session 04-05

Session 04: Petco and Home Depot

Session 4 was kinda weak but I'm probably being unfair. We practiced off leash and "come" in Petco. I suppose for many dogs this is an impossible task. We even sprinkled dog biscuts on the floor. Marley does fantastic in heeling and coming to me from afar. Doesn't get distracted at all.

In front of home depot, just outside of the gardening area, we practiced off leash training. I can't remember or not if we practiced the moving down-- a down command in the middle of movement. At any rate, that was my homework. It was quite difficult.

Session 05: back to the park

On session 5 we brought 2 lab mixes with us to the dog park. We practiced stop, halt, and emergency down. Stop is exactly as it entails... dog comes to me and I tell him to stop and he stops in his tracks. I've been trying to practice this but I think it might be easier to use another person.

Halt is the reverse of stop. dog is running/walking away from you and you tell him to halt. this required 2 people. this will defintely require more work.

Moving down was surprisingly easy. Well... i'm still bridging the behavior. I call to Marley and i crouch down with my hands on the floor and tell him "down". That last part is key. By being near the ground is primes him to go in the down position. eventually we'll work on it without crouching. I've been playing this game with him lately.

session 03

yesterday we went to a park and did off leash training. we practiced 3 things:

down now means down stay

hide and seek

heel

to practice down he had to stay down and i had to walk away and return. suzanne also did this where she would walk around him in a 15 ft radius. he screwed up once when i was walking away and then he got it after she gave him a slight audio correction ('uh uh uhhh').

for hide and seek we went into an area surrounded by birds, hidden squirrels, and palm trees. So while Suzanne would distract him I would leave and hide. I would then call him. At first i wasn't calling him loud enough. His first reaction when he heard my voice was to look at Suzanne. I think he doesn't understand that i'm calling him from afar. Eventually he would get it and run to me. I've actually been practicing this today with him.

the heel command was surprisingly easy. I wasn't sure if he knew to heel when I was walking. He already knows to run around my back and heel left. So basically I start walking and tell him heel and tap my side twice. Walk a little and hand him a treat when he heels. Then walk further. When he starts to wander off tell him "uh uh uhh" and grab his leash and pull him (not agressively) to the heel position and tell him "good boy".

Ck and I actually tried some off leash heeling with him today in the park. We had no treats and he did fantastic. He wandered off a little 2x but did a really good job of heeling.

We also practiced down in the middle of a play ground. There was people on bikes and people around us. They weren't that close though. I told him down and then walked around the playground. He stayed down the entire time.

So my homework this time was to continue hand signals, the down stay, come here when hidden, and heeling.

session 02

Tonight's training was tough. talk about distractions. We have a lot of work ahead of us. marley was very distracted today. But he is still highly motivated by food.

Suzanne had me working on signal only commands. He's pretty spot on with audio only but with visuals only? I switched the visual command for sit at the lesson. I was using a palm up with my hand next to my body. Suzanne was using just a palm up. this way she could do the palm up signal right in front of his face. the way i was doing it he had to be looking at me in order to see the command.

this sounds so easy but basically i had to make him sit, stay... then i walk back a few feet and give him the down command... then come. no audio. she could do it but i couldn't. I think it had to do with the fact that she had food and i don't think i was utilizing the food well. I was also really tired and it was hard to act cheerful with him. I was also not using any audio... i just can't use audio for the commands... i should have used audio to praise him. i was also doing the down command too fast. mine was more of a quick palm to the ground. she wanted me to make it more smooth and gradual.

then we took a small break. you can't train with dogs for very long durations.

we then went inside the kennel with 2 other dogs. it was good to see marley interact. i think he liked playing with the smaller of the 2 dogs. he even started to mount him... heh. but that is a no no. he wasn't scared either. it was really good socialization. he's curious and will sniff the nose but when a dog goes to sniff his butt he then becomes scared. he wasn't scared at all.

the exercise we did was to put all 3 dogs in a down stay... then we have call a specific dog to us... the other 2 have to stay put. So marley is learning that "marley come" is when he goes. he has to recognize his name. this was very tough. lots of distractions. I was pretty worn out myself. the last thing we did was to make him go up on a small ramp. we would then repeat the exercise. he had to be lured up the ramp and when i called him he hesistated. eventually he will have to jump over stuff to come to me.

my homework for this week is to master the visual commands. I also need to teach him the "look" command. i find this tough because when there are no distractions he's looking at me already. On saturday we get to go on an excursion!

unruly dog!

so last night Marley got into the dog food bag that I was "just" about to put into his food container, which I had just washed and was drying. he apparently at A LOT of food. So much, that we speculate, forced him to find a place in the house (hall way) to take a dump and pee. Today he has so far defecated 3 more times, outside fortunately.

Then as a new surprise to me... he starts barking when the door bell rings. when the F did this start happening? I did some training exercises with him to break this habit. I ring the door bell and if he reacts then he gets a correction. If the door bell rings and he doesn't react... he gets a treat. I did this half a dozen times. I think he got the point pretty fast.

session 1

the fundamentals of off leash training... session 1

• is your dog a visual learner or audio learner?
• use of a clicker - demonstration
• review of hand signals
• basic off leash heeling

this morning was the first day of intermediate training with Marley. It was a 1 on 1 session for misc reasons. We talked about a lot of things. She told me that dog's don't obey a command (and i'm assuming this is a command they know) for 2 reasons. either they are scared or whatever they are doing at that moment is better than you. I tried to give some counter points to this, "what if..this and what if that", but it always went back to those fundamental points.

on clicker training I had a few specifics about that. I think the way she was using it was a little different than what I read on Leerburg. Leerburg site stresses that a treat always has to follow the marker... but susanne was saying that is only the case in the beginning. Also, it's ok to follow up the marker with "good boy".

I first showed Susanne what things Marley knew. With no hand signals, Marley obeyed my sit, down, stay command instantly. He also obeyed the hand touch. She told me that when I do the hand touch i should always finish with him actually touching the hand instead of me just getting him to move around in different directions. Noted. So apparently this is very impressive for a dog to obey on audio only. But because the hand signals are also very important we worked on integrating them back in.

Training started with walking him on my left as opposed to my right. I guess this is the AKC standard or something. I don't always do this but I was doing it then, I wrapped the leash around my hand as it was too long. She said that that is not good practice. With Marley I can get away with it but with a stronger dog it can damage your tendons if the dog is pulling. Noted.

I'm not sure if she was telling me to hold the leash like this all the time or just for training but basically I was told to hold the leash sort of like a bar bell with both hands. Leash loose of course. So the training began with me walking him on my left and then I would slide my hand (closest to him) down the leash, "sit", hand up... if he doesn't do it, then pull up on the leash.

It took me a few iterations to get the mechanics down of how to do this. the main point to walk away with was to have a short leash on him. when the leash is long he has too much freedom to move around. for example, his initial reaction to "hand up" was to stand up and sniff my hand. but he got it pretty quick.

Another point was that a lot of times why hand signals don't work is because the dog can't see them.

We did the same exercise with "down".

ahh... i remember why we did these 2 exercises while walking. One of the problems I told her I was having with him was that he didn't know sit from the down position, only from the standing position. then i started wondering if he only knew "sit" when he was in front of me. but he needs to know the command when he's beside me, not just in front.

Then she taught me how to train the heel command. He has to sit and stay. then I walk back a little. with my left hand I tap my side twice and lure him around my back from the right side using the leash. He's supposed to wrap around me and then he gets the treat in my left. heel on the left is the AKC standard i think. I don't think I was doing this very well. it seems a little clunky and i wasn't using any markers either to let him know he was doing it right.

When I got home we trained on this more. this is also my homework for the week.

I already knew this but training sessions should be short. 3-5 mins.

In telling susanne about our feeding ritual I went on a tangent about the "crate" command... where he goes to his crate. when I say "crate", he knows to run to his crate but most of the time he will run out and when he sees me he will run back in. She suggested that i stand next to the crate and when he gets in I immediately tell him to stay. when the exercise is over I can then give him a command like "free" or "break" to release him from the command. she liked using "free" because it's one syllable and it doesn't sound like any other word. "ok" was a common word to use but she felt it was too common of a word. I agree. this is also part of our homework.

"not now" was also a command she suggested I use when he goes on his back and wants to be petted and I don't feel like it. She reiterated the point that you should never give affection unless the dog does something. I already knew this but backed off a little after the initial phase of establishing rules. But i think need to go back to being more strict.

She was wondering what mix he was and thought he might be part border terrier. She knew of a place to get DNA testing for 150ish... i need to get that info from her next time.

things to come. he will be taught the "stop" command. "come" when i'm hiding. she called this hide and seek. I think we'll be going on walks to the mall and other areas as well. should be fun!