New stuff and old stuff

Last weekend we went to a dog training seminar. It was really interesting to see other people with their dogs and hear a professional trainer’s ideas. I had to skip class this week though, because I have been ‘red-lining it” and needed time out. On the plus side, I managed to play with Amika more than I have in ages.

Seminar

The trainer was Steve Austin. (Name sound familiar? Maybe you’re thinking of the bionic man from the 80′s TV show!) Steve trains detector dogs and their handlers (among other things). These dogs are looking for things like drugs, plant material (for quarantine) and pest animals. Steve also does private training and has a state-of-the-art boarding facility over East.

There is a program running on Macquarie Island where they are trying to decimate introduced rabbits in order to prevent the extinction of Albatross and other rare species. They’re looking for rabbit detector dog handlers: http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=13013! Steve has been training up the dogs.

There were a few ‘take home’ bits for me from the seminar. Steve mentioned a couple of times that he wasn’t giving us anything totally new to us, and that these were his way of doing things, some of which some of us might not agree with. True on both counts, but I came away with some new ways of thinking of old concepts (which is why you go to seminars, right?) and some inspiration.

One thing Steve said was that if the dog isn’t dying to join you in a training session, if that training isn’t the bestest, funnest thing for the dog, you are doing something wrong. This is exactly the same as the old “you should be the most interesting thing to your dog” concept, but said a little differently. It made a lot more sense to me, and slid in beside the “motivation” jigsaw piece that has just dropped into place for me in the past couple of weeks. Somehow, the reality of training as creating a really fun game has solidified for me. Not sure why that hasn’t happened before now, but it sure is a big piece of the puzzle!

I also loved Steve’s description of how to break training a task into steps, and how and when to increase criteria, and how to use variable rewards (really good effort gets the good stuff, mediocre performance gets a piece of boring kibble). I’m hoping his book will arrive in the mail soon, along with the painfully slow-to-arrive Crate Games DVD.

The seminar was a full day followed by half day of practical problem solving with dogs. We had a few people with problems that are obviously big for them, but everyone else would die for dogs that well trained and motivated.

I took Amika along on the half day, but not so she could be part of the problem solving (I already know where I’m going, I didn’t want to throw her into that intense of a situation, and I wasn’t happy with the way Steve man-handled). It gave me an extra opportunity to train. I got her out, did crate in the car stuff, went for a walk and a sniff before it got busy. I was glad to have my home made dog vest to put on her, modeled below.

Amika shows off her vest

After the seminar was done and most people had left, I drove to the far end of the oval and got the soft crate out, along with the mat. The remaining people were mostly socialising down by the club house. I did basic stuff with going to mat, crate and GMAB with sniffing. Amika was understandably a little on edge because of all the activity in the distance and change of routine, but did really well.

A clicker aside

Which reminds me of something else that was posted on a forum. Apparently ‘African Giant Pouch Rats’ make good land mine detectors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eAGtAYW6mA. There are a bunch of these up on youtube, but they are all clicker trained to find TNT, and are light enough that they don’t set off the mines.

So there you go, clicker training can save human lives (in case you didn’t already know)! I think the way they’re training the little guys is very cool.

Fun and games

Despite another full on week of work, and the depression that’s been taking hold due to ‘doing too much’, I did lots of playing this week. Instead of leaving the dog bag and the mat in the car, they now live on the back porch. This means they are always easy to get to.

We played an off-switch game in the back yard instead of at training for a change. In a much less distracting environment, Amika really got into tug toy interspersed with go-to-mat. Another seminar take-home was to stop playing before the dog has had enough, and I’ve been keeping games short and motivational.

One day when dinner time rolled around, I was trying to think how to get Amika’s dinner into her without just throwing a bowl under her nose. I thought about hiding food around the yard. Then I thought of tracking the food. It was a race against the clock- and the chicken! I laid a track with food drops (spoon full of dinner) and left the mostly empty container at the end. This is decidedly NOT how to train a dog to track, but since she already knows the concept, it worked great.

Chook on patrol

She waited inside the back door (in confusion!) and then I came and got her, put on her tracking harness and line and took her to the first bit of food at the start and gave the cue “on track”. She followed my scent and almost missed the first few drops (using nose, not eyes!) but really got into the swing by the end. Again, this was a very short track, so motivational. I’m thinking I’ll do this again (with her dinner in the yard) but with food in articles, so she can get me to open them for her. This might do wonders fro her article indication if I quickly move to trading an empty article for food.

Another game is one I heard about ‘out there’ in cyberland. There is a toy you can buy that is like a cat toy on a fishing pole, but bigger and tougher. I went to the horse store and bought a cheap lunge whip, and tied a rag on the end. Amika LOVES this game of chase. During the week, I used it to reward heeling, and have worked on giving food or continue playing as rewards for her dropping it when asked.

So it has been an interesting week in dogland. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep this fun stuff happening and get a more engaged got as a result!