Training log: Road trip potty breaks as training opportunities?

Posted on July 23, 2017 by ontheroadwithmilo

If you’re new to this blog, you should know that I’m in the midst of a massive road trip with my German Shepherd Dog, Milo. So far this month we’ve put on about 2 000 km.

Black and tan German Shepherd Dog in a green canvas crate in the back of a dirty SUV.

Milo happy in the vehicle.

At times, Milo can be like the Energizer Bunny on Speed, so it is surprising how good he is on these long rides. He’ll whine with excitement if he thinks we’re going swimming, but other than that he settles down pretty quickly for a nap. Every hour and a half or so I pull over, give him a bathroom break, a drink, a quick walk or a game of tug, and off we go again.

It occurred to me that I was missing some pretty good training opportunities with these breaks. After an hour in the truck Milo is a little bored, a little lonely, and super drivey–why not make use of that?

So, breaks are now mini-training sessions. They look like this:

I pull over, pop on his leash, and let him have a quick sniff and a pee. Then, right away, we do a bit of focused heeling and he gets a mighty game of tug. Then we do just a couple of other things–only for about five minutes–with lots of reward play. Once we are both out of breath, I give him a drink, pop him back in his kennel, and we drive for another 150 kms.

Milo seems just as happy after these mini-training breaks as he is after our non-working breaks, maybe happier since he gets to think and I spend the break time paying close attention to him.

Do you see any pluses or minuses with using these breaks for training? Any suggestions?

Training log—oops

Posted on July 14, 2017 by ontheroadwithmilo

This past week I was so caught up traveling with Milo that the whole notion of working with Milo fell by the wayside. Oops. That’s OK (right?), everyone needs a vacation. Today we got back in the groove, at least a little bit.

German shepherd dog with intense and happy facial expression.

Milo is very much ready to work.

When I asked him if he was “ready to work,” which is our cue that it’s training time, he lit up like a Christmas tree. Evidently, he was ready to work.

I didn’t have a plan, so this was more like farting around than working. But we had fun.

We did some obedience basics: sit, down, stand.
We did a few recalls on a long line, which are also practice waiting and coming to front.
And then I laid down a couple of tracks and he worked them out.

Training is usually a lot of fun for both of us, I think because it requires that Milo and I pay single-minded attention to one another. It is actually quite a feat of interspecies communication: I ask him to do something, and he figures out what I’m asking and does it. We work hard at understanding each other. When the communication fails, we learn, and when it succeeds, we celebrate. The best thing about today’s session though was Milo’s happy face.

Training outcomes June 25 – July 1

Posted on July 1, 2017 by ontheroadwithmilo

As I predicted, this was a fun week. Milo and I worked hard on engagement. It amuses me to imagine saying the last sentence in a serious voice because the ‘hard work’ was playing with him all over town. He was a Good Boy! in Victoria Park. Yippee! He was a Good Boy! on King Street. Yippee! He was a Good Boy! on the soccer field. Yippee! As you can see, it was extremely difficult work. tug 2

A while ago I went to a few training sessions with an extremely well respected Schutzhund competitor and trainer, and she mentioned at the end of the first workshop that Milo really loved me. I didn’t know what to make of that. I suspected it was sort of like complimenting a job candidate on his suit–you know, when you need to find something nice to say and have to dig deep to find it.

“At least your dog loves you…”

But it wasn’t that at all. A strong bond with your dog makes training easier.

When I was a student, I had some professors who I was very fond of. I looked forward to going to their class, I wanted to learn from them, and I wanted them to think well of me. It is not surprising that those were the classes where I earned some of my best grades. These days I try to be one of those professors when I teach university students.

And funnily enough, this is what I’m going for when I teach Milo too. I want him to want to learn.

My advice? Go play with your dog!

Training plan June 25 – July 1

Posted on June 25, 2017 by ontheroadwithmilo

My goal this week is to foster engagement in new situations. I want Milo to actively pay attention to me and want to work, even when we’re in novel or distracting places.

I’ll be following Micheal Ellis’ advice in his video “The Power of Playing Tug with your Dog.” The plan is to take Milo to a new environment, wait for him to look at me, and reward him with a spectacular game of tug when he does. We’ll do this twice a day.

I’m focusing on engagement, right now in particular, for three reasons:

We’ll be leaving on our gigantic road trip soon and every place we’ll be for the next couple of months will be a new place. Working on engagement in new situations helps Milo associate this novelty with good things. Hopefully, this will help the trip be less stressful for him.
Every obedience and rally trail will be in a new place. While I’ll always start by letting him sniff around, he has to learn that even in distracting places the best thing to do is to engage with me.
I’ve been a bit frustrated with our training for the last few days, and the trouble is lack of engagement. A dog needs to pay attention to you in order to learn from you. Also, I need to remind myself that this is fun for me too! This kind of engagement work is just skillfully, thoughtfully, and wholeheartedly playing with Milo, and there aren’t many things better than that.

I’m looking forward to a fun week!

Training plan June 11-18

Posted on June 11, 2017 by ontheroadwithmilo

This week we’re taking our training outside. I’ll fold a session into our first and last walk of the day. milob1

1 minute sit and down stays.
10 steps of focused heeling that starts and ends with a nice sit.
Stand from front position.
Clean up 6 toys in one room (I guess this one will have to happen at home).

I’ll use a clicker for the heel and stand exercises to help with my timing.

AM	PM
10 step heel	10 step heel
Stand from front sit	Stand from front sit
1 minute sit stay	1 minute down stay
Clean 6 toys	Clean 6 toys

I’ll also track down the first 10 CKC Rally signs and look for a Rally app to help with setting up training courses.

Please comment if you have any suggestions!

Training outcomes: June 4 – 10

Posted on June 11, 2017 by ontheroadwithmilo

I feel pretty proud of my consistency this week. Look at all those X’s.

Milo is great at popping up from a sit to a stand from Heel position. But, he doesn’t get it when he is in Front position. Of course (face palm)–that is a different thing. I’m pretty smart, but I have a heck of a time thinking clearly about generalizing behavior. So, Stand-from-Front is on the docket for next week. Thank Dog Milo is patient.

Our 3-step focused heel looks and feels pretty good to me. I need to get out there with some friends to make sure that our position is good. Next week I’ll try 10 steps!

Milo only broke one Stay. I didn’t see anything different about that situation compared to the others. I’m still rewarding him with “good”and a treat during the stays, and still using distractions like opening the fridge and playing with his toys. Next week we’ll dial back the duration to one minute and take this out of the house to a more distracting environment.

	Clean	3-step focused heel	Stand	3-min sit-stay	3-min down-stay
Sat	X	X	X		X
	X	X	X	X
Sun	X	X	X		X
	X	X	X	X
Mon

Tues	X	X	X		X
	X	X	X	X
Wed	X	X	X		X
	X	X	X	X
Thurs	X	X	X		X
	X	X	X	X
Friday	X	X	X		X
	X	X	X	X

Do you have any advice for Milo and me?

Please let me know your thoughts and suggestions.

Training plan June 4-10

Posted on June 4, 2017 by ontheroadwithmilo

My overall goal is to get Milo titled in CKC Rally Obedience.

This week we will work on: milob1

3 minute sit and down stays (medium distractions when we are at home, and mild distractions when we are out).
three steps of focused heeling that starts and ends with a nice sit.
still front feet for stand-from-sit (just popping out his butt). We’ll do this on a front foot target at home (which he already knows) or on a picnic table if we are out.
clean up 3 toys in one room.

I’ll use a clicker for the heel and stand exercises to help with my timing.

We’ll do two, five-minute training sessions on six of the next seven days.

AM	PM
Heel position	Heel position
Stand from sit	Stand from sit
3 minute sit stay	3 minute down stay
Clean three toys	Clean three toys

I’ll also keep going on Ed Frawley’s article, The Power of Training Dogs with Markers.

Check back at the end of the week for an update on our progress!

Training outcomes: May 28 – June 3

Posted on June 3, 2017 by ontheroadwithmilo

I learned more than Milo did this week.

Stay

We worked on stays at home and on a field where we regularly play and train. I ended up using medium rather than small distractions. They included: opening the fridge, throwing a toy around in front of him, dropping a chicken wiener in front of him, and at one session another dog came to our field and played frisbee with its person for a while.

He didn’t break a single stay! Next week we’ll try for three minutes.

Cleaning up his toys

For this trick Milo goes through the house collecting his toys and putting them in his toy box. We’ve been working on this for a while.

We didn’t make any progress for the first part of the week, so I took some time to sit back and think about what we were doing.

I realized I was messing up by asking him to do figure out two things at once. I was asking him to (1) get the idea that he has to clean up all of his toys, and (2) get the idea that he needs to clean up his toys in all the rooms. So, I scaled back to laying out a few of his toys in one room, and gradually increasing the number of toys (all in the same room) that I was asking him to clean up. After he gets the hang of cleaning up all the toys in one room, we’ll add rooms one at a time.

This trick is teaching me to break up training into little bits, use my markers more accurately, and discipline myself about when I use words and when I use gestures as cues.

Milo did better after I cleaned up my act. Next week, more toys, but still in the living room.

Heel Position

This is going fine. The next week it will be correct position for three steps.

I didn’t get finished with The Power of Training Dogs with Markers., so that stays on my training to-do list as well.

What we did:

	AM			PM
	clean	position	1min sit-stay	clean	position	1min down-stay
Saturday	x	x	x	x	x	x
Sunday	x	x	x
Monday
Tuesday	x	x	x	x	x	x
Wednesday	x	x	x	x	x	x
Thursday	x	x	x
Friday	x	x	x	x	x	x

Training plan May 28-June 3

Posted on May 27, 2017 by ontheroadwithmilo

This week, Milo and I will focus on three things:

Accurate positioning for stationary heel. There is polite leash walking, and then there is formal heeling. Formal heeling involves the dog holding a precise position at the handler’s left thigh, parallel to the direction the handler’s facing and giving the handler its full attention. Sometimes Milo is a little bit ahead of me, sometimes a little bit behind, and sometimes his back end crabs out so that we are not perfectly parallel. That is sloppy, and we need to go back to basics to fix it. This week, all I’m going to do is call Milo to a stationary heel between me and a wall and reward him when he gets it just right. This will help him feel exactly where he is supposed to be.
Increasing the duration of sit and down stays with mild distractions. These are tough for Milo because he is vigilant and likes to move. Long stays not only help him learn self control and be a better citizen and companion, they are also are important elements of competition obedience. This week, we’ll work on one minute stays in the presence of mild temptations.
Thorough searching when he cleans up his toys. For this trick, maybe better called a skill, Milo goes through the house, collects his many toys, and puts them in his toy box. We’ve been working on this for a while. He gets the finding and putting his toys away part, but he doesn’t get that he’s not done until he’s gathered all of them. So we’ll work getting him to do a more thorough job.