Buddy Clicker Training Session 5 & 6

Session 5 - I think this was on Monday the 17th.  I waited too long to write about it, so I don't remember much.  We reviewed sit and down which he does great.  He did get confused on down because I wasn't sitting on the floor like when I taught him, but he did get it in the end.  After that we worked on come and he did fantastic.  It was SO weird though because he kept 'resetting' himself. Normally when teaching a puppy to come the hardest part is getting them far enough away from you to call him again.  Buddy would come running to me, sit, take his treat and then spin around and run to my dad's chair (not jumping in it, but laying in front of it).  I have no idea why, but it was super helpful because I could just keeping calling him without having to move around.

Session 6 -  This was today.  We reviewed sit, down and come.  He was resetting himself after the recall again like last time.  Then I started working on beg (I call it sit up).  He is sort of standing on his hind legs, but that is fine to start with.  I will refine it later into a sitting position.  Beg is great for strengthening a dog's hips, but by the same token they also have to build the strength to be able to do it, so we're going slow. 

After that he was tired (we had been playing hard before training) so he plopped down on the cool tile floor.  Since he was laying still and tired I decided to work on his down stay.  He did SO much better than I expected.  I've never cared for teaching puppies to stay (although I know it's necessary and I always train it anyway) because they are so bouncy and always breaking it, but he only broke it a couple of times.  I started out just saying stay, waiting a second, clicking and treating.  Then I worked up to saying stay, stepping back one step, stepping forward, click and treat.  Then I'd add another step backward away from him.  I made it to three steps before I called it quits.  I don't ever want to keep going to the point where he gets bored or frustrated.  Eventually I'll work up to turning away from him and walking circles around him, but that will be a while.  We have to take baby steps with such young puppies.  Since we found him at four weeks it's easy to forget he's only nine weeks old.  We keep forgetting and wanting to treat him like he's older, because he is SO smart.  Then he does something that is typical puppy to remind us he's a baby.  I'm having so much fun working with him!!

Buddy Clicker Training Session 4 - Video!

I did some clicker training with Buddy after work today and he did great!  I started off reviewing sit and down.  He knows them so well!  He just needs to learn the vocal cues.  Buddy is the smartest, most enthusiastic puppy I have ever worked with.  When working on down I like to toss the treat a short distance because it gets them out of the down so you can ask for it again.  He runs after the treat, hits it with his paws like a cat sending it skittering across the room, chases it down, eats it and then runs back to me at full speed and slides into a down next to me (literally like a baseball player sliding to home plate).  My mom got a short video.  It's poor quality because it's in bad lighting and off a cell phone, but you can see what he was doing.

Direct Link for Video

After that I worked on "go to bed" to have him go into his crate when asked.  He was confused at first because he was trying to follow my hands around the back of it, so I started reaching inside of the crate to drop the treat.  He followed my hand in and I would click and he'd find the treat.  Within less than a minute I was sitting a couple of feet from the crate and tossing the treats inside it.  One time he didn't see me put the treat in there so I just sat still and waited.  He lay in front of me looking at me and then jumped up and ran into the crate.  I love watching puppies learning how to problem solve and think!!

After that I was talking to my family about what to teach next and "shake" or "sit up/beg" were popular choices.  I tried out both to see which one he would catch on to quicker and I think I'm going to do sit up.  He's at the mouthy stage and grabbing his paw is too tempting to nip at my hands.  He sat up once, but then I could tell his attention span was gone so I ended the session.  He is so smart and enthusiastic it's hard not to get carried away.

I think from here on out I'm going to do weekly posts with his sessions because as the sessions get more frequent I don't want to fill up everyone's feeds with posts too often.  I know some people aren't interested in dog training and will probably skip over these, which is fine.  I'm mainly keeping this as a record for myself.  At this rate he's going to learn tricks so fast I won't be able to remember them all!

Clicker Training Buddy - Session 2 and 3

Session 2 - May 23rd - On Buddy's second session we reviewed sit, which he did perfectly and I started adding in the voice command.  Since it was going so well I decided to try down.  The cool thing about clicker training is you don't have to force the dog to do anything or try to trick or lure them into doing anything.  You just wait and they learn to think for themselves.  So I sat there with my fist (treat inside) on the floor to get him to think about going down because I'm impatient and I like to give the dog a hint. 

The thing with Buddy is he just sits there and stares at me or he goes in circles around me.  Completely by accident he ended up under my arm and I just kind of smushed him gently to the floor.  He laid down, so I clicked and gave him the treat.  It took no time at all for him to figure it out after that.  It was funny though because he kept going under my arm to lay down.  Silly pup!!  Eventually I had him laying down all by himself without any assistance from me.  I haven't started adding the voice cue yet.  I try to keep sessions short so that he stays interested.

Session 3 - June 6th -  I reviewed sit and down with him.  He got sit immediately, but it took him a minute to remember down (it had been a couple of weeks).  He picked it up very quickly though, so I decided to move on to the next thing.  Since he's very mouthy and nippy (herding breeds yay), I decided to teach him to hold something in his mouth.  The awesome thing about clicker training is that if they do something wrong (like jump on you), you teach them the opposite behavior (sit).  It's a positive way to correct misbehavior and it works great. 

I picked out one of his toys (a bone) and held it out in front of him.  He didn't want to bite it, but he was panting because he'd been playing really hard so I just stuck it in his mouth, clicked and gave a treat.  Within less than a minute he was biting it on his own.  We obviously have to work on holding it in his mouth for longer, but with dog training you have to work on one criteria at a time.  New behavior, then duration, then distance.  You don't do more than one at a time or they get confused.  Anyway I don't want to rant about dog training, but I'm definitely excited to be getting back into it.  :)

 Sorry for the crappy cell phone pictures, but he is SO cute!

That smirk!!

Introducing Buddy!

Sorry for only having one picture.  I'm on a computer I don't normally use for blogging so I just emailed this picture I shared on IG to myself.  This is Buddy, my parent's new puppy!  My dad rescued him off of a busy road where someone had dumped him.  He saved his life!! When he stopped Buddy was standing frozen in the middle of the road.  When dad got out of the truck Buddy ran underneath it.  Luckily with a little coaxing he came to him.

They took him to the vet the next day (this was three weeks ago) and they said he was only four weeks old.  Can you believe someone would dump a four week old puppy????  He was wormy, hungry and slept a lot at first, but now after deworming, shots, a bath and good food he is a whirlwind of energy!

It's anyone's guess what breed he is, but we're pretty confident he is at least part Australian Shepherd.  He doesn't seem fluffy enough to be a purebred.  We also thought Catahoula because of his color and webbed feet, but we're not totally sure.  It will be easier to guess as he gets older.  With his color and ears I still definitely think he's mostly Australian Shepherd.  I will get some current pictures of him soon (this one was a couple of weeks ago I think).  Maybe I can break out the good camera this weekend.  I might have to go out of town though so we'll just have to see.

So the reason I decided to blog is because today was his very first clicker training session (he's 7 weeks old now)!  I want to blog about it like I did with Jackal because it's a great way to keep track of what we're working on and what worked or what didn't.  So I broke out the clicker and his dog food with the intention of just charging the clicker (click, feed treat, click, feed treat, etc. until they know what it means).  He was doing so great that I actually taught him to sit too!!! In the very first five minute session he's ever had.

If you're not familiar with clicker training the way it works is you use the click to mark the behavior that you want.  It's such a wonderful method of training because it teaches dogs to problem solve and seek good behaviors.  So all I did was sit there and watch him.  When he sat down naturally without me having to touch him or lure him into it I clicked and gave him a treat.  In less than a minute he was sitting so fast I could barely click or say the word sit fast enough.  I was having to toss the treat on the floor just to get him to stand up (Jackal was the same way when he was a puppy). 

So he knows how to sit.  He obviously doesn't know the word yet, but that will come in time.  I'm telling you this puppy is SO scary smart!!!!  He's going to challenge my creativity I'm betting.  I think we can outdo Jackal's record of forty tricks for sure!  Anyway I'll try to get pictures and video sometime for you, but I'm not making promises on when.  For right now I'm just super excited to be training a dog again.  I've missed it so much!

P.S.  If you want to see a video of Jackal doing all forty of his tricks you can look back at this old post here http://myfarmerlife.blogspot.com/2012/04/jackal-40-tricks-video.html.  That will be our goal to beat someday.

P.P.S.  There has been things going on at the farm, but I haven't had the time or energy to post about it.  Most of the goat kids are sold.  I'll try to do an update post sometime, but I don't know when it will be.  I have lots of pictures I've taken with my new camera, but just no time to edit or upload them.. Oh well.

Busy.... and random pictures!

 I've been soooo busy, but I have managed to do some training this last week with Jackal.  All we've worked on is recalls, heeling, stays and just reviewing other tricks he already knows.  I haven't worked on anything new really.  Oh and we did all of that outside.  :D  It's nice to have a fenced yard we can proof in.  I'll try to work with him more and update more I promise.  The good news is we're putting insulation up in our new house.  Won't be long before we're hanging sheet rock.  I can't wait!  I'll try to get pictures of it soon.

Here are some random pictures I've taken the last couple of days.  :)

 

 I LOVE this new stone table and benches my dad bought for my mom.  :D  Jackal looks cute on them huh?

And the ducks drying off after playing in the pond.

 

 The lighting wasn't great on those two, but I love the challenge of trying to catch them right as they flap their wings.  :D

I love my Muscovies!

I'll try to post more.  I promise!

Back to training the dogs? And pictures of spring!

 I got started blogging in 2008 when I brought Jackal home because I wanted to track his growth and training progress.  I had so much fun with blogging about Jackal that I also made Chrome a blog when I brought him home and I made this blog to write about farming, share my photography and track my projects... I also eventually condensed Jackal's (and Storm's) blogs into this one.... but then life got busy and stressful and I stopped training.  Also having recently moved I haven't had much farm stuff to write about.  So basically all I've used this blog for is to share my photos.  I'm sure I've lost a lot of readers just from pure boredom, but I have been reading my favorite dog training blogs again and it has me feeling motivated to start training, so I hope you'll come back to read and comment on our progress.  I have a couple of things I want to try, but I'll share that in another post.  :)

Now for some signs of spring on it's way (I hope!).

 My neighbor's plum tree.

 My mom's Camilla.

The gorgeous Camilla again.

And mom's garden turtle hehe.  :D

Honey's Dancing With The Doggie Stars Competition

Wow could I have cut it any closer for Honey's Dancing with the Doggie Stars competition?? I had actually planned on taping the video yesterday but everything hit the fan and I wasn't able too. Then it looked like I was going to have to close the store today but luckily didn't have to. Thank goodness!! So tonight I finally recorded the video.

I'm sad to say that we didn't practice much at all. I taught him a new trick when the competition was first announced and then didn't work on it again until about a week ago . . . I am a world class procrastinator, but this time I can actually blame life. Sigh. However given the time we had to practice, my inability to dance, my difficulties with choreography and that this is the first time I've ever put together any sort of routine before I think it turned out pretty good. I'm not making excuses, just warning you in advance that it is a very rough freestyle routine lol. I did have so much fun with it though so I'm planning on polishing it up and recording it again later this year. :D I also need to find a different place to do it because my living room is way too small hehe.

Also forgot to mention the jumps we built were higher, but he was having trouble jumping them in his coat so I pulled a board off and let him jump it lower. :) Jackal is such a trooper putting up with my craziness. I'm looking forward to continuing to work on this routine.



Also if you can't see the embedded version here is the direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdJsaUQLIY0

Anyway I hope you all like it. I had fun! I'm looking forward to seeing the other entries.

Jackal Fetching Leash Video

Okay here is the video of Jackal fetching his leash, which was his March trick. I really thought this one would be difficult, but it wasn't. He did so well!!

Jackal's April Trick Update

I didn't make as much progress as I would have liked with Jackal's April trick, but it's still decent and we can keep working on it when I'm done with our Freestyle routine. I ended up switching from my front door to the doors of my entertainment center because the front door is difficult to close due to the weather stripping. Here is the video.


The door closing scares him so I'll have to work on that. I'm hoping that he was just being overly sensitive because I was frustrated and impatient. We shall see when we practice on it again. I'll post the video of him fetching the leash for his March trick tomorrow. Sorry it took so long to get that one together hehe. Let me know what you think about this video.

Jackal Training Update

I took video today of both closing a door and fetching his leash and I'll have it up sometime tomorrow. I had a really long day at work and I just want to sit on the couch and do nothing lol.

I'm a little frustrated with myself because I knew I wasn't in a good mood for training and I did it anyway when I could have just done it tomorrow . . . it didn't go well. I'm sure most of it was me, but Jackal also did very poorly with his new trick. Could he really have made a lucky guess the other day and not actually know the vocal cue?? Since he appears confused I'm going to wait until I'm not so tired and back up a few steps to see if I can tell where we went wrong. I'm also going to leave his other tricks alone and just focus on the freestyle routine because he's having trouble working on several different things at once. I guess he doesn't multitask any better than I do lol! I'll post the video tomorrow. I'm off the next two days and the weather is going to be horrible so I'll focus on Jackal indoors. :)

Jackal is AMAZING!!

Picture taken 4-25-2011.

I love my dog! He never fails to amaze me with his intelligence and desire to learn. I was reading Mango's blog about their most recent dance practice and decided I really need to buckle down and work on my freestyle routine for Honey's Dancing With The Doggie Stars contest if I want it to be any good. I started working on one of our tricks (old trick, new cue), but he was way too excited so I spent some time doing some active tricks like jumping all four off the floor, spinning, leg weaving, figure eights and jumping over my leg to burn off some energy and excitement. I don't think I've ever seen him spin so fast lol!

Once he was a little calmer I started working on his trick again and he picked it up quickly. Then we worked on last month's trick fetching his leash to make sure he still remembers it (especially considering I still have to get a video!!) and he did fantastic. He's bringing it to my hand really well now even though he sometimes still drops it. He was so excited that when I put up his leash he tried to fetch my Ethernet cord LOL!

Next we worked on our brand new trick. We've made it through the beginning stages and he loves it. I think every new trick he learns becomes his favorite lol. He does it all the time now without a cue, but I have to ignore it because he needs to do it only when I ask. It's really hard though because he's so cute.

The trick involves both paws and I initially taught it with him facing me. The end product will have him in heel position however so I decided to work on that today. He was very slowly catching on in heel position, but I quickly realized his confusion stemmed from the fact that I couldn't cue him without a voice cue. The trick involves him using his paws separately so I have to teach a voice cue for each paw. I sat down in front of him and asked him to do the trick with only his right paw while I used the voice cue. We did it about ten times and then worked on his left paw. When he seemed to understand I stopped using any physical cue at all and asked him with a voice cue to alternate between his left and right paws. He did fantastic. And just to test to see if he was just doing it himself I asked for his right paw twice in a row and he did it!! I'm so excited and proud of him because normally he ignores vocal cues but he totally had it on this. Sorry I can't tell you what the behavior is, but suffice it to say he's AMAZING!

Edited to add: I forgot to mention I found Jackal an outfit for his freestyle routine last weekend. It's a bit small on him, but it works. :) Now I just need the rain to stop so we can practice outdoors and I can build props.

Honey's Dancing With The Doggie Stars Competition

I'm a little late in posting this, but Honey is having a dancing with the doggie stars competition where we all make up a one minute freestyle routine and I think I'm going to give it a try. The deadline is June 15th so you still have time to join if you want! It's going to be a lot of fun. It's all amateur because only dogs who have never made a freestyle routine can compete. :) Click the banner above to see more details.

I've decided on my music and theme (I can't dance so we're going for a themed freestyle). I have to build some props and work on choreography. Those are going to be the hardest and most time consuming for me. I'm also teaching him a couple of new tricks that will go great with our theme. :) I have to keep reminding myself to keep my goals small and easy to accomplish. It's very easy to get caught up in it all and try to move too fast. Our first session was today and he did fantastic!

I can't tell you what we worked on because it's going to be a surprise, but I did also work on his April trick, closing a door (our first session, I'm such a procrastinator!) and he did great. I had previously worked on having him target his nose to a piece of paper so I started out reviewing that. Then I taped the piece of paper to the door. At first I opened the door, but then realized I was moving too fast so I closed it. He didn't want to target the paper on the door because he was watching my hand (which made me realize he was targeting my hand and not the paper at all), so I taped the paper to my knee. I put my knee directly in front of him and he immediately started targeting it. So after a few times of doing that I moved the piece of paper to the door. He was trying to do his shy trick (his new favorite apparently) so I finally turned my back and ignored him (my way of forcing him to use his brain instead of randomly cycling tricks). Eventually he touched it and I clicked. After that it was easy! Good boy!

Next I'll work on him pushing the door harder and eventually I'll open the door. :) So anyway wish us luck. Next month I'm going to work on his tricks for the freestyle routine so unfortunately we won't have a poll! Sorry! It will be worth it though. :) Let me know if you decide to join. It's going to be a lot of fun!

Jackal's April Trick

We have a winner! This month I will be teaching Jackal to close a door. This could be either really easy or really difficult so cross your fingers for me lol. I'll try to get a video up of our progress so far with 'Get your leash' in the next day or so. :)

Jackal's April Trick Poll Up

The poll for Jackal's April trick is up. Sorry I'm a day late. :)

"Get Your Leash" Jackal's March Trick Update

Okay, I know at the end of the month I'm supposed to show you a video of our progress, but with everything that's going on I just don't feel like it. I only got four hours of sleep last night and feel awful. So far I'm not sick and I'm really hoping I can avoid it so that I don't lose hours at work. We can't afford it.

Anyway I'll just tell you how we're doing and post a video of how we're doing when I have time. I've worked on the trick a few times over the last week and he's doing well! I've gotten to where I'm throwing the leash about six or seven feet away on the floor and he will run to get it. He usually drops it at least once on his way back, but he will pick it back up and bring it to me. Sometimes he even brings it the whole way back to me. :D Good boy!

I'll get the poll up tomorrow for his April trick.

Life Update

For those of you who don't follow Chrome's blog he injured his leg yesterday and had to go to the vet. I wrote all the details on his blog, just follow this link if you're interested. Aside from that I've been working crazy hours. Oh and the ultimate procrastinator that I am I started working with Jackal on his March trick . . . and we have five days to go. :D He's making great progress so be sure to check out the video at the end of the month. I'll leave you with some cute pictures of Jackal. I took them without being able to see the LCD screen so the angles are off, but it makes it fun and funky. :)

I love the way this makes his nose look too big like a cartoon.

This one is so cool because it shows his doggy nose "finger" print.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the pictures. I hope everyone is having a great weekend!

"Get Your Leash" Jackal's March Trick

World class begging. :)

I've worked on get your leash twice now with Jackal. Once on the eighth and again today. On the eighth it took moments for him to start picking up the leash, but I started asking for duration (holding it in his mouth for a couple of seconds) too soon and we lost it all. Today I simply focused on having him pick up the leash. No duration at all. It went much better and he was eagerly picking up the leash.

So I have a question for my dog trainer friends. I've never taught Jackal a "hold" for anything. So do I teach him to hold the leash? Or do I just teach him to put it in my hand? Eventually I want him to be able to get his leash from across the room, bring it to me and put it in my hand. So does he even need to know how to hold it, or do I just shape him putting it into my hand? I don't know if I'm making any sense. Maybe it's time to get on YouTube and see what methods people use for teaching fetch. It should be the same principles for getting his leash. For anyone who has trained this I would love to hear from you. :)

Jackal's Shy Progress & New Poll

I forgot who suggested Pet Botanics rolled meat as treats, but whoever it was thank you! You are a life saver. I love this stuff. It's easy to cut up and doesn't leave my fingers greasy. I actually don't feel like I have to wash my hands after using it like I would if using dog food (germ phobia lol). It's fully cooked and smells so good I would almost eat it lol.

Anyway I got the camera set up and had him get on the couch. Then I grabbed my roll of scotch tape and started to tear off a piece. As soon as he saw it he offer shy all by himself! I was so excited. The best part is I caught it on tape. :D


After working on Shy I decided to work on crawl (our January trick) because we haven't done anything with it in so long. Another breakthrough! I had been asking him to crawl under my arm, but this time I asked him to crawl without my arm over his back and he did it! He didn't pop up until after I clicked. He did so well. I'll try to get video soon. I'm so happy he's figured it out. Now I get to work on duration. :)

Now it's time to vote on the poll for our March trick.

A Break From Pictures

I haven't updated in a while because I've been posting so many pictures lol. I posted some cute pictures of Chrome on his blog (click here) yesterday if you want to check them out. I went back looking at his training journal and I've stuck with the clicker training almost every single day for a month now. :) Maybe I can keep the motivation to work with him everyday all summer. I've worked with Zeppelin four days straight now. :) He's doing well with it. I've been posting his progress on Chrome's blog too.

I've worked with Jackal a little, but probably not as much as I should. I need to get back to it because he's finally started offering the shy behavior all by himself. I only have four more days to work on it before I put up a new poll for our next trick (although that won't stop me from continuing to work on it). My plan is to teach him twelve new tricks this year and post a video at the end of the year showing all of his new tricks. :) So far that's kept me motivated to actually do some training instead of stressing me out with deadlines. I also like having the poll to get you guys involved and I also have a training partner Jen over at Black Dog Blog. It's helping me to stay motivated, now I just need to work on consistency. I'll get there though. It's so worth it when we learn something new together and have fun doing it.

Poor Stormy has a yeast infection in both ears, so a groomer friend of mine came over to shave the hair out of her ears. Siberian Huskies have so much hair it can be difficult to clear up infections. With no hair her ears will stay dryer which will help them heal faster. She hates her treatments but she's actually doing well. My groomer friend also trimmed the hair between her pads. She did not like the clippers at all! It went much the same as the hair dryer experience of 2002 lol. She just doesn't like anything that resembles grooming. I wish I'd known about clicker training when she was a puppy. Once the ear infection is cleared up I'm going to use clicker training to desensitize her to clippers. :)

My husband's back still isn't any better . . . :( In fact his doctor has finally admitted they don't know what to do and so have referred us to somebody else. It's really frustrating as it's been six months now and no progress. I'm going to try to convince him to try acupuncture so if anyone has success stories to help me convince him to go bring them on lol.

Other than that I guess there isn't much else to report. Things are quiet right now which is a good thing. I'm just working as many hours as I can and I'm looking for a full time, better paying job although it's going to kill me to leave the job I have now. I'm considering a second part time job just so I don't have to leave where I am now. We shall see. Anyway I'll post Storm's snow pictures tomorrow. Night everyone!

Jackal Shy Video Update

I know I still have a week to work on Shy before our time is up for this trick, but I had the camera on hand so I just hit record. :) Here are a couple of pictures of the cutie.

Isn't he cute?? I haven't worked on duration at all, but if you can watch the video you will see toward the end I actually take the tape off of his face and he was doing it by himself. I don't know how I'm going to add duration. Any suggestions? Here is the video. It isn't too long so I hope you all can get it to load.


So, what do you think? Going well? I partly made and posted this video because I am sooooo procrastinating resizing the rest of the snow picture lol. If I never seen a photo editor again I'll be happy. :) I will get them edited and posted though. I still have Jackal and Storm's pictures to post. It will be worth it because they're cute. I haven't worked on crawl at all this month. I'll get back to it. Since I'm teaching one trick a month my plan will be at the end of the year to make a video showing off his twelve new tricks. At least that means I have a whole year to work on crawl because it's by far the hardest I've done so far I think. :)