Why Clicker Training Rocks

Today we started serious work on Fetch & Drop It, April's Training Challenge for Genius Puppy Hurley.  I grabbed a squeaky ball, the clicker and dumped a handful of diced carrots on the counter.  Ready, set, train!

Hurley ran after his ball as I prompted "Go get it".  Actually, he meandered after it and pounced.  And then he brought it back, I asked for a "drop", he dropped it and got a click & treat.  Repeat.  Repeat. Repeat.  Wait...I thought this was something new we were training, right?  Guess Hurley pretty much has Fetch & Drop down.  So what to do now...

I decided to practice shaping using the clicker.  I am, by default, a trainer by lure.  It has always seemed like the quickest way to get the behavior I want and, other than encouraging sharkiness in relation to my hand, has been pretty successful for us so far.  But not all behaviors can be lured and I absolutely agree with the theories behind shaping as to its effectiveness in training by forcing your dog to think and problem solve.  Learning's a lot more effective and sticks when you have to figure something out for yourself.  It's about time that I added shaping to our training bag o' tricks.

I grabbed a box, a box barely big enough for Hurley to get in.  In fact, I had my doubts that all 4 paws of his 80 lb-ness would fit.  But, hey, we're just getting started - what are the chances Hurley's actually going to offer all 4 paws in the box today when he's never offered a single paw in a box, right?

It did take us over a half hour to get from one paw touching the box to all four in.  And the only time I helped was when he was stuck at the first paw in the box.  I told him "Other Paw" and he plopped his other front paw in the box immediately.  From there, it was just clicking and treating two paws in and any time a back paw went in.  From the second he got all 4 paws in at the same time, it was maybe 10 seconds until I got this:

 I had no hopes, no intentions of getting a sit in the box but apparently Hurley did.  So I started marking getting in the box with "In".  How the heck did we get from experimenting with shaping to verbally marking "In"?  a) Clicker training rocks and b) Hurley is a genius puppy.

We were out of carrots so I told him good job, gave him a kiss and hug and took myself a bathroom break.  A few minutes later, I came back out to Hurley, just sitting in his box.

I knows stuff!

Training Challenge Updates

No, the interwebs did not swallow me whole, nor did I get run over by a bus.  Sorry I've been M.I.A.!  We just finished the wettest March on record here in Portland and I had me some lack of sunshine blues.  But even though I've been a bit lax on taking the dogs on walks or to the park, we did make progress on our March training challenge to learn to twirl.  Luckily for the dogs, I am an expert twirler so I was really able to lead the pack on this one.  :) 

March roared in like a lion with Hurley having the hand gesture for twirl down before March 1st.  Rockin' & Rollin', my friends!  Unlike Roll Over, he had no problems learning to twirl in each direction.  As with everything, he's much more reliable with the hand gesture than the verbal so right now we are continuing to work on cementing our verbal communication.  And I have the best verbal command for twirling in each direction (think figure eight) - HIPPIE DANCE.  Hippie is twirl counter-clockwise and Dance is twirl clockwise.  While we have the foundation down pat, it's going to take us a little bit longer to get the two fully strung together into one solid Hippie Dance command.  Hehe...it makes me smile every time we practice as I imagine our progress getting us to the point where I say "Hurley do your hippie dance" and he meanders around in a large figure eight in typical "Hurley don't hurry" fashion. 

The girls did great this month with twirl too.  I figured out that Maggie learns much better without a lure.  A treat in my hand gets her so pumped up that she can't concentrate.  So we spent most of the month just working on her targeting my treat-less hand around in a twirl.  Such a better training experience for both of us!  I'm still working on fading the hand targeting to a hand gesture but that too will take more time.  And once I wasn't worried about always having that treat in my hand, I started practicing our twirl randomly throughout the evenings.  Hurley's doing his "Hurley don't hurry" thing when I call him to come inside?  No sweat.  The girls and I will just practice twirl while we wait for his meandering self.  Waiting for water to boil?  Perfect time for an impromptu training session! We got a lot more practice in this month than in previous months but overall, probably had less formal training sessions (one dog, 15+ minutes, treats, clicker, the whole shebang).  I feel like we've figured out a good groove for how and when we practice - one that doesn't stress me out trying to find the time to work with each of them and allows us more practice time in smaller increments throughout the week. 

I am considering March's training challenge a rousing success!  Are we where I want all 4 of us to be in our hippie dances?  Not entirely but we've got a good start and that's all I can ask.

So now it's on to April and what do we have in store?  Well, I need to lay the foundation for Hurley to learn a few things that the girls already know.  And I need to practice January's Back up and March's Twirl with the girls more.  So this April, Hurley will be working on Fetch & Drop.  He's not a natural born fetcher but I'd like to train him to fetch specific items by name and to put his toys away in the toy basket, both of which require a solid understanding of Fetch and Drop.  Since Maggie already has these down and Sadie really has never given a rat's arse about Fetch, I will spend the month making further progress with them on past training challenges.  Giving both them and myself this time to work on these challenges is as important as the accomplishments we make during each individual month.  Because it means we haven't given up even if we weren't able to reach the finish line at month's end.  Except for roll over.  I completely give up on teaching the girls that one and I don't feel one iota of guilt about that! 

It's Monday, I have the day off, and for once, the sun is shining.  So pardon me while I sign off and take the dogs on that super, duper long walk that they deserve.