Training - Ella and Robbie

Saturday

Ella, Robbie and I drove down to the Post Office. Well, I drove and they rode. The parking lot was quite full, so I had a lot of opportunities to play "Catch a Glance" with Robbie. There was a man in a baseball cap driving a loud truck, an older lady with a walker and then an older couple who had bulky jackets on. There were a few more people, but those listed are the ones that stood out.

We sat in the car and Robbie was clicked and treated for watching quietly. We trained while sitting in the car. He watched (and I clicked) as the people pulled up in their cars, got out of their cars, walked into the PO, walked around in the PO (Robbie could see them through the windows), walked back to their cars, climbed in and drove off. He woofed once, showed tight whiskers once (this happens right before he makes the woof) and watched nicely the rest of the time.

Ella heard the same click that Robbie did, so essentially was clicked for staring intently at the treat bag. This might seem like a bad thing, but I think it really helped with our session on Sunday.

When I left the car to get my mail, Robbie watched quietly for me, but did not bark. Yippee!! That is awesome progress for him.

At home, Ella and Robbie each practiced with me for 5 minutes individually:

• Ella practiced sit-stay (with me walking around the corner and back), down, touch (target stick) and heeling between the living room and kitchen.
• Robbie practiced sit, down, attention and touch. He is really slow on the sit and tends to stare at my hand that is holding the clicker, so I have to remember to hide it behind my back. I lured the down, which he picked up on quite quickly. The next time we practice, I will only lure him once or twice to see if he is getting it quicker. Robbie only has one behavior on cue right now - sit.

Sunday

Ella and I attended the sheltie club's rally practice on Sunday morning. It was an hour long practice. There is no instruction - people just get together with their dogs and set up some practice Rally courses.

Ella tends to lag and not make eye contact with me when we heel.

• One possible reason for this might be because I have taught her to lag. I don't really think so, though, because I have always clicked her for heeling in the proper position.
• Another reason might be because she learned to lag when I had terrible ring nerves at our first trial. Again, this might be a small factor, but not enough to make her lag all the time.
• The third reason that she might lag could be because I have not taught her how to heel everywhere. In other words, she heels great at home - trotting nicely, eyes on me, happy sheltie smile. But, she does not do this other places. So, I haven't proofed (generalized and added distractions) her enough!

When I first taught Ella to heel, we used a target stick (she is too short for me to get her to touch my hand while I am walking normally). In order to use one, your dog needs to know how to "touch." Ella will try to touch that target stick while I am trotting, while I hold it above her head or if she has to jump up on stuff to get to it. I have proofed Ella well on "touch."

So, I hold the target stick in heel postion and ask Ella to touch it. She gets clicked for touching it when I give her the cue while I am walking. I drop the treat on the floor and I continue walking while she picks it up. Then I ask her to touch the stick again, so that she has to run to get back into heel postion. She likes this game and will target that stick even when we do about turns and 360 turns.

She would also walk alongside me and look up happily. This might be due to our special work on Saturday where she got clicked for looking at the treat bag - she would look at my face and then the treat bag while we were heeling on Sunday. I would often click her when her eyes met mine and she was maintaining heel (when she hadn't been cued for touching the target).

We practiced heeling for at least 20 minutes. Then, we practiced heeling with a sit. That means that Ella stops when I stop and sits while maintaining heel position. The clicker came in very handy with this, since she tended to forge ahead of me and not pay attention to when I was stopping. She would sit 10 inches forward of where she should be. So, I would have her touch the stick, then stop and ask her to sit.

After a few times, she was sitting on one cue of sit (no touch cue) in heel position. Ella has been clicker trained since she was a pup, so is very clicker saavy and learns very quickly now.

We then joined the other two people and walked through some cones in order to practice the serpentine and the spiral signs. The first time we tried it, Ella did not maintain heel position. So, I sped up my pace and used the taget stick frequently. After that, I just pointed with my finger to heel postion and she maintained it (I will fade the pointing once she is reliably holding that position and I have introduced the "heel" cue).

We then ran a course. We did a sit, moving side step right (which we need to work on), halt 1-2-3 sit (which she did perfectly), slow pace (again, she maintained heel), spriral, serpentine (she knocked a cone over) and an about turn.

We still need to work a lot on heeling, since this is the place where our performace will break down. But, she did an amazing job yesterday. I am very proud of her.