More focus on clicker training

Hi Kaye,

by my reckoning we are on day 32 of Fido's training. The trial expired last Monday and so Fido is for keeps!

Our Karen Pryor inspired session on Wednesday was extremely fun and valuable. He is targeting my ‘fist’ very reliably and I’ve found it very useful. I can position him all over the place because he’s following it ‘quite glued’ at times. I loved watching the wheels in his head turn, seeing the scratchy signs of frustration, and then the joy of coming up with a ‘click’ for himself.

Our discussion about ‘What does he have to do to get a click’ brings me back closer to how I’d like to train. Specially with a poodle. Specially with this poodle. I think we can really engage the little guy in some sophisticated brain gymnastics by giving him a lot less information. I have been putting a bit of time into getting him to go on his mat and settle. More than that ‘to being able to send him to his mat’. It works some of the time when the preparation is done. He is accepting being tethered so this morning I tied him, with about two metres of slack, to a chair with his mat in range. I sat on the other side of the room and settled to read ‘Inside the Animals Mind’ with one eye on Fido, clicker poised and roast chicken at the ready. I must add, he was pretty up beat and busting for some action. Within about a minute he was on the mat, ‘clicked’ and enjoying a taste of parsons nose. Within about 3-4minutes he was lying down munching a fistful of chicken and being released to ‘go play’-nice and tidy. No words and no pressure from me. In this style of training I’m not implicated in his processes, at least that is how it feels. What ever frustration or what ever he goes through is because of the situation. I come out of it as ‘the good guy’ because I dole out the roast chicken every step of the way.

Jumping up on people is very natural to Fido as I guess it is to most dogs, although at puppy school none of the other pups do it. I tethered him and walked up to greet the bouncy little chap, simply stopping and waiting until he bounced himself out and sat. Which of course got him a click and a bit of chicken.

He’d already done ‘puppy push ups’ and other familiar games for pellets. Chicken is saved for new or difficult things where I want him to get a ‘jackpot’ reward for some ‘jackpot’ good thinking.

This approach of setting up problem solving situations and letting him solve the riddle ‘how do I get a click’ feels so right to me as a trainer!  The beautiful thing about having a pup is that he will do a lot of different things in a short period of time and all I have to do is wait and select one. I could have chosen to capture - scratching at the mat, chewing the tag, walking off the mat, looking expectantly and ‘speaking’ to me. I am hoping to take Fido to meet my parents so I chose ‘lying down and settling’. (And the steps towards that end like ‘Sitting’ which he did before lying down). It he sits to be greeted and lies calmly on the mat he will make a big impression on the poor old dears.

Puppy class last night included letting the pups loose. Fido was nervous and tended to head off with his tail between his legs when approached by another pup. He negotiated chase games with a lot of front leg action after a minute of two. Let a few pups go and things change very quickly. The two possibilities are to vigorously preserve a connection to the trainer or ‘let the pups sort them selves out’ in a  free for all, waiting til they are over each other so you would bet your $100. they’ll take notice and be lured back. I am in a much better situation to sort out how to manage the ‘greeting of other dogs dilemma’ from that session.

That’ll be it for now. I’ll get back to Karen.

Cheers,

Richard