Today was our third Treibball training session. We started some directionals for learning to go around and behind the balls. I used 4 small cones on the ground in a square to give the dogs something about ball height (for now, it's a short ball) to work on going around. Both had a little difficulty with this. Penny was so excited to start that she wasn't focusing very well. She kept jumping up and nose bumping my treat pouch. She soon settled down a bit and with some guidance of VERY broad body and hand gestures she started to learn how to go around the cones from both the left and the right. Malcolm had a lot more trouble in the beginning. He kept wanting to pick up and retrieve the cones. Being that he's a service dog and one of his primary tasks is to retrieve, I couldn't really fault him. But we worked through it and he ended up doing a few decent go arounds in each direction. With both dogs we quit on a good note.
Then we went to working with nose nudging the ball. Again, had some tricky spots there today too. Clicker training is a wonderful thing. But when you have smart dogs it can actually be difficult if you aren't crystal clear on your criteria. I realized I'd been rewarding Penny for moving in front of the ball after she nose nudged it. This made it difficult to try to move to the next level of multiple nose nudges for each click. So we had some cleaning up to do on that. I worked on tossing her reward treat behind her for a bit and then only rewarding when she stayed behind the ball. She really started to get it towards the end, so we stopped while we were ahead.
With Malcolm, I realized that I had been rewarding him for nose nudges that were off to the side of the ball, rather than in the center. He was doing some good hard pushes, but they were sending the ball flying off to the side, rather than directly towards me. So we had to back up a bit and work on nose nudge placement. We lost the hard nudges and are back to softer ones, but we can get the hard ones back eventually. We ended on a decent note. I was starting to get fatigued and I could feel my heart rate was way up, though I forgot to wear my new FitBit during the session so I don't know how high it got. The barometric pressure is down a bit and that leads to flares of my chronic health issues. I'm probably gonna flare after this session, though hopefully not too badly.
Not a bad session, but not a great one either. We'll just keep plugging along and trying different techniques as the dogs and I learn this together. :-) I'm going to look for some more videos on YouTube to see if I can learn some better techniques.
Did you have any difficult spots in training this week? Please feel free to share in the comments below.
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Friday, February 19, 2016
Treibball Training Session #2
Today was Treibball training session #2. It went very well. Penny went first, since she tends to be the more excitable one. Malcolm was put in a "place" on a mat nearby where he mostly stayed. :-) He only got up a few times and went back when reminded. Penny did very well. She was a bit excitable at first, wanting to paw and mouth the ball. But she settled down and went to work fairly quickly. I included a new technique to help and it worked really well. After she nudged the ball I tossed a treat behind her to get her to move away and approach the ball again. This worked very well. It allowed me a chance to move the ball back into place in front of me and helped her move into a better position to try again. We're still working on nudging the ball towards me, from a distance of about 2-3 feet away. Tossing the treat also helped keep her from being confused and doing a down when I cued her to back up. I'm definitely still using the clicker for nose nudges, touches, and bumps to the ball. That's working REALLY well.
Then it was Malcolm's turn. Penny went into her crate temporarily as she just gets too excited to stay out of the way. Malcolm started with pawing the ball a bit too. With some polite no reward marks ("Nope!") he settled down into nose touches. He's a bit less enthusiastic than Penny, so his nose touches and nudges of the ball aren't very hard yet. That's fine. There's no rush. As we progressed he started nudging the ball harder, which was excellent. Those harder nose nudges got two'fer and three'fer rewards (two and three treats for each click, instead of just one treat for each click). He started doing the harder nudges more often, which was excellent. We'll have to work a bit on direction as time goes on. He's tending to nudge the ball to the side a bit, rather than straight on towards me. So I'll have to tighten up on his nose nudge placement a bit. But I didn't want to be too picky in the beginning, as I was working to encourage any form of nose touch or nudge.
I made a few mistakes during Malcolm's session, clicking on accident for the wrong thing. I just tossed his treat behind him in those instances to reset his position and we tried again. Not the end of the world. I accidentally clicked for a couple of paw touches to the ball, which I do NOT want to encourage. My timing was a bit off, no biggie. We just tried again. Any paw touches that happened after an accidental click I just used the neutral no reward mark and encouraged him again to nose nudge.
I decided to start incorporating the cue "Bump" for Malcolm with nose bumping and nudging the ball. The cue "touch" he tends to associate with a paw touch, so we're using "Bump" for a nose nudge. That's the word that most easily comes out, so we're using that instead of "Nudge." Penny isn't quite ready for the cue to be added in yet, but she's close. I'll likely start adding it in next session for her.
All in all, both dogs did excellent for their second try at learning Treibball. Soon I'll start working on training some directionals and a few other things. I had fun and it seemed like the dogs did to. I think we're all enjoying giving this new sport a try. Hope you'll join me here and read about our continuing sessions in the future.
What new training tips or techniques did you learn about recently that you found helpful? Please feel free to share in the comments! :-)
Donna Hill Treibball Video on YouTube
Then it was Malcolm's turn. Penny went into her crate temporarily as she just gets too excited to stay out of the way. Malcolm started with pawing the ball a bit too. With some polite no reward marks ("Nope!") he settled down into nose touches. He's a bit less enthusiastic than Penny, so his nose touches and nudges of the ball aren't very hard yet. That's fine. There's no rush. As we progressed he started nudging the ball harder, which was excellent. Those harder nose nudges got two'fer and three'fer rewards (two and three treats for each click, instead of just one treat for each click). He started doing the harder nudges more often, which was excellent. We'll have to work a bit on direction as time goes on. He's tending to nudge the ball to the side a bit, rather than straight on towards me. So I'll have to tighten up on his nose nudge placement a bit. But I didn't want to be too picky in the beginning, as I was working to encourage any form of nose touch or nudge.
I made a few mistakes during Malcolm's session, clicking on accident for the wrong thing. I just tossed his treat behind him in those instances to reset his position and we tried again. Not the end of the world. I accidentally clicked for a couple of paw touches to the ball, which I do NOT want to encourage. My timing was a bit off, no biggie. We just tried again. Any paw touches that happened after an accidental click I just used the neutral no reward mark and encouraged him again to nose nudge.
I decided to start incorporating the cue "Bump" for Malcolm with nose bumping and nudging the ball. The cue "touch" he tends to associate with a paw touch, so we're using "Bump" for a nose nudge. That's the word that most easily comes out, so we're using that instead of "Nudge." Penny isn't quite ready for the cue to be added in yet, but she's close. I'll likely start adding it in next session for her.
All in all, both dogs did excellent for their second try at learning Treibball. Soon I'll start working on training some directionals and a few other things. I had fun and it seemed like the dogs did to. I think we're all enjoying giving this new sport a try. Hope you'll join me here and read about our continuing sessions in the future.
What new training tips or techniques did you learn about recently that you found helpful? Please feel free to share in the comments! :-)
Donna Hill Treibball Video on YouTube
Thursday, February 18, 2016
First Walking Canicross Session
Today was our first walking Canicross session. Canicross is technically cross country running with your dog. The human wears a padded waist belt and the dog wears a harness and is attached to the padded waist belt with a tugline. The dog keeps tension in the tugline and helps the human to move faster with less effort. I am absolutely NOT a runner, but Canicross is used with walking and hiking too. We're going to be starting with the walking version. I'm hoping this will help me to more easily be active with my physical limitations.
I am using Ruffwear gear, their Omnijore Belt, Roamer Leash, Knot a long leash, Webmaster Harnesses, and Approach Packs. I started with Penny attached to the belt wearing the Webmaster Harness this time and Malcolm walking on a held leash wearing his Approach pack empty to get used to wearing it. The session went decent for a first time. Both dogs were very sniffy and distracted, but I expected that. All in all it went fairly well. The dogs seemed happy and excited to be out.
There's a few things I'll change for the next session. I'll be attaching the leashes to the rear leash loop instead of the metal leash ring in the middle of the harness/pack. The dogs moving to the side with the leashes attached to the metal leash rings caused the harness and pack to shift all over the place. Not good... I gave a quick try before heading inside to having the leashes attached to the rear leash loops. This allowed the leash to shift from side to side a bit and there was a LOT less harness/pack shifting. I also need to use the medium Roamer leash, not the Large. Even shortened all the way, the Large was WAY too long for urban walking on the sidewalk once it stretches out. The Large would be great for hiking though, to allow more freedom for the dogs to move around. I also needed to adjust the harnesses/packs so they sit lower on the chest for both dogs. Both dogs coughed just a bit from the harness/pack riding up a bit in front and putting pressure on their throats, though it was low. I took care of adjusting those once we got back home.
The Omnijore belt worked well. It was comfortable. I've left off the detachable leg straps for now. They're used to keep the belt from shifting up, but that's not a problem for me right now. I also wore my new Sketchers slip on gym shoes for the first time and I LOVED them. They were so comfortable and squishy. :-) I wore my new workout clothes for the first time too and they were also comfy.
It was a short walk, but a good first try. I'm hoping I don't get too much of a post-exertional relapse from this. Only time will tell. I'm hoping we all can continue this in the future. I just got a FitBit, so I'll be wearing that in the future to keep track of how far we go. The dogs will be switching off who is attached to the belt and who is wearing their pack each time. The dog attached to the belt will wear their harness only, no pack. The dog not attached to the belt will wear their pack. It will be good for them to get some variety in their physical workout. This also allows me to bring both dogs with. The dogs will eventually be carrying light weight in their pack (whichever dog is wearing their pack that time) so as to help increase their conditioning. I may eventually have both dogs attached to the belt, but we'll have to see how well that works. I figure better to start with one at a time, for now.
Hope you'll join me in the future as I continue to update our progress with walking Canicross and Treibball training!
What new sports/activities have you tried recently with your dog? Let me know in the comments.
:-)
http://www.ruffwear.com/
I am using Ruffwear gear, their Omnijore Belt, Roamer Leash, Knot a long leash, Webmaster Harnesses, and Approach Packs. I started with Penny attached to the belt wearing the Webmaster Harness this time and Malcolm walking on a held leash wearing his Approach pack empty to get used to wearing it. The session went decent for a first time. Both dogs were very sniffy and distracted, but I expected that. All in all it went fairly well. The dogs seemed happy and excited to be out.
There's a few things I'll change for the next session. I'll be attaching the leashes to the rear leash loop instead of the metal leash ring in the middle of the harness/pack. The dogs moving to the side with the leashes attached to the metal leash rings caused the harness and pack to shift all over the place. Not good... I gave a quick try before heading inside to having the leashes attached to the rear leash loops. This allowed the leash to shift from side to side a bit and there was a LOT less harness/pack shifting. I also need to use the medium Roamer leash, not the Large. Even shortened all the way, the Large was WAY too long for urban walking on the sidewalk once it stretches out. The Large would be great for hiking though, to allow more freedom for the dogs to move around. I also needed to adjust the harnesses/packs so they sit lower on the chest for both dogs. Both dogs coughed just a bit from the harness/pack riding up a bit in front and putting pressure on their throats, though it was low. I took care of adjusting those once we got back home.
The Omnijore belt worked well. It was comfortable. I've left off the detachable leg straps for now. They're used to keep the belt from shifting up, but that's not a problem for me right now. I also wore my new Sketchers slip on gym shoes for the first time and I LOVED them. They were so comfortable and squishy. :-) I wore my new workout clothes for the first time too and they were also comfy.
It was a short walk, but a good first try. I'm hoping I don't get too much of a post-exertional relapse from this. Only time will tell. I'm hoping we all can continue this in the future. I just got a FitBit, so I'll be wearing that in the future to keep track of how far we go. The dogs will be switching off who is attached to the belt and who is wearing their pack each time. The dog attached to the belt will wear their harness only, no pack. The dog not attached to the belt will wear their pack. It will be good for them to get some variety in their physical workout. This also allows me to bring both dogs with. The dogs will eventually be carrying light weight in their pack (whichever dog is wearing their pack that time) so as to help increase their conditioning. I may eventually have both dogs attached to the belt, but we'll have to see how well that works. I figure better to start with one at a time, for now.
Hope you'll join me in the future as I continue to update our progress with walking Canicross and Treibball training!
What new sports/activities have you tried recently with your dog? Let me know in the comments.
:-)
http://www.ruffwear.com/
Thursday, February 4, 2016
First Treibball Training Session
Recently I decided to focus more on my own dogs. With dealing with chronic illness issues, I've let go of some of my focus on my own dogs. They are still doing their service dog work, though Malcolm hasn't been working quite so often with me not leaving the house very often lately. I sat down and thought about what sports my dogs might be interested in and what I might be capable of doing with my current physical limitations. I came up with two things for now and one thing for possibly later this year. I decided to give Treibball (or urban ball herding) and walking Canicross (technically cross country running with your dog, though I'll be walking or maybe even hiking, hopefully) a try. Both I can start working on at home. Later in the year I may give Nosework a try, which I think both dogs may also enjoy.
Whole Dog Journal Treibball Article
About Canicross
Canicross for Agility Conditioning Part 1
Canicross for Agility Conditioning Part 2
(while I don't participate in Agility, I thought these articles had some great points)
For Treibball all you need are the balls, typically exercise balls, and some kind of way to indicate a "goal" area (like cones or goal posts). For Canicross, you need a waist belt and good shoes for yourself and a harness and tugline for your dog. I have the waist belt (I have the Omnijore belt from Ruffwear), dog harnesses (I have a few to choose from, so I'll see which work the best for each dog), and tuglines (Ruffwear Roamer leashes from Ruffwear, though I can get the Ruffwear tugline if I need to) for the dogs for Canicross. I'll be buying some new, lighter walking shoes for myself soon. I needed to buy some balls for the Treibball. I decided to start with a jolly ball as I was worried that my dogs' enthusiasm with their paws and mouths may pop exercise balls. Jolly balls (I got one without the handle) remain functional even when punctured (and won't pop in a way that might scare your dog) and they are quite thick, though still somewhat soft. I thought that would be good to prevent any mishaps with teeth or nails in the beginning until they get the techniques down. Once they have the nose nudge/shoulder bump techniques down I'll buy a few exercise balls.
Today I decided to try starting Treibball with the dogs, since I got the jolly ball yesterday (from Chewy.com, which I absolutely love for their excellent prices and customer service). I started with Penny, as she tends to be the more excited dog. I put Malcolm in Penny's crate to keep him out of the way. I originally planned on trying to start and follow the basic method I found in Donna Hill's Treibball video. I'm having trouble getting a good link for the video. I'll put one in as soon as I can, but in the meantime you can search youtube with "Donna Hill Treibball" to find it.
Of course, Penny being the dog she is, she can't "follow the rules" and just let me use an established method to train her. :-) Penny has always been an over-enthusiastic nose bumper. It's part of the herding dog in her (we think Australian Cattle Dog). It took us quite a while to get her to quit nose bumping us in the back of our knees after we first got her. So I have avoided teaching her a nose touch so as not to encourage that behavior in her. Donna Hill, and others, suggests teaching a nose touch to hand and then using some assorted methods to transfer that to nose touching and nose bumping the ball.
Well, Penny put two and two together VERY quickly and realized that she was getting rewarded for nose bumping my hand. That progressed (degenerated) fairly quickly to nose bumping me in a variety of places trying to get the click and treat. Yeah, not so good. I realized that I absolutely did NOT want to encourage this and I needed to get her touching the ball only FAST. So using a sort of haphazard combo of luring, shaping, and capturing I started working on getting that nose touch/bump focus on the ball. I sat in a chair and held the ball between my feet so it wouldn't roll. She's starting to get it, but I have to be SUPER careful with my clicking. Penny is incredibly smart. She puts things together VERY quickly. So my timing with the clicker has to be pretty precise or she starts chaining together behaviors that I didn't intend. She started chaining laying down and nose bumping the ball, which sort of defeats the purpose. I used my no reward mark "nope" to let her know I didn't want her pawing/clawing the ball.
She started getting frustrated, so I knew I needed to change things up. I decided to work while standing and using body language and cues to move her back away from the ball that was slightly in front of me. I encouraged her to come forward and nose touch the ball, still not using an actual verbal cue yet. She started doing it, even bumping the ball a bit towards me. Lots of rewards and a party for doing that. She got a little frustrated with me asking her to back up a bit so she wasn't crowding the ball, but she responded. She started to get a bit frustrated so I got one last decent nose touch to the ball and we quit. We trained for longer than I planned because I needed to figure out what would work for her as an individual. We're all learning this together. It may not be exactly how to train it, but I just want to do this at home for now, not taking a class. It's just supposed to be something new and fun for us to do at home. I'm trying to keep things relatively simple.
Now it was Malcolm's turn. I let him out of the crate and put Penny in to keep her out of the way. I started with a hand touch for Malcolm. I quickly realized that for him, instead of an open hand (as is usual for most touch training) I needed to use a closed fist. Malcolm is very well trained to give paw and do a paw touch to an open hand. He was getting confused by me trying to use an open hand for a nose touch, so we switched to a nose touch to my closed fist. That worked very well. Using the clicker he got that very quickly.
After playing around with having him nose touch my fist in a variety of places and heights I started to switch to the "close the door" step explained in Donna Hill's video. Well, using a paper target, all he wanted to do was grab the target with his mouth and tear the paper. We were both getting frustrated with that, so I decided to try working with him like I worked with Penny. I used the nose fist touch to target the ball more than I did with Penny. He started to understand that so I eased off of using the fist every time. He'd nose touch the ball a few times and then need the fist touch target to "remind" him.
Then he too started to get bored and frustrated with me just holding the ball between my feet. I decided to again follow what I did with Penny and got up and encouraged him to nose touch and push the ball toward me a bit with it a little in front of my feet. He started doing that fairly well with a little bit of luring and capturing. Then my husband came home so Malcolm had to go bark at the sound of the garage door opening, so the session was over. :-)
All in all, I feel it was a good start for both dogs. We'll see how they progress as we continue. I realized that I need to continue to be flexible on method, though I'm keeping things very positive right now with using the clicker and treats and just a verbal no reward mark for communication. I also need to get a new treat pouch. The one I have is small and can be a pain in the butt to get treats out of. I'm leaning towards getting the Dog Gone Good one, but I'll take a look. I also need to make a training treats "trail mix." I went through nearly an entire bag of soft training treats today between the two dogs. That's just not healthy or affordable. So I'll be mixing the soft training treats with some small crunchy treats and maybe some kibble to increase the quantity of treats available while still being more affordable.
I hope you'll join me here next time as I continue to share our adventures in Treibball training. I'm hoping to start the walking Canicross next week some time. Look for our Canicross adventures in the near future.
What new thing(s) have you been working on recently with your dog(s)? Let me know in the comments! :-)
Ruffwear Outdoor Dog Gear
Jolly Pet Bounce and Play Ball
Whole Dog Journal Treibball Article
About Canicross
Canicross for Agility Conditioning Part 1
Canicross for Agility Conditioning Part 2
(while I don't participate in Agility, I thought these articles had some great points)
For Treibball all you need are the balls, typically exercise balls, and some kind of way to indicate a "goal" area (like cones or goal posts). For Canicross, you need a waist belt and good shoes for yourself and a harness and tugline for your dog. I have the waist belt (I have the Omnijore belt from Ruffwear), dog harnesses (I have a few to choose from, so I'll see which work the best for each dog), and tuglines (Ruffwear Roamer leashes from Ruffwear, though I can get the Ruffwear tugline if I need to) for the dogs for Canicross. I'll be buying some new, lighter walking shoes for myself soon. I needed to buy some balls for the Treibball. I decided to start with a jolly ball as I was worried that my dogs' enthusiasm with their paws and mouths may pop exercise balls. Jolly balls (I got one without the handle) remain functional even when punctured (and won't pop in a way that might scare your dog) and they are quite thick, though still somewhat soft. I thought that would be good to prevent any mishaps with teeth or nails in the beginning until they get the techniques down. Once they have the nose nudge/shoulder bump techniques down I'll buy a few exercise balls.
Today I decided to try starting Treibball with the dogs, since I got the jolly ball yesterday (from Chewy.com, which I absolutely love for their excellent prices and customer service). I started with Penny, as she tends to be the more excited dog. I put Malcolm in Penny's crate to keep him out of the way. I originally planned on trying to start and follow the basic method I found in Donna Hill's Treibball video. I'm having trouble getting a good link for the video. I'll put one in as soon as I can, but in the meantime you can search youtube with "Donna Hill Treibball" to find it.
Of course, Penny being the dog she is, she can't "follow the rules" and just let me use an established method to train her. :-) Penny has always been an over-enthusiastic nose bumper. It's part of the herding dog in her (we think Australian Cattle Dog). It took us quite a while to get her to quit nose bumping us in the back of our knees after we first got her. So I have avoided teaching her a nose touch so as not to encourage that behavior in her. Donna Hill, and others, suggests teaching a nose touch to hand and then using some assorted methods to transfer that to nose touching and nose bumping the ball.
Well, Penny put two and two together VERY quickly and realized that she was getting rewarded for nose bumping my hand. That progressed (degenerated) fairly quickly to nose bumping me in a variety of places trying to get the click and treat. Yeah, not so good. I realized that I absolutely did NOT want to encourage this and I needed to get her touching the ball only FAST. So using a sort of haphazard combo of luring, shaping, and capturing I started working on getting that nose touch/bump focus on the ball. I sat in a chair and held the ball between my feet so it wouldn't roll. She's starting to get it, but I have to be SUPER careful with my clicking. Penny is incredibly smart. She puts things together VERY quickly. So my timing with the clicker has to be pretty precise or she starts chaining together behaviors that I didn't intend. She started chaining laying down and nose bumping the ball, which sort of defeats the purpose. I used my no reward mark "nope" to let her know I didn't want her pawing/clawing the ball.
She started getting frustrated, so I knew I needed to change things up. I decided to work while standing and using body language and cues to move her back away from the ball that was slightly in front of me. I encouraged her to come forward and nose touch the ball, still not using an actual verbal cue yet. She started doing it, even bumping the ball a bit towards me. Lots of rewards and a party for doing that. She got a little frustrated with me asking her to back up a bit so she wasn't crowding the ball, but she responded. She started to get a bit frustrated so I got one last decent nose touch to the ball and we quit. We trained for longer than I planned because I needed to figure out what would work for her as an individual. We're all learning this together. It may not be exactly how to train it, but I just want to do this at home for now, not taking a class. It's just supposed to be something new and fun for us to do at home. I'm trying to keep things relatively simple.
Now it was Malcolm's turn. I let him out of the crate and put Penny in to keep her out of the way. I started with a hand touch for Malcolm. I quickly realized that for him, instead of an open hand (as is usual for most touch training) I needed to use a closed fist. Malcolm is very well trained to give paw and do a paw touch to an open hand. He was getting confused by me trying to use an open hand for a nose touch, so we switched to a nose touch to my closed fist. That worked very well. Using the clicker he got that very quickly.
After playing around with having him nose touch my fist in a variety of places and heights I started to switch to the "close the door" step explained in Donna Hill's video. Well, using a paper target, all he wanted to do was grab the target with his mouth and tear the paper. We were both getting frustrated with that, so I decided to try working with him like I worked with Penny. I used the nose fist touch to target the ball more than I did with Penny. He started to understand that so I eased off of using the fist every time. He'd nose touch the ball a few times and then need the fist touch target to "remind" him.
Then he too started to get bored and frustrated with me just holding the ball between my feet. I decided to again follow what I did with Penny and got up and encouraged him to nose touch and push the ball toward me a bit with it a little in front of my feet. He started doing that fairly well with a little bit of luring and capturing. Then my husband came home so Malcolm had to go bark at the sound of the garage door opening, so the session was over. :-)
All in all, I feel it was a good start for both dogs. We'll see how they progress as we continue. I realized that I need to continue to be flexible on method, though I'm keeping things very positive right now with using the clicker and treats and just a verbal no reward mark for communication. I also need to get a new treat pouch. The one I have is small and can be a pain in the butt to get treats out of. I'm leaning towards getting the Dog Gone Good one, but I'll take a look. I also need to make a training treats "trail mix." I went through nearly an entire bag of soft training treats today between the two dogs. That's just not healthy or affordable. So I'll be mixing the soft training treats with some small crunchy treats and maybe some kibble to increase the quantity of treats available while still being more affordable.
I hope you'll join me here next time as I continue to share our adventures in Treibball training. I'm hoping to start the walking Canicross next week some time. Look for our Canicross adventures in the near future.
What new thing(s) have you been working on recently with your dog(s)? Let me know in the comments! :-)
Ruffwear Outdoor Dog Gear
Jolly Pet Bounce and Play Ball
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