Here is Robin working to desensitize Blue, her GSD, to the small & medium two dogs lying quietly in the ring to the camera’s right. Robin is doing Look At That with Blue as well as moving to add more distance between Blue & the dogs.
Here is Robin working to desensitize Blue, her GSD, to the small & medium two dogs lying quietly in the ring to the camera’s right. Robin is doing Look At That with Blue as well as moving to add more distance between Blue & the dogs. Robin is probably giving Blue a bit too much leash; if the leash was shorter, Blue might have had more opportunities for reinforcment.
Here we are having Robin demonstrate the choose-to-heel exercise, clicking the dog the moment it drives towards heel position, with the handler to deliver the tidbit in heel position. Think Click for Action, Reward for Position -- as clicker master Bob Bailey often says.
These two Teaching Heeling videos are for Minnesota 4-H dog project leaders & trainers. The kids in 4-H have to pass an obedience test that emphasizes heeling [like most obedience competition] before they can do agility with the dog.
Robin or Blue have never done this exercise this way (and it is only the third time Blue has ever been to that building).
2 comments:
Watch those chains!!! I don't get the sound (I watch this stuff on my work computer), but what I saw in the first video was a chain: Blue pulls away, you get her back, you treat. So what she's learning is, if I want a treat, I need to pull first then go get my treat. The other two are similar, she lags, she gets a treat, she lags, she gets a treat.... You're also treating too far back, so you're reinforcing her for coming into a laggy position. Look at how the sch. folks have their dogs heeling-the dog wraps around in front of the handler. You don't want that extreme, but you want to make sure that what's reinforced is her shoulder next to your leg, not just her nose. (Ask Amelia why I'm so sensitive about this... it's what I taught her, too).
Boy, you can't take a dog trainer ANYWHERE, can you???
Liza
Relax Liza. Robin is not going for High In Trial here. And this was the first time -- I think -- that Robin was coached through these particular exercises. Yes she reinforced in less than ideal position several times but to get Blue forward a bit made Robin's body way off balance and definitely not the "picture" she would be presenting to the dog while heeling. The "just feed in heel" exercise is for 4-h leaders who may only know "Say Heel & Pop the Collar" as well as for the 75 pound kids with 60 pound family dogs who may not pay any attention to the child. So in these cases there can be quite a bit of benefit to simply feeding the dog at the handler's side [middle video]. The choose-to-heel exercise [third video], as demonstrated by Blue's wagging tail and animated body, made much more sense to the dog.
These might be some of Robin's first videos with her dog -- doing an exercise she & the dog had never done. Typically, SHE is the one videoing. And she may not even get around to working her own dog....
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