Duke's Foundation Work - Day 1 - a trip to the Rona parking lot.

My first thought regarding Duke's training plan for this week was to go hang out at PetSmart and do some focus and attention exercises, and "Look at That" exercises with other dogs. But, I thought that it would make sense to start him off a bit easier, so we went to the nearby big box store area instead. There's a Rona, Canadian Tire, and Home Depot and I decided to setup at Rona.

Last night I prepared the highest value food reinforcer I could think of (chicken thighs, roasted in the BBQ but still dripping in yummo chicken fat) and off we went by car.

To my surprise, even in the absence of other dogs, Duke was very distracted and concerned about being at the Rona parking lot! I decided to stay in the parking lot and do some basic "name game" exercises, clicking and treating for direct eye contact.

We did a bit of heelwork in the parking lot as well and a few sits, downs, and touches for good measure.

There was a german shepherd on a prong collar that was also in the parking lot; Duke howled a bit at it but nothing too serious. I was caught off guard as a nice woman who had a beagle came by to chat and give Duke a scratch.

Tomorrow (or possibly later tonight?) I will lower the level of distraction even further, and just do some Name Game exercises in the neighbourhood, before working back up to driving somewhere strange and new.

Oh man! This dog trainer's dogs are reactive in class.

Duke at school nearly 2 years ago. Focused and locked on.

I recently enrolled Petey into a beginner's agility class at All About Dogs, a new training school that opened on the west end of Toronto this year. The head trainer and owner is pure +R and is an accomplished dog sports/agility trainer so I was quite excited to visit their school, observe class, and enroll.

Some of you might recall that when we first took Petey into fostering, we enrolled him at Who's Walking Who so that we could observe how he'd be in a group class setting - he was awesome - a bit interested in other dogs, but extremely handler focused and he worked diligently (earning him the Top Dog award at WWW!). That was the proof I needed that Petey would be great for my Karen Pryor Academy dog, where he worked reliably off leash in class on exercises like paw target the cone, nose target the disc, loose leash walk past the steak, etc.

When I talk to my students at When Hounds Fly about training new behaviors in distraction free environments, I talk about reliable recall and focus at the dog park as being the ultimate test. Petey and Duke recall, target, stay, etc. very well at the dog parks, so I guessed they were ready for class!

To my surprise, both Petey and Duke were extremely distracted and unfocused at agility class, to the point that I would label them as reactive!

Oops, dog trainer error. I never take them to my own classes (since I want to focus on clients) and its been so long since they've been to group classes (Duke hasn't been in school for 2 years), I really let them slide.

Duke will be continuing on in agility class, but I have a lot of focus and attention exercises ahead of me to get him ready - and I'll be blogging about it here.

The shoemaker's children are often shoeless... but not for long! Duke, you're getting a new pair!

this is clyde, a recent big on beagles alumnus. shortly after his foster family adopted him, he ran into health issues and his forever home family ended up having to shell out over $10,000 to save his life!

so right now big on beagles is helping them out by collecting donations (tax receipts will be issued) through the charity site canada helps. if you are so inclined, please click here to make an online donation.

here are some excerpts from clyde's story:

It's enough to melt your heart. And that's just what Clyde did after being rushed to the Veterinary Emergency Clinic last month. He melted everyone's heart - from the surgeons to the custodians. He melted them all. Being the cutest beagle in the world (with the exception of yours, of course) certainly helped, but it was something else that captured their hearts. Never once did Clyde give up, nor did her complain. He's our Braveheart.

You might remember Clyde from last summer. He and his sidekick, Bonnie, were found wandering the wooded areas of Timmins. Just two little pint-sized beagles far from the comforts of home. But Clyde was actually traced back to a breeder who had no interest in his safe return. Perhaps Clyde had outlived his purpose, considered of little value given his estimated age of 8. But you can be sure he was of value to us.

When Bonnie got adopted, Clyde grew depressed. That's when the shelter staff called us and the rest, as they say, is history...but not quite. I don't think we ever told you about Clyde's foster family. Without them, there would be no history-in-the-making. Not for Clyde and certainly not for Rosie - a very sickly little beagle we rescued 2 years ago that we never could have imagined would be living the dream with this incredibly generous family today. Jen and Aron are the kind of people you thank your lucky stars for every day. The kind of people who put their heart and soul into bringing the wag back to a dog's tail. They're also the kind of people who fall too hard to ever say goodbye. Foster dog, Rosie, became perma princess despite all her health issues. And not too long ago, we celebrated Clyde joining their family forever.

....

Clyde almost died last month. If it were not for his foster parents turned forever parents, he wouldn't be here today. They spared no expense to save his life. It happened so suddenly. Clyde needed a large mass removed from his neck which ultimately meant losing two lymph nodes and his salivary gland. He was in hospital for 5 days. As to the cause, it remains a mystery. His specialists were baffled, but there is a very real possibility that little Clyde was carrying this ticking time bomb for a while, perhaps from the days before his rescue. When you're hungry enough, you'll eat just about anything. Something he ingested may have caused a growing infection that only now has come to light.

by Marna Gale

last night we had a break through. duke learned how to 'stand' on command.

this after 2 years of not being able to get him to stand through, luring, tickling and prodding methods that we learned from the obedience school that we attended.

stand is the cue for a dog to stand on all four paws and is usually used for show dogs and is also used in rally obedience.

each time we enrolled in courses, there was always 1 or 2 commands that we just couldn't teach duke. in the first basic obedience course it was down. in fact, the instructor couldn't even get duke to go into down position and went through all of his different techniques to no avail when he was using duke as his demo dog.

during our 2nd more advanced class, we just couldn't get duke to 'stand'. last night, however, after 2 minutes he learned to 'stand' on cue from being in 'down' position.

what was the biggest difference? clicker training that didn't require me to touch his body to move into position or use a lure to bribe him into position. since duke already knew touch, we started with him being in down and then calling for a 'touch' on my hand. soon after, i started saying 'stand' before the touch command and in a few short minutes, he had transferred the 'touch' command to the 'stand' command.

this style of teaching is called targetting and is obviously a more effective way of teaching duke than luring or placing.

so now that he has learned all of the basic obedience positions, it's time to polish them all up and hopefully we'll be able to debut duke at a rally obedience competition. i'm hoping we can get him a novice title by the end of the year!

cross-posted to aozora

duke spam!

these photos were taken in endicott, new york. while andre and petey were busy at the karen pryor workshops, duke and i explored the local parks.

Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT) for Leash-Aggressive Dog

I was recently introduced to Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT) for treating fear/aggression (as well as its sister technique, CAT, or Constructional Aggression Treatment).

Having gotten Duke to a certain level using food and classical counter conditioning/desensitization, I am interested in new techniques that could be faster. Maybe BAT is faster than classical counter conditioning and desensitization. Who knows. I'm going to give it a try with Duke and see how he likes it.



More posts soon!

petey spam

i'm happy to report that we haven't had any biting incidents in the last couple of months because we know exactly what petey's triggers are.

he is house trained now and starts sniffing and circling the room when he wants to do his business - a great cue for us.

he is also a very snuggly beagle and so affectionate.

i'm going to have a lot of trouble giving him up! and secretly i'm hoping that people will be scared off by his biting history and won't apply to adopt him.... but that would be just selfish of me. petey has so much love to give, i shouldn't keep it all to myself :)