minutes. In fact he internalized leave it to the point that he started thinking he was only allowed to get a treat if I threw it behind him. Now I'm trying to introduce more variety into what treats he can and can't have, and interspersing "leave it" and "get it" commands on all kind of different treat throws so he doesn't get confused again.
"Down" seems to be his default behavior, which he'll offer whenever he doesn't understand what I want. At one point I could easily get him to go back and forth between "down", "sit", and "stand" at will, but that seems to have faded as he gets older, so we're practicing that again.
His recall is iffy. As with some of Karma's training problems, a big part here is simply the challenge of training this single-handed. If we're in a boring environment and he knows I have treats, he's not going to leave my side in the first place. If we're in an interesting place, treats may not be good enough to get his attention. I'm currently trying to figure out the right threshold between "I'll stay here next to the treat bag" and "I'm going to go SNIFF ALL THE THINGS" where I can do some long-line recall training.
I'm finally starting to get through to him on "drop it" after several weeks, like any good terrier puppy he's highly reluctant to drop his toy, whether or not it's acting like it's dead or not. But he's starting to get the point that when I hold his tug still, he should let go of it, and we're just about to where I can think about adding a cue. If we don't get there soon, there's always the technique shown here:
Posted by: David at
02:33 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 719 words, total size 6 kb.
Hello everyone, Karma here.
I've made sure that there aren't any squirrels in the yard right now, so let's talk about something else.
When David adopted me, he was lucky. I may have been wandering loose on the streets for a while, but obviously someone had taken the time to teach me the basics of good doggie manners. I knew that when a human says "sitâ€, that means my butt should hit the ground and my mouth should be right at hand level ready for a treat. If a human brought out a leash, I would immediately offer up my collar and be ready for a walk. With the exception of misunderstanding the construction paper he had down to protect his floors from remodeling debris, I knew where to go potty.
Shortly after I joined the household, David enrolled us in some classes, and I quickly learned more commands like "downâ€, "stayâ€, and "heelâ€. I also learned "drop itâ€, "leave itâ€, and "get itâ€. "Come†never presented any problem at all, I’m always happy to be next to a friendly person.
"Off†is confusing to me.When one of my favorite people comes into the house, or I come into a room and see someone I like, it’s only polite to pop up for a greeting kiss, right?
Well no, it’s not.Karma and I have been working on this one since nearly the day she came home, and we’re not having a lot of luck.I’ve tried having people turn away from her when she jumps on them, and she just climbs up their side or tries to follow their face around. Lifting your knee as an obstacle doesn’t work, that’s just a handy place to put her paws. Trying to thump her ribs with a knee or elbow doesn't work very well, and with her knee problems I don't like to knock her off balance. Yelling "down†or "off†or pushing her down with your hand is just giving her attention. I've made enough tries to train this out of her that she rarely jumps on me anymore, and we were somewhat harsh on her about jumping up on my mother who has very fragile skin, so she mostly has that one down as well. But she doesn’t generalize, and almost anyone else gets an enthusiastic greeting of paws on the chest and tongue in the face.About the only defense is to drop treats on the floor, or just bend down to let her lick your face and get it over with.
A big part of the problem is that it’s just me and the dogs, and we don’t get a whole lot of visitors, so it’s hard to reinforce the right behavior. If we go for a walk to a busy park, or go somewhere like PetSmart, then we have lots of strangers, and that’s entirely different, the enthusiastic greeting isn’t likely to be offered. You might think the weekly flyball practice would be a good chance to reinforce the proper behavior, but of course the flyball training room with jumps and balls short-circuits the Karma brain, and she’s got to run around and snag a ball or two before she’ll even consider greeting anyone, which usually means by the time she does get around to greeting people, we’re not prepared for it and thinking about making it a training opportunity.
Any suggestions?
Posted by: David at
01:45 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 573 words, total size 4 kb.
38 queries taking 0.0304 seconds, 62 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
