Basics Skills for training any dog sports

Basics in dog training - building up a team

I have done dog training for about 14 years. I have trained in many different ways and found my way
to clicker training. During my journey I have learned that training techniques can help you to succeed in your goals but there are few fundamental skills that every dog team should learn before starting any sport training. Basic training is sometimes boring but gives you a rock solid base to built on. Basic skills I see important to learn in first year is socialization, calming down, impulse control, motivation and rewarding. All this basic work leads to a good solid relationship and gives basic tools to do anything the team wants.

Socialization

First thing the puppy must learn is to be with its new family. This time should be peaceful time and time to relax from the stress that comes from separating from the mother and the siblings. Little by little the puppy can explore the outside and see new things but safely. It is important to observe the puppies character and see how much new things it can handle. This is time to teach the puppy recalls and walking on leash. Puppy should also meet safe adult dogs and other puppies of same age and size. Also taking the puppy to new environment is important so it learns different surfaces, smells, sound, traffic, meeting different dressed (man wearing a hat, big coat etc.) and moving people (wheelchair, babies, old) etc. All this need to be done in the puppies terms. Shyer puppy might handle few short visits to new places per weeks and more bold puppy can visit new places more often. You just need to watch your puppies reactions and how recovers from the stress. 

Calming down

Calming down is skill that can be the hardest teach at first but pays off in a long run. It means that you teach your dog a routine that leads to calm lying down. First you train this at home. First time might take 15-30 min if you have already a older puppy. Make sure you have something calm to do like watching a TV show. You can use a mat as spot to lying down so that you can take it with anywhere and it can be save spot for the dog in the future. You can have collar or harness to help the keep the dog close to you and then you start making long strokes from head to the end of hind leg. Remember you need calm down too. In this exercise you don't need treat the dog. Dog just need to learn calm down. At first time exercise end when the dogs has calmed down in lying down position. Dog will start calming down faster and faster as practice this routine. Then you can go and try this same routine in new more busier place. This can lead to longer calming down time but more work on it more faster it gets and the dogs learn to take it relax stage in anywhere. In longer run this helps reduce stress in new places and competition trips.

Motivation and rewards

Motivation can be from internal like hunger, thirst and reproductive needs or it could from outside smell, social interaction, car ( takes to forest run), ball (change for game). Every behavior have some kind of motivational drive. Every time you train and your dog does something out of the ordinary you should think what motivated to do it. Finding our the motivation to each behavior can be the key to solve it or route to find away to train for your liking. Behavior has always reason why it happens. Dogs don't have ability to be nasty or try to trick us. We just have see what motivates them to do it differently or have we have our training lead to the seen outcome.

In training we need different things to make the dog work for us. Usually we use rewards like toys, treat, social reward or environmental rewards ( like permission to play with other dogs). The most important thing is that THE DOG get choose what is rewarding and what is not. Playing can mean a lot things to different dogs. One might want to chase something or chew the toy or just do the tugging. In the end its the dog choice and as handler it is our job to find out which things our dogs like. Some dogs like treat but you give them in many ways to make it more interesting: like chasing treat hand, tossed treat, treat ball etc. You can also built up value to toys or treats with using the preferable reward to enhance to the other. Treating games can be built but always watch how you dog reacts and does it really feel that reward is rewarding. Some dog might like tugging but other might feel most rewarded when they can run around with toy in their mouth.

It is important to find things that your dog thinks is valuable. This gives you motivation tool to teach the dog to things you like. Different situations might need different rewards. At home your dog might work for a kibble and in the busy dog training arena you might need treat likes chicken heart to get as good as motivation to work with you. More games you teach more tools you have in the future. I try to teach my dog to play with anything from piece of grass to fallen leaf in the autumn. I want the any surroundings to be a change to play with me.

Impulse Control  

Impulse control is one the most important skills when it comes to dogs sports. The dog need to learn to give up from distractions and give the attention to the handler. Basic exercise is given up the treat. This is one the first trick I teach puppies when they been at the house for awhile. First you have treat in your hand and when the dog tries to get it you close hand as soon as the dog moves away from the treat hand you treat the dog with your other hand. This trick advances to a stage where the dog takes an eye contact to get the treat. Later on you can play with the open treat hand near the dog and it needs keep the eye contact to you. This is same thing you can do with food bowl. Dog need to sit and give eye contact before it gets cue to get the food. This kind of work helps the dog to built up self control.

Next game can be done with a toy. If dog tugs well, you can do impulse control game. You start with playing with the dog and then you stop playing and freeze your hands. At this point you wait that dogs lets go of the toy and takes default position. Then you move the toy a bit and if the dog hold its ground you give it release cue to start tugging again. First time you do can release the dog to play as soon as it gives up toy and then increase the distraction. Before you do this it good have done tugging games so that you dogs feel confident and has good drive to play with you. Remember to let the dog win the toy a lot to built up a strong playing mode with you. Some manuals say not let the dog win but that isn't right. Winning helps the dog built confidence and playing drive, also it gives the dog reason keep playing with you because it can win and feel awesome. Impulse control games are just part the game and gives playing some rules.

Here is video of Freya doing some impulse control play:




That my thoughts for today!!!

MPF


  

Agility and Nosework

Winning yourself

Last Sunday Pixie and I went to agility competition in Nummela. On first run I took a goal that I would keep my plan even though it seemed to be choice that you had to hurry. I was so happy that I did it even though my plan didn't go totally ok. I won myself on this run. I need to do this more often. Safe way isn't always to coolest :D :D

Second run I trained contacts and on the last one I did handling sequence all over to show myself we could do it. After this they I felt like I had won myself two times even though we didn't actually win anything. But I think this will takes us more forward than just keeping it on the safe zone. When is the last time you took a risk and went off from your safe zone??

Here are video's from last Sunday and week before:

Nosework training in a farm

We went to a farm of Koirataito to train our Nosework skills. We did a scent discrimination line in tack room of a horse stable. It had lots of different distraction smells so it was a challenging environment to my girls. At this point we had only trained in our house and in our back yard. First I loaded them with a target smell (click and smell from a glass jar with target smell). After this I send them to the scent line. First we did was quick rewards as soon as they hit the target. 

Next round they had give a sign that they had found it. We did few round like this and we started to teach target smell expression and a showing after it. My both dogs express their find by laying down. This is a problem if the target smell is high of the ground. I wanted to add a cue that they need to show by nose target the location of the target smell. This action chain came together pretty fast.  Now I just need to built even stronger.

Pixie's homework was to make her express her findings better and start doing more harder tasks. With Freya I need do more straight reward repeats to built up her confidence in her smelling work. She has a strong target expression but this can give you false target expression if she feels unsure. So work a head of us but this has super fun for all of us this far. 

That's all for now!!!

MLPF

Nosework training

Basics under control

Mesoft (soft bandage)- target smell "carrier"

It has been so much fun to work on our Nose Work skills. I have know all the scents you need teach your dog but we are still working on our first one which eucalyptus. I first started to introduce the scent with a scent discrimination line. I gave the dog starting smell and I teach them to find a pair to it. First I just clicked when they hit the right jar to built a connection with the target scent and reward.

Next stage was to teach them to mark a finding. I choose laying down as marker position. This was made stronger with a one jar and target smell. I waited a laying down response to a target smell and rewarded. I also gave a little help cue to the dog as soon as it has found the right smell from the line of jars. This has been an ongoing work every time we have done work in a new environments.

New places and box search 

We have done some scent work in our backyard. I have used a matchbox or a plastic container to hold the target smell. I have hidden the target on a ground inside a bush, inside a fence gate and in different high places. It has seem to be easier for them to work outside. All my girls have been super fast when they work outside. Next I have take this search work to unfamiliar place. I think they will just love it!

Box search was harder for them at first. I did too hard exercise in which I used straight away boxes that where totally closed. I needed to take step back to make it work again. I did a training session where I had open boxes and a target smell in little box which had some treats over it. I did this few time and then I left the treats off and gave treats from detection. After this I did first closed boxed exercise. Freya was just perfect!! She just dropped to the ground as soon as she smelled to the target scent. Pixie and Louise took their time but in the end they did ok. 

Now we just need work with boxes and containers made from different materials. Also we need start using distractions smells and objects. I have used  already food as distraction. in the scent discrimination line. Different places will be also on our training plan. This sports has no limits and it is really fun even though the basic idea is really simple. Dogs have fun and it pretty simple to set up. I can't wait to able to test my dogs skills in real trial!! :D

That's all for now!!!

MLPF

Scent work with both girls

Can you find a tea bag?

I just read an article of different nose work things from Canis magazine. I have done some track work with all of my dogs but the idea of scent search in a room or car sounded just fantastic. So I took two tea bags, glass jar and clicker. I teach the dogs to smell from the glass jar to get a scent what they needed to find. First hiding places were really easy so that the dog almost founded immediately. As soon as the dog sniffed the target tea bag, I clicked and rewarded. After few tries Freya got the idea. Pixie and Louise had a problem of offering different tricks at first. It took few tries before they really started to search the scent.

After my dogs got the idea, I started to hide the tea bag to harder and harder places. I used sofa cushions as hiding place. I put the tea bag between them in different places and also under sofa pillows. These were pretty easy places. On our second day I started to use closed hiding places like cupboards and pen sharpener. In these cases dogs needed show me that they had found the target. I used laying down as a marker position. For this I gave a cue to the dog as she sniffed the target smell. Here are some videos of our work as girls have done this few times:

Nose Work and scent discrimination

This work also made me interested in a dog sport called Nose Work. This sport has been invented in the US and its coming to Finland. In Nose Work dog needs find certain scents from four different scenarios - car, box search, room search and open area. Dog needs to show it has found to scent and there can be more than one hide. This sport sounds super interesting so I have started our work in scent discrimination. At this point I have used tea smell and spices as scents. I just want to sold the idea to my dogs. On our first training I used two different scents and one scent as distraction. I built our set up from glass jars and holders. Here is video from our first training:



As we trained we used our new samples of freeze tried food from Orijen. Girls just loved it!! It very easy to use and hands were clean the whole time. Next we will try in training as energy food Orijen Adult Freeze dried food that you can solve in water. Here are girls with their super treats:

That's for now.. Our Nose Work scent are ordered so that work will start soon!! 

MLPF