Session 1 – Hoop as Threshold

Ska – Experienced

Ska & Kiva work on crossing the threshold of the hoop on cue. Ska has much more experience than Kiva with hoops (and buckets , so she’s a bit more solid.

I missed a really important moment in her session. She reacts to, acknowledges the threshold then checks in with me at about 1:12. That was a pretty critical moment. I’m glad it happened with Ska instead of Kiva.

Kiva – Noob

Kiva is new to this skill with hoops. He’s really animated and is extremely vocal when frustrated. He gets frustrated a couple of times here, but does some pretty nice work. We think it’s important to see some ‘not so perfect’ training and dogs…

Session 2 – XPens & Baby Gates with a Bunch of Dogs

Ska, Hops, Loot, Harpyr, Pan, Juicy,  and Si work an important threshold in an exciting location in the Studio here. This was shot right at the front door. That makeshift XPen gate is the second to the last stop on the road to freedom!

We work the XPen threshold as a gate or door and as an open gap.

I think Loot is interesting to watch here – he really thinks he’s gotten away with something, doesn’t he. Funny that nothing of interest happens whatsoever, and it’s not until he gets back behind the threshold that things get interesting.

In the full cut of this video, towards the end he was really pretty solid. All the dogs got better as time went on. Repetition is huge here. I moved all the dogs into all 3 spaces – both sides of the XPen Threshold, in the grooming room, and into and out of the XPen itself.

Session 3 – Hoop Threshold for Localized Leaping

Not too long ago, I was working on this skill with a dog (can’t remember who) leaping from hoop to hoop. It was awesome. I gave it a shot with Si and we had some fun.

We warmed up the Threshold by freeshaping the in and out and then went on to leaping.

Si actually decided to do the vault skill on her own (a pretty bad disc dog issue!) but I went with it as I thought it was pretty cool and would be a nice use of the Threshold as a leaping localization device.

Hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed doing it.

We’d love to hear from you if you’ve tried this or have questions…

• Performance is not Understanding
• Context vs Concept

This is a few minutes of a human clicker game we played at a recent Discdog B&B. The idea here is to teach a person to perform a skill using a clicker and to talk about some of the nuances in communicating and teaching your dog. It really fits in with the idea that Performance is not Understanding which we’ve been talking about for the last few days here on the blog.

This is pretty standard schtick for our human clicker training. We are looking to highlight 4 keys of marker training:

1. training is a dialogue
2. training is about more than getting the dog to do stuff
3. what you intend to teach the dog is important.
4. Conceptual understanding is superior to contextual or linear understanding

Be sure to get to the finish of the video… that’s where the lesson is…

• Performance is not Understanding
• Human Clicker Game

Performance can be based upon conceptual or contextual understanding(pretty heavy stuff… might want to finish this first…). Unfortunately, if the handler is not trying to deliver the conceptual understanding to the dog, then odds are that the performance of the behavior will be based upon contextual understanding – the situation or external stimuli are what define and trigger the performance of the behavior.

It should be no surprise that behaviors that are processed and understood by the situation or environment itself are hard to generalize to a new situation or environment. Q.E.D.

When the dog is performing based upon conceptual understanding, then the dog is looking inward recalling the reward history and specific, well identified, criteria of behaviors and concepts that have been learned in the past. Concepts can be assembled into behaviors and they are able to be assembled in many situations.

As long as you don’t stretch the criteria or push the distraction too far, you can get performance in a wide variety of situations rather quickly, and foster a conceptual understanding of skills. If your dog can recall the criteria and reward history as concepts (ie – touch, bite, hold, carry, out, give, leave it – things I know) instead of context (“go get it bring it back” – what I do) they can leverage those concepts to create behaviors in many situations instead of being dependent upon getting stuck trying to read the situation.

Well how does that work? How does a handler communicate conceptual understanding to the dog and avoid performance based on the context of the situation? It’s simple, but not easy…

Leilei doesn’t play that much Frisbee anymore. It’s not that I don’t want to or that she physically can’t play, it’s just that she’s still so nuts for the disc and still so not interested in self preservation. Add to that the fact that her flips and leaps are about half the scale they used to be, and it’s a bit nerve wracking to play with her. Did I mention that Leilani is going to be 12 this year?

But she’s such a gamer! She LOVES to play. I had the GoPro all charged up and wanted to do some filming of flatwork, and Rokalele was there, giving me the eye,”Let’s play!” When I asked her if she wanted to play Frisbee, she just about came unglued. So here we go, a little disc dog Flatwork with Rokalele…

Not bad for an old lady, eh?

Pawsitive Vybe Ribbon

We start out with a little Pawsitive Vybe Ribbon (PVR) warm up. The PVR is alternating clockwise and counter clockwise team movement. The handler sets the dog on the flank (out to the side) and then pulls the dog around using flatwork before delivering another throw (check out the PVR lesson). It’s a great foundational Flatwork skill and does a fine job of warming your dog up.

Something that is illustrated here quite well in the video is the Consequent Cue. Notice that the physical cue for the Flatwork hook up happens, in consequent fashion, right after the drop. The sharp popping of the disc is a physical cue that ideally triggers prey drive,  and it is offered as a consequence to reinforce dropping the disc on cue. So the cue to come hook up on the Flank is, essentially, a cookie. Compliance with the Drop cue = Opportunity. 

If you offer the cue to hook up before compliance on the Drop cue, you are setting up a situation where opportunity has been presented before the behavior has been offered, and it is likely that you will have problems learning the skill or performing the skill when the pressure is on.

Rear Cross

Loot does a fine job taking the Rear Cross cue on the first attempt. It’s a bit overzealous – a Rear Cross should not have the attributes of a flip, but he’s just acting reflexively. He’ll settle in nicely.

You can see from the video that Loot has a bias on the Rear Cross in the counter clockwise direction by his reluctance to respond to the Rear Cross cue when moving from my right to left – clockwise. This is pretty common and has many causes, from the dog’s natural right or left ‘handedness’, the handler’s natural right or left handedness, the early learning and performance patterns of the game, or some kind of physical issue, just to name a few…

One of the weak side failures (and perhaps all of them) were due to handler error. I gave the cue too late… You know which one I’m talking about? Drop a comment below…

Rear Cross to Hoop

So Loot hasn’t really done an over with the handler standing yet, at least not with us, and this was his first shot.

With a nice Round Border Collie like Loot, it’s often hard to get an Over set up properly (or any kind of linear move towards the handler). The dogs tend to drift around the handler. It can be very frustrating, and is a big reason for many people feeling as if they have to train the O out of the Dog. You don’t need to take away that beautiful outrun… you need to add a Rear Cross.

Notice that when Loot executes the Rear Cross by peeling off and turning away from his handler, that it sets up a direct linear approach for an Over or a Pass. It’s like money. You do have to be careful that you don’t always finish the Rear Cross with the dog rocketing towards the handler. If that happens, your Rear Cross will become more like a simple spin or a twist, which is defined by 360 degrees of spinning. The Rear cross is not going to ever go a full 360 degrees.

The hoop will start to become more hoop-like after Loot has had some more foundational jump training.

a message to our incredibly wonderful Backers:  Apryl and I are inspired, excited, and extremely grateful for your generous support. $1000 down, $4400 to go! Thank you so much!

Season 2 Coming Soon!

We’re 18% Funded – $1000

Before I get started here, thanks need to go out to those of you who have already backed the project.

I’ve been neglecting the blog a bit over the last couple months I guess, but we’ve been working really hard kicking out content, but if you’re hooked up with us on FB or G+, you know that already.

In case you didn’t know we have been kicking out a 1/2 weekly dog training and lifestyle show on YouTube for the last 10 weeks. Episodes 1-10 functioned as a pilot season allowing us to dial in production and story development. The show aims to draw focus on life with a dozen plus dogs and deliver top shelf dog training instruction and concepts.

We started back in early December and have been working hard to improve the quality of production in the show. If you take a quick look at episode 2 or 3 and compare it to #10, it’s a pretty startling transformation. We’ve come a long way and are ready to take it to the next level.

This Is Where You Come In

We have decided to crowdfund Season 2 on Indiegogo. What is crowdfunding?

Check out what Wikipedia says:

Crowd funding or crowdfunding (alternately crowd financing, equity crowdfunding, or hyper funding) describes the collective effort of individuals who network and pool their money, usually via theInternet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. Crowd funding is used in support of a wide variety of activities, including disaster relief, citizen journalism, support of artists by fans, political campaigns, startup company funding,movie or free software development, inventions development and scientific research.

Project & Perks

We have a $5466 (spells Kimo on a phone) project on Indiegogo, a crowdfunding company that has put out thousands of awesome projects. The way that Indiegogo is set up is super cool. It’s kind of like a telethon – you decide what you’re willing invest in the show and we give you awesome gifts and perks in exchange for your support. This project when we hit 100% will net us just over $5000

We’ve got great Apryl Art & Abby Art in our perks – nothing like custom canine art, right? We’re also offering online instruction and sponsorship opportunities on the show.

We’re looking to tap our network of crazy dog people, family and friends to help fund this show. We have a lot of professional connections, we have big families, and quite a few friends and acquaintances.  To all of you guys:

Why?

We’ve been putting out some great content for the last few years, on this blog and on YouTube and we really want to keep it coming and keep it free. We also want to improve our production value so it’s easier to take a couple of Expert Frisbee Hippies™ with crazy pack of dogs seriously. We do a good job of delivering effective, efficient, and outside the box dog training and disc dog instruction, and we have this pack of unique and interesting dogs…

Let me put it to you this way? When’s the last time you’ve seen someone work 7-10 dogs at once? Not like a routine, but actual off the cuff interaction? Where else are you going to see a dozen dogs’ natural interaction for a couple minutes?

We have hit the wall in terms of our production ability on a few fronts. Broken cameras, not enough storage, not enough light, jury rigged wireless audio, there’s a bunch of things we need to take this show to the next level.

Where Will the Money Go?

One word,”Equipment.” Cameras, audio, storage, and lighting, if you want a bit more specificity. We have a wishlist of equipment you can check out at BH Photo. That’s where the money is going to go. It’s properly prioritized and is the minimum we require to put out a broadcast quality show. You can see that all but a sliver of the money is accounted for in that list of equipment. The rest will go towards paint and such to dress up the studio a bit more.

What’s Next?

Having just wrapped up Season 1, we’re turning our attention to our Indiegogo project. At the time of writing, we’re sitting at 18% of our goal. Not bad for not really having pushed it outside of a few posts on facebook. Over next 30 days we will be promoting the show, and fulfilling our obligations to our backers: sending out handwritten letters, making art, organizing online instruction… Stay tuned to our project page on Indiegogo and our social media channels for the latest news.

Now click on this link and back our show!

00:00 – Pan Hot Hunts a piece of string.

Pan, our Boston mix goes nuts for a piece of hanging string. She’s a serious hunter.

There was a cat toy attached to the string that Pan really wanted to put some hurt on. She worked this toy until I wound it up around the sprinkler system.

The guy hanging out with us is Kenny, and he’s super cool. He makes a yearly pilgrimage to Michigan to see family around the holidays, and Apryl is on his short list of visits.

01:13 – Doing Nothing is Hard Work

Our dogs have been classically conditioned to go bonkers when someone walks out on the astroturf in the studio; they know that exciting things are going to happen. And most of the time they are correct.

One thing that you can do to remedy this is to belie that classical conditioned understanding. If the dog believes something is going to happen and has a physiological response because of that belief, don’t go there. Have a problem with a bonkers dog walking to the Frisbee field? Walk out there and don’t play, just chill out, then leave. A few reps of the dog not playing at the field can have massive impact on the classically conditioned state.

This session was supposed to be about doing nothing, which is not really that easy to do. Here I am giving it a shot. Looks like I make it about 20 seconds before I toss Hops a ball. I did manage to keep it super low key.

Notice how the game changes when Leilani (border collie on the couch) gets excited. I really blow the session by allowing the energy to get away from me.

04:34 – Ballwork for Dog Catch

Apryl and Lexi use an exercise ball to assist with early dog catch training. Lexi is a pretty simple dog and is quite the athlete. Once she figures that out, she’ll be dangerous.

This is a really nice bridge between ballwork (Top, Stall & Rebound) and dog catch. You can see Apryl using reward placement to set Lexi’s approach and Apryl’s giving a ton of cookies in the Dog catch.

At 5:33, you can see her balk on the right to left side. Dogs don’t often like to work both ways, and handler’s often only use their right hand to give cookies. So the dog works in one direction. Work the strong side way more than the weak if you have a problem with this as a team. It’s more important to make the dog catch valuable and achievable first. Once you have that, you can get the other direction fairly easily.

Apryl starts with the Stall cue and quickly moves to “Dog Catch” as the cue and she also starts to generalize the handler position by standing up after the catch. She wraps it up with the finished dog catch.
08:08 – Skratty Hugs
Apryl & Skratty work on a new freeshaped skill – Hug – thanks Georgios!
This skill is a duration behavior. Apryl will bookend it – cuing the skill, paying while the behavior is happening and then making it to the release. Duration is defined by the release.

The frantic nature can be combated by a more constant flow of cookies.

The session ends with Dismissal.

10:15 – Daily Life @ PVybe – Going Outside

Typical going outside chaos. I think we have 8 dogs going out here.

I work threshold with my crew at the x-pen gate and the door. Eye contact is what is being marked at each threshold. We come in and work a downstay for a while after this. It’s kind of standard operating procedure when we have guests.

15:33 – Daily Life @ PVybe – Group Down Stay

So mean, turning on the vacuum cleaner while they’re staying, but that’s life here. Notice pan still working the string @16:11.

20:38 – Early Over with Lexi

This is Lexi’s first shot at working an over. Apryl uses cookies, setting the approach by tossing a cookie out there. She’s presenting the cookie and then rewarding to set the other approach. After a few reps she adds the Over cue.

Notice that Lexi has a hard time doing this skill from Apryl’s right to left. Left to right is pretty easy, but there’s not enough value in the left hand for her to commit to it.
Apryl tries a flag and flash over which Lexi wasn’t quite ready for, and then wound up moving to a kneeling over to generalize the skill a bit.

More bitework would be helpful.

23:30 – Special Art with Apryl Lea

Apryl Lea whips up some special metal art…

These are the prizes for the Spooky Jam, custom made “Grateful Jack-O-Lanterns” by Apryl Lea.