....Through the first week of the #100DaysofDogTraining!! I am finding more and more that if I plan things out in advance and put them in a readily visible and therefore easily reminded location, that I am MUCH better at keeping to a schedule. Granted, sometimes my day will get away from me a little and my scheduling doesn't line up as well with real life, but having as many things as possible scheduled out helps to keep the feeling of being overwhelmed, a little at bay. And considering that we are full on into the holiday season and my weekends are now booked up, advanced scheduling is my best friend. I love this time of year, but I have to say that I'm looking forward to a little more breathing room come January.
This will be my first daily training videos recap post and I think it's going to be a little lengthy. I did notice that my video descriptions started off not super brief, but as the week continued on (and I got lower on sleep) I started getting a little more concise. It helps that these videos are more descriptive of the beginning stages of things. Once I do videos of similar exercises with increasing difficulty, my descriptions won't need the discussion on how I got to that point. I can just refer to previous videos. ;) Without further ado, here are this past week's videos:
Day 2
Day 2 of the #100DaysofDogTraining: Dom has some minor mobility issues that require him to put more thought into his rear leg movements and make some things a little more challenging for him. He is still fully capable, it just requires understanding that he may not get a particular movement on the first training session. Sometimes it takes a few training sessions if the particular movement requires a lot of control over the rear end. Regardless, I like exercises that build and maintain rear muscle mass. That is key.
For this exercise, I'm utilizing a platform in the form of an aerobic step. I have the platform up against the wall to give Dom added security while he figures out how to move his body in a controlled manner for a sit. If he gets to a point where he easily and rapidly does a tuck sit, then I will increase the difficulty by moving the platform away from the wall. We practice the sit from both directions to try an balance out the muscles. He does have one side that is weaker than the other and you can see it in the video when he swings his rear completely off of the platform.
When I first started doing this exercise (I really should have done a comparison video. Maybe I will further along) I would stand next to him on the open side and use my body as a guide to help keep him on the platform. Gradually we've worked up to a point where I am standing in front of him except for some days when he swings his butt out. Then I'll step a little out to the side to help guide him. As always, I reward him for effort. He's trying and that's what counts.
Day 3
Day 3 of #100DaysofDogTraining: Today's video is of Dom doing some pivots on the aerobic step that I use as a platform. As long as I'm keeping track, I do one full revolution in each direction at each of the three levels. Pivoting on an item is one of the first behaviors that I train my dogs for, so he's got that down pat and is very responsive to slight weight shifts from me to cue which direction he should be moving. I am moving slowly because I want him to move intentionally on and off the platform and I want him really paying attention to what he's doing with his rear. If I move too quickly, he is more than happy to keep pace, but doesn't move as intentionally as I would like.
Day 4
Day 4 of the #100DaysofDogTraining: I've already posted the video of Dom doing the paw pods outside of this training "challenge," but I do add the paw pods to different pieces of equipment to change things up a bit. Some of these exercises I do some warm up moves him to get him paying attention to his feet and to make sure that he is physically doing well to keep proceeding.
As you can see, I start with just the one set of paw pods and then work up to both. From there, I bring out the aerobic step. Targeting his front feet on the paw pods is the easiest for him to do, so I start with that. Then we move on to putting the back feet on the paw pods.
Also wonderfully captured was a little sliming session. Dominic gets really frothy when he's taking treats. And he just happened to shake his head and fling some froth on me. This is why I keep towels in the training area....
In the process of cleaning myself up, I managed to knock the mini hood off my betta tank. Which was of concern to Dom. When I started to get him back on the platform, he was doing some ear movements that indicated he was still concerned about the area. So I took him back over there, we did some hand targets in the specific directions that he was concerned about, he got to get a good look at things and then he was fine to keep working.
It's been brought up by other trainers that a lot of people post videos that show only the successful segments of the training session or the segments that make things look like they are always perfect. We all know that this isn't the case. Though I do understand why people more heavily edit a video when they are trying to keep the clip rather brief. This video is almost six minutes long, so clearly I'm not trying to keep it brief.
But here is Dom and I working on this exercise today. Bumps, slime and all.
Day 5
Day 5 of the #100DaysofDogTraining: Today I videoed a little of our core disc work. My goal with this exercise is to get him targetting with his front and rear feet separately and to eventually sit on the disc. I have the disc up against the wall to help as a guide for him. He was sitting on it earlier this week, but today it wasn't happening. I try to go with what he feels capable of doing each day and that definitely varies. I'm sure that if I kept detailed records of his activities each day I would be able to figure out what activities caused increased muscle tiredness the next day, but I'm not at that level of obsessiveness. Yet. ;)
I am happy with how he's targetting with his rear feet from the middle of the room. It's probably not a bad idea for us to brush up on that a little bit.
Day 6
Day 6 of #100DaysofDogTraining: This currently is the most fun exercise that we are working on. Clearly Dominic enjoys it and I CANNOT help but crack up at his antics!
I decided that I wanted to be able to release him to a tug as a reinforcer for some exercises that I would like to do. He understands taking the tug while I'm holding it, but he doesn't have any experience being released to a tug. I have a couple scenarios in my mind where I would like to use this. One is with the tug placed behind him and me releasing him backwards toward it. And the other is having the tug in the middle of the room while I work him on something and then release him to the tug. Both scenarios require gradually building up to those points and this is the start of our work towards that.
I've combined our very first session, where I just release him to the tug straight in front of him. And then our third session (today), where I have started moving the tug off to the side of him so that he does have to turn to go for it.
You can also see that I need to work on his out cue.....
Day 7
Day 7 of the #100DaysofDogTraining: Today we were tight on time, but I'm trying to stick witht the goal of consecutive daily videos of our training sessions. So I went for dumbbell work. The beginning of the video are a couple short clips of where Dominic was with regards to a shaped dumbbell hold in January of 2017. The rest of the clip was from today. We've taken a few months off from doing anything with the dumbbell, but we're basically in the same spot that we were. He will mouth the dumbbell, but we haven't progressed on the hold. I've tried added movement on my part to entice him to grab for the dumbbell so that I can hopefully capture a longer hold on the dumbbell, but that hasn't happened. I've brought out both the wooden dumbbell and the leather article to see if maybe he has a preference, but that hasn't changed anything.
So this is where we're at. Admittedly, if I do show him in obedience at all, it will not be at a level that requires dumbbell work, so my motivation is low for this behavior. However, the fact that he is the only dog I have not gotten an actual hold on does tend to keep me going back and wanting to figure out how to communicate to HIM what I'm wanting. So I'll keep periodically plugging away at this and probalby trying different things. We'll see. For now, we're at a plateau of just mouthing it.
Day 8
Day 8 of the #100DaysofDogTraining: Dominic has a pretty decent recall when he's off leash, but it could definitely use a little actual work. As you can see from the one incomplete recall that we had. At one point I was being really good and bringing treats for him and Miley and focusing on random recalls on our weekly outings. I have been less diligent about that over the past few months and now seems like a great time to pick back up working on that. The longer his reinforcement history for off leash recalls, the more automatic his response potentially becomes. Continuing to build up this history under low to moderate levels of distraction puts us in a better position for when high levels of distraction crop up. Like deer or elk.
I don't do a ton of recalls on these weekly hikes because I do want him to enjoy himself and get some good exercise and sniffing in. Now that it's getting colder, I'm also going to switch to a different method of treat distribution because my hands get really cold really fast when I have to take them out of my gloves to hand him a treat. I have one of those treat tubes and I'll definitely start using that instead.
I also reward Dom for his periodic check ins. I don't reward every single one of these with food, as I don't want him just hanging out next to me for the whole hike. So for check ins I switch between a food reward and physical play.
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