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


  

Obedience going forward to OB4 level

Box training

Freya doing some rally-ob

Freya has been working on the tasks in OB4. It has been so much fun. First we started to work on the box task. Freya needed to learn to run straight to emptiness. I started to work on it with a foot target which I moved to different locations and distances. My goal was to make learn to focus her work straight forward and also to go as long I stopped her with cue or she reached the target mat. I also teach her to go straight to nose touch to wall. This training was to help her handle the situation where she need to run against a wall in small competition. So far my plan has worked out really well and she super focus when we do the forward sends. Time will tell what challenges are ahead. First will the markings on the ground. This will be our first distraction challenge.

I have done the running part separate from sending forward. I have put Freya straight in front of me and starting send to left and right to the box. Freya has finally got the idea of running in the middle of the box. She has been super. Her speed and accuracy has improved million times. It has so fun the work with her. Next is to back chain the two part together. She has learn this little change to the task really fast.

Going around with sit/down/stand and retrieve with jump

This task has been my favorite ever! So many little things to train. I have mostly trained the positions in the wood by going around the trees then I get easily few repeats with nice brakes. Having brakes between positions stops usually gives more quality to the work. Freya can to max of three super good stops. So if I want to keep them super I need train them as less as possible in one session.

Other part has been the retrieve with the jump. First we have worked on retrieve part. Freya needed to learn to lift the dumbbell from down to up. She usually has pushed to dumbbell little on to the ground first and then picked it up. This created a problem that the jump came to fast to her and it didn’t look good enough. We started to work this problem by putting the dumbbell to little stool which she had to picked from to retrieve. It took only few tries and Freya started to change way she took the dumbbell to her mouth. I took this helped retrieve behind a jump from where we started work on rest on chain. Freya improved work superbly. I think we going to a right direction with this. Next step is to try all these chains together so little backchaining work ahead.

Distance control

We have been working her technique a lot to make even better. I have done some body balance training and also work with the back legs. I have tried to improve the control in her body. It has started to pay off and she has done super work. I have done technique from close up from 5 m and then 1^st changes from 20 m or more. So I’m trying to work the distance and control in separately. So far so good. I have also used a mat to get her better sense to keep her hind legs still. There are so many little things you can improve at the same time to work your way to the end goal. Years I have make me better at braking skills apart to make awesome together. We have still long way WC level work but it fun to try improve even the little things in our distance control.

Recall with stand and down

Recall has also a lot of element that need to be trained separately. Stops can be work on walks and also high speed recalls. Then we have try to make stops more interesting with recall game with two people where the dogs runs back and forward between two persons. Then you can make stop and give backround reward behind the dog. This little game has helped to make the stops even better. We usually do about 4-6 runs or less. This game is also a very demanding physically so better keep the repeats low to get high quality performances. More is less!

That's all for now!! I hope to get some awesome pics of Freya doing OB work because she is just a perfect ob princess <3

 MPF

End of Year 2016

Last part of 2016

New has begun and new winds are blowing. I want to take look at the last part of the year 2016. Both girls had some brake from agility and we focused our work to other sport like obedience, rally and nosework. Our goal was to really get into the training and enjoy other sports than agility. This has been a very successful brake and we got lot of progress in all of the task we did.

First of course was a reaching of big goal in obedience which was to get a 1st prize result from the winner class (OB2 FCI). We finally did it with Freya on our Indenpence day 6th of December. Freya did wonderful job at trial even though we got a zero from stay. There was another dog that yelled before the task started and in the end came out of the ring. This was just too much for Freya and she stood up and went back down. So something we need to work on. Otherwise she did her work pretty well. Here is some video of her work in that trial:

Kong Prize and testing some new Acana kibbles

I had some luck in the Clicker Expo and won the raffle at the Kong stand. My girls won 12 toys form the Kong company. This was an excellent prize. My girls just loved the prize. They have with us in training ever since. One thing I also got was a Wobbler which is a plastic toys that you can put kibble and dog has to push to get it out of it. The Wobbler was big hit Pixie and loves playing with it. Here is some video how it work. This was also first time she tried Acana new Kibble Cobb-Chicken Greens. 

Wintery Scenary Dec. 2016

Our Acana Kibble Cobb-Chicken tasting went well with Pixie but my younger dog Freya didn't really fancy it.  Cobb- Chiken is grain free kibble that is one the new tastes in the series. Freyas favorite was the new Acana Classic Prairie Poultry. This food contained some oats but this seems to be ok grain for both of my girls and gives them carbohydrates to high speed performances like agility. Classic version has also freeze dried liver which might have been the winner taste for Freya. I liked it also that you could get bigger bags like 17 kg which is nice when you more than one dog at the house. We have tried bigger bags of both foods to my dogs but their favorite has been the Prairie Poultry. We will see what we should try next.

So new year has begun and lots new plans have been done. I will tell more about it later on. Next post will be update from my coach course with SAGI and from our Nosework Scent test tomorrow!!


MPF

Clicker Expo 2017 - Day 2

Bridge Over Troubled Water: Critical Client-Conversation Skills - Susan G. Friedman

Morning started with wonder lecture of conversation skills. Susan first defined what makes conversations crazy. Reason were pretty usually that takes all of our skills to control ourselves like: opposing opinions, strong emotion, broken promises etc. Anything that is important or has emotions attach to it makes conversation base hard. I know I have hard time holding myself down if subject is close to a heart. Conversation skills is skill we need to learn and evolves during time when we practice it. We had to list reasons to learn to be better in conversation skills and I had many situations that I would benefit like better client service, better out comes and to have better skills to make a difference.

So how become better? Most import is to secure the free flow of information to the pool of shared information. This mean that we need to make sure everyone stays in safe place share that information and we are interested about it. So if conversation get too hot (emotional, I'm right stage) - change environment. Behavior is always a function of current condition. So all around us and our partners in conversation can affect the conversation. It is import to realize that our way speaking can great scary or tense environment. Also the surroundings can affect is the conversation comfortable to the other person (public place, closed room). Next to have your story right which means keep to the fact. Don't assume what the other person is thinking ask and give room to their side of the story. Susan told about story telling roles that should be avoided: Not me!, All you!, There's nothing I can do! These roles that stops the founding of common goal.

Conversation is only really done when you have action plan how to resolve to issue. During conversation is important to keep it open so that there could be resolution in the end. We need self exploration and exploring how other react and think. It is also important to keep your own goal without over powering others. These skills that all of us can train become better at it. It takes time and practice but can have much better results in many aspects of life. How we talk and resolve conversation challenges things can make all the difference. Susan lecture was really good and gave lot to think about.

Assessing Function - The Sexy Side Of ABC - Susan G. Friedman

This lecture went through about the ABC ( Antecedent - Behavior - Contingency) of behavior. First Susan talked about what are known about mind and what we know about it. How our brains developed. Then how everything is connected to each other. When we train we train emotions. Condition produce emotions and frustration is emotion that can happen when we don't get the wanted out come. This is phenomenon happening in training too if we don't plan the training good enough. ABC analysis really makes think what happen and why. Goal is to change the environment to get a change in the behavior and make unwanted behavior irrelevant. This gives power to the learner to control the our comes.

Assessing the problem behavior should be done in detail. When it happens, how often it happen and what happens before it. Then you try analyze the motivation of the behavior. Everything happens for a reason and every action has motivation. Test your findings and make plan for a behavior training by changing first the environment to get the wanted results. Susan also showed how to keep data of the progress. Data will really tell you has the plan worked or not. I think this way of analyzing works also in all dogs training. We have problems for example in OB task. We could try to brake it pieces to find out the motivation why dog does the unwanted behavior. In the end all behaviors have motivation why they occur. We just need find them out so we can change training plan (environment) to get behavior we want. This was a really eye opening talk about everything that happens around us. We shouldn't label everything so easy without analyzing the behavior chain at first. 

Smart Reinforcement - Ken Ramirez

Last in the day I had a training lab with Ken where he told us how to built a non- food (or toy) reinforcement. This meant that you would built clapping or thumbs up to be strong enforcement to animal. This was very interesting idea especially to sport like ob. It would cool to have " toy" in the ring. Ken showed us a protocol how to build up this kind connection to for example to clapping. This process was very long and needed a good training plan to achieve. He should how keep data and how to proceed. Using clapping as reward would need a constant training but it had been successfully done with number of different species. The idea of having reward always with you is very attempting. I thought this was a so interesting that I'm going to try to built it. 

In the lab we tried the first steps in training. It was nice see fast the dog pick up the training. Ken was really good instructor for teams. I would love to one day to attend seminar where I could train my own dogs.  

That's all for day two! We had a very nice evening dinner with Panel Discussion, where the audience could ask questions from the faculty member. This year questions were extra good and we got a lot of interesting conversations about it.

MPL

First day at Clicker Expo 2016

 CLICKER EXPO EUROPE 2016

It's been a cool to be back CE. Lots new people to meet and new things to learn. At opening session Ken Ramirez talk about the butterfly effect - a small swing of wing of butter fly can create a storm. This he used as metaphor how we can be part effect and spred the word around about positive training. Also he talked about being open minded so we would shut down people with different view from our clicker community. He talked about clicker training coming sometimes to cult kind training that judges other methods and shuts down to communication with different kind of training groups. I think this could improved everywhere. In Finland we have also people that judges other because their training background. Learning is process that should be open everyone without judgement. So lets welcome everyone to learn more and not judge people what they have done in past.

Working with multiple animals in household - Ken Ramirez

My first session was with Ken Ramirez. Topic was multiple animals in house hold. He talked about how managed training session and gave different tools handle it. One basic tool was to use different shaped stationing mats. This application you could use everywhere and have a nice training set up multiple dogs. Other thing he underlined that all dogs should feel like they had the most attention and by doing that you could reduce aggression and other bad behavior issues during your training session. Dog can feel envy if the other dog gets more attention which can lead food aggression or etc. One thing Ken also emphasized was you have treat/give attention to the dogs that "do nothing" because they are waiting patiently to their turn. He showed lots of different ways to make the training session fair to each learner. We also went through some way to make dogs or animals work in the same time. I got lots tips to improve my training session because I train both of my dogs together all the time.

Last he showed a introduction protocol. First Ken showed a example clip how they introduced new dolphin in the aquarium to new pack. All of the animals did first basic training, then they started to do basic training. So that they saw it's other behind a fence. Gradually they worked some task together over fence like target training. After this basic training was done without the fence and then finally animals started work together in the same pool. This introduction gave them time learn about each other and work together which made final grouping easier. This protocol had helped to prevent aggression and fear when introducing a new animal in to pack.

Next Ken shared with us project where they had used this protocol with highly aggressive dogs. In this project they had 9 trainers working with this protocol to introduce three very aggressive dogs to each other. Even though this project had taken huge mount of man power and time 2,5 years, it was amazing to see former fighting dog that wanted kill any dog in sight to learn to play with them. Project gave a little peak that even the most aggressive can be change to better. Although this amount time and man power isn't realistic to conduct in real life but this study gives hope that we can change even the most aggressive animal to better. I hope this work continues! This introduction protocol has been very effective in everyday use with less aggressive case than they used in this study.

So this was just quick note from the morning part of the day. 

Stranger Danger - Emma Parson

First afternoon session I had Emma Parsons lecture of reducing fear and aggression against people. In this lecture we went through training protocol how to teach dog stay under threshold and learn how to have alternative reacting strategies. Actually this protocol was pretty familiar to me because I had used it Freya. Doing first at looking that game and then making other greeting alternatives is a very effective way to teach to dog to relax and take in information calmly. Reactivity can be reduced and then help the dog gather information first. It's like change the dogs way of thinking.

Simplyfying Complex Tools- Ken Ramirez

Last I had lecture of Simplifying Complex tools with Ken Ramirez. This was a interactive lesson. Ken first introduced the topics we could talk about and then voted what we wanted learn more deeply. Topics were: Jackpot, Keep going signal, Time out, Non reinforcement marker (NRM), End of Session marker, Least Reinforcing Signal (LRS), Recall Signall, Chained Behavior and Differential reinforcement (DRA). Room first choose Keep going signal, then LRS and End of Session signals. So here is little bits of everything.

Keep going signal is training tool that has no real science base. Although there are many practical example. KGS can be continued praise or sound or something that makes the animal keep doing what it's doing. It is debated if its necessary to use. Behaviors can be trained to have stamina and endurance of long work without reinforcement. In army (Bailey 2007) they used a sound to control the dogs movements so it would move until the sound stopped and then had to turn until the sound started again cuing a go signal. Many of us might use KGS in form a continuing praise and some behaviors might be feared to stop with out KGS. I think in the end it's up our training do we needed. If you train well back chained behavior or endurance to long working time task like tracking you don't need to have KGS. Some KGS can even work as a punisher when it has purpose of telling that animals behavior made to KGS stop and reward is not available anymore.

Second Ken told about LRS which is one the tools to have errorless learining circuit. LRS used when animal makes mistake then you have 3-5 sec pause (micro pause). During this pause trainers don't change their response or change environment. During pause animal should do a default position if its trained well. After pause you ask LRS which is something easy and simple task that the animal can do like target training. Goal is not to interrup the rhythm of reinforment and not to cause frustration to the animal. LRS is proven scientifically to work and help the learining process to be more effective. This is good basic skills to have when you doing positive training.

Last Ken talked about End of session - signal. This has no scientific background. Although many of use it to let the animal do their thing or stop the animal to keep offering behaviors. Ken showed us a film where they worked with sea lion as example that with dangerous animals this kind of signal could be dangerous. Animal might not think that session shouldn't end and reinforcement should be gone this and this could lead to trying to the trainer going out of the training area. With dog this isn't the case but do we need it? Does it really make difference? I think many of our animals learn when to work with us and when not from our behavior. Most of have routines how we end training - some might give water or play longer or take the dog to walk. I have used "go free" as  end of session signal. This means my both dogs can go and play together. This doesn't really make a difference to our actual training but it is routine we are used of doing.

In the evening we had a net working event. I had so much fun and I met a lot of new people from all over the world. Lots of talk about training and dog sport.. What else can ask?? :D So a wonderfull first day!!! Next post from the second day....

That's all from the first day!

MPF

New winds and new ideas to catch

Agilitycoach course 2016-2017

I glad to be chosen to second level agility coach course. This course will deepen our knowledge in agility training and also our ability train the handler even more. We a training book that introduces the newest training tools in human sports and goes through how human physiology develops. This has been interesting to read even though some of it pretty familiar from own sport background and my studying in the University. I think this will be a very interesting journey in to more training tools. During this course I will also work with a dog team and train both dog and the human part of team. It will new thing to train more specific way the physical part of the human training. More I read it more I feel I want to know about it.

I have also started train in a gym. I haven’t done this kind of training in a long time but I think it will a good way built up my physic and also learn more about training from training classes in Mentor Gym. Learning to train right is journey. Sometimes you get too excited and train too much. Sometimes your training doesn’t take you anywhere. It’s cool to learn more tools to test and analyze training to make it more efficient. I have already got a some training how train and built up a sport dog but I hope learn from that even more during this course. Goal is to be able to train better both dogs and humans and give tools to become even better agility team.

Competition and training

We had a nice competition day in Kirkkonummi last weekend. Both Pixie and Freya did some nice runs even though we didn’t get a clear ones. I tried Pixie’s running A-frame in competition and it went pretty well. The hit was little too high to my liking but much better it used to be. We still need work on that in training. Pixie jumped really well this time. I hope her body starts be in good condition again. Freya had yet again amazing contacts. I just absolutely love her work with contacts obstacles. Freya and I had few spots where she wasn’t sure what I wanted with my handling. So we have some work to do with handling maneuver separation training to make sure she doesn’t always turn away from me when I put my hand down.

In Tuulias training last week we had the same turning away from me problem when I started to do a normal handling of a wrap. We did some work with it but it needs more training. Otherwise she did pretty nice job. Her jumping has improved a lot. Our forced front cross starts to look pretty ok. I need take off from marking site really fast to give her enough space and time to make a nice jump. Freya can really commit to handling maneuver and obstacle really early. This is something I need to learn to be faster and give her room to do her thing. Slalom was a little slow but we haven’t trained it so much so yet another thing we can improve to get more speed.

ClickerExpo 2017 and my first clicker training class

CE is coming again!! I can’t wait to be there again. Lots of super classes and lots new people to meet. New training ideas and improving my old skills. CE is one the best training events I have ever been. Your just get overwhelmed from all the exciting lectures and the faculty is just full of amazing trainer. If you haven’t been there yet you should go! This year it will be held in Denmark. So I have a very short fly to get there. I hope to have a backpack full new books to read and head exploding from new ideas.

I have also put together my first clicker training class. Well actually I want to share training tools that have helped me to get better performance in different dog sports. I have learned to use different target training in rally, obedience and dog dancing that has made training easier and make dogs performance even better than before. I have also included social learning to my course. I want share the wonder Do as I do protocol created by Claudia Fugazza. My dog have just loved to train copying. I have notice that their focus have improved and they pay much attention to my doings. I hope that this would be a nice plus for everyone that has passion for dogs training.

TALENT DOGS - TYÖKALUJA KOULUTUKSEEN KURSSI

That's all for now!!!!

MPF

Obedience training for Winner Class

Route to Winner Class

We have been to two trials in Winner Class. First one was one paw away from first price and second went more off. I first had in mind of just trying to compete but I got to my senses. I wanted to improve our weaknesses and built her ready better for the higher classes. In the end after one first price in winner class we have to make three first prices in OB4 to become ob champions. Freya is also pretty good in ob so we might even try our luck in the National Championships. But we have more few challenges ahead and the biggest one is her sensitivity.  

We have done lots of work to make her comfortable near people. In last trial she got distracted from work of ring guide. She wanted sniff her every time she showed us our new starting point. This little distraction and checking her our took part of drive. So we need to do lots of work to make everyone in the ring meaningless. She has done already a lot of progress. But as you can see from our training video from last week she still get tense every time we go near people. This same can happen with dogs when we do the laying down or sit in a row. Freya's confidence is pretty fine line but it can be built to be better.

In overall she has improved in every task. Our biggest challenge has been the box. Freya has had a habit of stopping before to first cones. We have done position work from close range and helped sending from  long distance ( by this I mean going half way to send her so that I'm closer to box). Work has finally started to pay off. I think we will be soon ready to take another try in winner class. She has speed and super work ethic but I hope we will over come her fear to people and dogs so that she can work with full confidence.

Here is our video from our last training. This was competition mode training where we did about three task in row without reward:

That's all for now!!!

MPF