Friday Of Shame

Alright, let's do this!

Do you really think this'll work?

Today I have achieved the following:

• Walks:   2h 45min... Yeah, better than yesterday maybe but nowhere near anything to be content with. Again I'm writing this before our last evening walk, but from how I feel right now I doubt it'll be anything to write about anyway...
• Exercise:   0... Yeah, that may look bad but this time it's actually OK... No, really, it is. Today was meant to be a resting day, and since I overdid it with the dragweight yesterday there's extra reason for it too. So zero exercise is OK - but just for today.
• Training:   40-50min? Two sets of nosework (searching for a piece of plastic, indoors, four rooms), unfortunately not entirely sure how long but I estimate ~10min each - with better planning and preparation I would have known more precisely, no doubt. Also did some trick shaping (trying to get the "hands up - play dead" trick, for whatever reason), again very uncertain how long we spent on it but I think around 20-30min. Too long, anyway, since Monster wound up having to tell me he was tired before I stopped. Again the lack of planning made it ineffectual and uncontrolled.

Also adding a couple of new categories...

• Planning/preparation:   0. Any and all activities we've gotten around to today happened haphazardly, nothing planned or prepared. Also have spent no time planning or preparing for tomorrow.
• Other:   ~20min. Have spent some time giving Monster a massage, plus experimented on some new treats. (In case you're wondering: don't make a mousse by running canned tuna and rice flour in a blender, put the resulting goop in a cake decorating bag and squeeze it out as training treats. Apart from the mess, apparently raw rice flour results in a dog a few hours later turning in a doughnut shape to stare in confusion at his behind, since it's making weird noises - and even weirder smells...)

Tell me when it's over!

 Too early to tell how/if this works I guess... Although I have been aware of this post looming all day, so maybe it's having an effect! Most of all I just want to sleep, though...

Today's Sunshine

I impulse bought a hula hoop today, to use with Monster. As soon as I brought it out and looked at him he just lit up! Monster loves to train, to learn new things and experiment to figure out what will get him the reward. Most of all he loves interacting with props, I think he's more confident in what's expected of him if there's something for him to focus on outside himself.

That's cause I'm too awesome!

This hula hoop was fun to bite, paw at, try to steal, push, lie down on, and eventually go through. I only got home with it after nine so we didn't get much training done, but in that one session he did go from nothing to going through it using only shaping.

I know it's not good for anything, but it is fun. And I'd do almost anything for that excited look on Monster's face when he realizes we're about to learn something together. My Monster is always beautiful, but when he's happy he's glorious...

Hmph! I'm always glorious.

Today's Sunshine

We're now up to two sofa cushions, all four feet on them! However, he now wants to sit down as soon as he's up, so we may need to spend some time building his will to stand and balance before we move up further.

No matter how it goes, though, we're both having fun with this exercise!

She's lying. I never get to do anything fun! It's just work, work, work...

Today's Sunshine

I've been working on getting Monster to balance on things for a while, with very little success. The goal is to have him up on an exercise ball - both to give him a workout and because it looks cool of course - but there's no way he'll agree to that without building up to it. So I've been trying different things to use as buildup, but with the aforementioned lack of success. Most things aren't big enough for him to voluntarily step up with all four feet at the same time, and those that are (like a table, my baby's not small) are far too sturdy to easily transfer the experience to a ball later.

However, today I took a back cushion from the sofa, don't know why I didn't think about that before. He wouldn't really stand on that either, instead laying down on it with half his body hanging out, but once I became even smarter and picked a seat cushion instead we started getting somewhere. Unfortunately we ran out of treats before we could get any further, but at least now I know I've found an angle to work from. Once he'll solidly step up and move around on the seat cushion, I'll add another. And then another. The pile will be unstable and bouncy, not unlike the ball - although it won't roll around, fortunately. Once he feels comfortable with that it may be time to try moving over to the ball. At this pace it may take a year or so, though. Monster is... not participating in training lately.

Why should I? It's stupid. You're stupid. Turn on the TV!

Bloody teenagers...

Today's Sunshine

Today out in the garden Monster and I were working a free shaping session (the resolution, you know) when we were surprised by a horse in the road on the other side of the fence. Monster has very slight issues with just horses, horses in a paddock by themselves. Horses being led by humans are a big deal however. And horses with a rider is apparently some sort of Threat Level Midnight, and nearly make his head explode even at great distance. Since horses do ride through the village now and then I always keep a watchful (hearful?) ear out for clippety-clopping hooves when Monster's outside, because he will drive himself absolutely insane by the fence, to the point of possibly hurting himself. Not only that, but horses are strange and skittish animals, and may weirdly not appreciate being cursed out by a frothing Cane Corso even if he is on the other side of a fence.

Then there's that whole thing how horses keep trying to kill me. If he did manage to spook one badly, it would probably jump the fence into the garden just to kick me in the head...

See? Mom knows they're demons too!

But today, the giant creature snuck up on us! Neither of us heard it until half a second before we could see it. Monster raced to the fence, drew breath, and...

Nothing. Not one bark. He did bounce up and down on all four, and make prey dives in the direction of the fence a couple of times, but he didn't make a sound. And when he looked back at me(!), who had remained calmly behind (not at all frozen in a combination of surprise and resignation I tell you), I took the opportunity given and asked him where his ball was. He took a step toward me, looked back over his shoulder at the horse, and then went racing to find his ball!

Naturally he got lots of praise and lots of play.

And then we went back inside, before that thing decided to come back and ruin everything.

Today's Cloud, Tomorrow's resolution

I have to confess a complete failure (I know you're not surprised, but you could fake it just to be polite you know). I have not fulfilled this week's resolution, to have no less than three free shaping session with an item per day. Some days I did fine, others not so much, and at least one day I did nothing at all...

Look Mom, I can do a new trick! Mom? Mom!? Awwww...

It seems it's difficult for me to get into the routine when it stretches for an entire week. Still, no admitting defeat! (Just humiliating disorganization will do.) Since I still believe it's a good thing to be doing with Monster, we'll simply keep trying the same thing this coming week.

Today's Cloud

I think I've made a mistake.

Wow. There's a shocker.

Monster isn't really enjoying the retrieve training so much. He tends to shut down, lie down and look away, or get frustrated and start pawing at me and trying to get me to play. We have trouble with this quite a lot, I believe it's a combination of Monster severely lacking in confidence and me being very bad at structuring training effectively so it's challenging but not too difficult. No doubt, I'm much worse at this when I'm working toward a specific goal. And when I don't reinforce Monster enough he loses even more confidence.

So I'm doing a take-back on the resolution. No more retrieve. Instead, I'm going back to something Monster really seems to enjoy - and something that's really hard even for me to screw up: free shaping. More specifically free shaping with objects. I just pick a thing, any thing, place it in the training area, and reinforce Monster for interacting with it. I find that we can't get shaping to work without an object, presumably because I put too much pressure on Monster (staring at him and waiting for him to do something), since Monster just lies down and basically plays dead. I suppose we could work on that, but I'm not sure it would be a good idea - the point is to make him more confident acting, not being passive. The reason for only doing free shaping is of course so it won't be quite so easy for me to pile on the pressure and raise the criteria too quickly. If I don't know where we're going it's pretty hard for me to hurry to get there.

I may not look like it, but I actually enjoy shaping.

So, new resolution for this week is having three free shaping sessions, with an object, every day. Today Monster has learned to balance on a snow shovel (out in the garden), and put his head inside a cardboard box. There should be a third thing, but the day isn't over yet.

Whuh?

Shaping Is Fun! (aka Today's Sunshine)

Monster and I have been working more on base position through shaping using a platform (I told you about this yesterday, keep up). While it's still far from complete, I finally get the charm of shaping!

Shaping has never really worked for us before. If Monster isn't being given cues and guidance, he'll just shut down. I assume this is a result from our unfortunate time of correction based training, and I'd more or less given up on Monster ever conquering this. As I told you yesterday, he did the same when I first introduced the box. Instead of experimenting and offering up a score of behaviors to try to find the right one, as you read about in all those smug, braggy (not really, I'm just jealous) explanations of shaping, he'll just become passive and either wander off or lie down and look at me mournfully.

But now! As soon as I walk near the box, he'll do an amazing flying stomp to get on it and then look at me expectantly. It's so great it's actually making me tear up! (I've had to put the box away when we're not training now, since he just won't leave it alone.)

Well, click already!

I've tried to use the camera to capture it, but it's really hard since the focus still has to be on Monster and rewarding everything he does right. However, I discovered something today I just had to share. Well, I've noticed it before of course, I expect everyone has. Tail position. Yeah, advanced stuff, right? But see, while I know dogs "talk" with their tails, and I can read Monster fairly well, today's training really drove home how precise it is, and how much it tells me about how the training is going. I couldn't catch an example of everything, so I'm using some other photos too. Check this out:

*Should be a photo here, but I don't have one. It looks almost identical to the next one, except the tail is limp and close to the body.*

Above should be an illustration of what it looks like when he doesn't understand, and is also unmotivated to try, perhaps even a bit uncomfortable. This would be how he looked when I first put the box in front of him and he shut down.

I don't get it...

Here his tail is pretty low, but he's holding it a bit out from his body. It says he's interested in the situation, but has no clue what's going on. This is what his tail looked like when he first started interacting with the box at all.

Hang on...

Here his tail is stiffer, and he's holding it out even further. This means he's fully engaged and actively trying to figure out what pays.

All right!

This tail is held almost straight out (looks like he has gas), and means he's really thinking. Once he's reached this position, he's working hard and figuring stuff out and learning. And enjoying himself!

Not sure if I'm doing this right, but who cares - it's fun!

Once the tail goes higher, it means he's either so sure of the behavior he no longer has to think about it, or he's become exhausted and can no longer focus. In either case, he becomes goofy instead of concentrating.

I rule the world!

And once it's high and tense, there's just no hope of working with him, he'll just jump, bark and be generally obnoxious. Too stressed.

I find that I get the best results if I try to keep him going between "Hang on..." and "All right!". If he goes lower than "Hang on..." it means he's not understanding, and if he goes higher than "All right!" it means he's either learned it already and isn't being challenged, or I've worked him too hard for too long and he's stressed out.

Our result from today is that Monster now realizes that the reward comes for moving his back paws, he'll now step around the box with his back paws while keeping his front paws on the box (and occasionally falling off).

So tomorrow - no scratch that. No planning while Dobie is here. Next time I'll try to get him to seek base position next to me, and follow me when I move away. We'll see.

But honestly, even if he never gets base position, I don't care because this has been an awesome experience!

(No, not really. He has to get good base position for us to be able to do pretty much anything... But you know what I mean.)

I've been working hard today!