4/3 part 2

I decided to stick another sibling out in the big field to see if Kenzi's response would be the same. It worked again! She ran full throttle up to J and started barking. I've got something I can build on.

4/3

For the past few I've been able to get my very wonderful little sister to help me with Kenzi throughout the week. She follows instructions very well and puts up with an enthusiastic, driven, body slamming pup. Not bad at all for an 11 y/o!!

So this morning instead of out to the usual field, I sent H out to the big field. I took Kenz out and let her loose before wee reached the field. She bee-lined straight to H and started barking enthusiastically for her frisbee. Yay for success!!!

3/27

I decided yesterday that I'm going to make Kenzi look for her frisbee before she gets to play with it. The idea being that I can get her used to the idea of searching for her reward. This way I can hopefully build her search drive even when I'm just working with her by myself.

She seems to be catching on quickly. I stuck her frisbee in the weeds 3 different times this morning and each time she actively looked for it, caught the scent and enthusiastically grabbed it to play.

3/26

I said I wasn't the greatest at keeping up with a blog...

Anyways, Kenzi is making progress. She waits very nicely at her kennel when I let her out. She sits 'til I leash or release her :-)

Her frisbee drive has increased nicely. She loves to chase it or tug it. And she is FAST. That pup can grab her toy faster than anything... Her focus is improving bit by bit.

In looking for a food reward that grabs her attention, can be kept in the car without spoiling, and is fairly cost effective, I came up with Moist and Meaty. Ugh. But she really likes it as a treat. So I'll use it for a while.

2/6/2010

Kenzi went out and about with me today. She went along to Holland where I did some errands and had my tires rotated. She did very good sitting inside at Discount Tire. She so wanted to go say hi to everyone, but did figure out that laying quietly on the floor was rewarded. So she gave that a try, too! She did fine with all the new noises, sights and smells.

I picked up more flying squirrels today as they seem to be becoming her favorite toy. They are already Kipp's favorite so it's good to keep them on hand!

Since her toy focus has gotten pretty good out in the field, I took her into the woods today. It turned out pretty well. She is still quite interested in a myriad of smells, but I could get her excited about a frisbee game. I was very happy to see that.

January 30

I took a couple frisbees out to play with yesterday instead of the tug. I think she likes them better. My reluctance to use them before was based in her desire to grab one and run with it, but after a few minutes yesterday I had her coming back to me to get another one thrown. So I'm going to leave the tugs for a few days and work with frisbees instead to see if it makes a difference in her focus and attention span!

She likes the recall idea

So I'm on day 6 of the "event" recalls. Kenzi loves, loves, loves them. I've switched tugs from the fleece tugs onto a leather one. I'm going to wait for a week or two before getting more of those just to make sure this type holds up well with her, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be switching. The leather is easier for me to get out of her mouth and I think it's going to hold up much longer than the fleece. I'm going to start ducking behind something after I call her as I want her to start using her nose. Should be interesting to see how that works...

recalls - day 2

I'm loving this method. I've been carrying a tug toy with me on walks. When I notice Kenzi is in a positions to respond, I call her and reinforce with an "atta girl" as she sprints toward me. We have our tug "event" for a minute then I swap her a treat for the tug.

It seems as she is really loving it, too. I was able to redirect her off some crazy birds using this method this afternoon, which is pretty awesome at this stage of the game.

recalls

Still working on this. My living situation has allowed me to be a bit lax in training this. Oops. Thinking about this and the best way to really grab my dogs attention in general while I was watching several of the video clips on the Leerburg youtube channel One of the statements in a video really grabbed my attention - make the reward an event. This makes so much sense, especially outside where one is competing with many very cool things for the dogs attention.

So when I took the dogs for a run this afternoon I experimented with it and found out a few things. First off, Kenzi really, really liked the "event" idea. Second, do not attempt throwing an "event" without something to keep Kipp occupied. But all in all I think this idea should really help cement her recall.

Focus

Grabbing your dogs focus really sets the mood of training - and life with your dog.

I let Kenz learn the bad habit whipping past me when I open her kennel door. She was around the corner, down the walk and looking for cats lickity split. My bad. So the past few days I've been working on rectifying my mistake. The goal is for her to focus on me until I verbally release her.

She is ridiculously food motivated. Within about 3 sessions I have her paying much better attention to me. She still kind of wants to go check out the world, but it's no longer the automatic response. This will work as long as I stay on top of it. Hopefully by the end of next week I'll have an automatic focus from her when I open the door instead of vice versa.

And since I treat her every time I put her back in her kennel I can tell her "kennel' from 30 ft away and she dashes into it and stands there waiting for me.

Why not?

I've decided to give this a go for a while. Let's see if I can stay up to date with Kenzi's progress