focus training | Upward Dog Blog

Well, maybe Ziva’s not really quite a Superstar yet, but I think she could be. She has really taken to Rally training, and she catches on so quickly to new commands. She is also pretty food-driven which definitely helps. And she is fast, and nimble. She’s a good size for this — the bigger dogs seem to struggle more to do quick turns, and the smaller ones seem harder to lure with food. At 50 lbs and a lotto energy Ziva seems like a natural. I, on the other hand, still struggle with some basic stuff. Like hand eye coordination, or saying things at the right moment. But … I’m getting better, I think.

For the past couple of weeks Ziva has spent the day of class at Doggie Daycare. I drop her off at about 7 am, and then I arrive at around 5 and take her for a little break outside. We walk around the grassy area so she gets a pottie break, and then I give her a small snack and some water at the car. We also practice our leash work for a few minutes, walking back and forth in the parking lot — she’s always pretty excited at this point and it helps her to focus. She loves daycare. She loves the people who work here, and she has some doggie friends in the group so it’s really good socialization. (One of the dogs from Rally class is also in Daycare on these days.) It also gets a lot of energy out of her, so that when it’s Rally Class time, she can focus a bit more easily. Generally speaking , anyway! But she really seems to need that little period of down time to wind down between Daycare and Rally. When we get back inside the building before class, I usually do some CR massage, and that definitely helped last night.

We’ve got a lot to work on in the next couple of weeks. Our next class isn’t until after Thanksgiving, so that’s plenty of time to improve on what we have learned so far. We got a “Perfect” from Tecla, our trainer, last night on our heeling exercise called “find the leg,” but then we learned to expand on it and I flubbed a little. As I said, I’m the one who needs the most practice here. But so far, here’s what we’ve learned and what we’re practicing:

“Find the leg”: the dog is in Sit, the trainer says Heel, steps left leg back, and moves treat in hand around and behind to the left leg, steps left leg forward, and with hand at hip the dogs ends up next to you, and gets the treat at the left hip.
Extended “Find the leg”: Same as above, except the dog gets reward when the trainer’s left leg is still back, then when the left leg is parallel to right, and then when left leg is forward.
Stand: There are 2 versions, one from a moving position and one from a Sit. From moving, you basically put the treat in the dog’s face and take one step back. When the dog steps forward, she stops when her nose bumps into your hand to get the treat you say “Stand” and then “Yes!” From a sit is a little tougher. You still stick the treat in the dog’s face, but this time you move it under their chin, and in their effort to get it they invariably stand up. At this point we just say “Yes!” instead of naming it as Stand. Once we get it down consistently I think then we will be naming it. (Tecla’s really good about training things so that the dog does not get confused, and can progress to the next step easily.)
“Suicide” spins: Anyone who has played any kind of sports in the past 50 years must remember “suicides,” where you race from one cone to another, touch the ground and race back to the first cone. Well, in this exercise, you hold a treat in your hand and lead the dog quickly to the second cone, and then whip your hand around so the dog spins around to get the treat, As soon as she spins you say “Yes!” and give her the treat. Ziva loves this one. (Yeah, she’s that teammate — the one who loves suicides!) And she’s so good at it that Tecla told me I need to go faster, and also further. So Sue’s getting her exercise on this one, for sure!
Modified suicide spins: This time you do sets of 4, and randomly in that set you wait till the dog completes the spin and then command “Sit.” You have to mix it up so they don’t anticipate it coming say, on the third time. (Because they totally will.) You then also do this exercise with Down.
Focus when moving: She also really likes this one, and I am trying to harness that enthusiasm. She can be a little snappy for the treat in this exercise, which I asked Tecla about last night. The snappiness means she is very driven, so I don’t want to diminish that drive. But, to be honest, it can really hurt sometimes! The advice was to get a thin, sturdy glove — like a golf glove, or a wide receiver glove — and try not to pull my hand back when I’ve giving her the treat. I’m sure I am pulling back sometimes in anticipation, but that’s really a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ziva’s doing pretty well with this one, and has improved from the start when she used to jump up. So I’m confident we get this under control. It’s another example of me learning what I need to do. Which, let’s be honest, is about 90% of dog obedience training.
Trainer walks around: Put the dog in Sit, transfer leash to left hand, and walk around the dog (leading with right foot). Dog should stay seated, trainer stands to right of dog and gives reward. Also do this with Down.

So. If you wonder how we get to this, it’s a lot of work, but totally worth it:

In our next class, we’ll get to try doing an actual Rally course — that should be interesting! I have a feeling Ziva will once again do great, and I am the one who will be flubbing it up. I just googled “Rally novice signs” and it turns out that this is, like, a whole “thing”: You can even buy Rally course signs on etsy: rally novice signs. Watching videos on Rally, I always wondered how people understoodd so well what they are supposed to be doing with those turns and spins, and it seems that people buy these signs and study them. It’s always amazing to me how many things there are in the world that have their own culture and following.

Maybe Ziva has found her place.

We started training on “Focus” on Friday, and it’s a lot harder (for me) than you would think. As with most of our training, Ziva has caught on pretty quickly, and it’s me who has a hard time learning. Jokes about “old dogs learning new tricks” aside, I think there is something in the adage. Ziva has that innocence that kindergarteners posses. When I was in graduate school, my prof asked us one night: “Who here knows how to sing?” And predictably, about 2 out of 20 hands went up. The rest of us thought “dear god, is she going to make me sing???” But then she said, “What do you think would happen if you ask a group of kindergarteners ‘who knows how to sing?” Over time we learn to hold back — I say “I don’t know how to sing” because I’m not very good at it, not because I don’t know how.

I think adults can learn a lot of new things — I’ve taken French lessons as an adult. I’m teaching myself to play the ukelele (no, really, I am!) But I have no doubt it’s taking me longer to learn that, just like it’s taking me longer to learn some of this handling business because I totally over think everything. As I described in the last post, to teach “Focus,” the dog sits at your left, you have their food in your right pocket. You take a handful out with your right hand, transfer it at waist level to your left hand. When the dogs you in the eye, you say a very hearty “Yes!” and left your left hand to your left eye and then down to the front of the dog — just enough in front of their mouth that they have to reach out just a tiny bit.

This very patient face will tell you that it has taken some time for me to master this process:

Ziva sits, looking up at the camera It has taken me some time to get the timing down of all the hand transfer of treats. Not to mention the actual giving of treat to mouth. We are supposed to be using their food, so since Ziva eats kibble I figured that would be pretty easy. If you read back to the early posts of Obedience 1 class, we fed her kibble from our hand for many weeks as a way to build the bond and reinforce behavior. The difference is that then we could feed a handful, whereas in this training, it is one piece per “Yes!” Our trainer suggested a couple of different brands of food that have larger sized kibble (and softer too). But to be honest they are out of our process range. So we tried with the little kibble, and guess what? It went flying everywhere.

Two sizes of kibble are shown, one much larger than the other I went to a PetValu store and asked about kibble sizes, and we are very happy to have found a kibble for large breed dogs, which has larger-sized pieces. It may seem like a silly thing, but look at the difference in the sizes here, and imagine trying to gracefully give one piece at a time. You have a small handful of food in your palm, and you manuever one piece to hold between your thumb and first finger, in order to give to the dog. And if you drop a piece, the dog is not supposed to eat it, because all the food is supposed to come from your hand. This poor dog was so patient with me when one of the little pieces of kibble would go flying and I would tell her no. I have nothing against small kibble, but my fingers just could not hold onto these things while I was trying to remember to transfer at waist level, hold up to my eye and then down to her mouth.

But we’ve been working on this for a couple of days now and we both seem to be getting it. I’m definitely much smoother with my part (thanks, large kibble!, and she understands the rules. She doesn’t get any other treats right now — not training treats, even. So we have been mostly playing in the backyard rather than going on long walks, because I can’t really do much bridging if we see other dogs. We’ve been doing a ton of fetch and tug in the yard, and so far that seems to be getting enough energy out of her (along with so)me short walks around the block when it’s not high dog-traffic time.) I’m going to work not his for a couple more days in the kitchen, and then our next challenge is to set a baseline of how long it takes to eat a meal’s worth. Say, 4 minutes. Then we go someplace else — maybe just the back yard, or the front yard — and then see if we can get it done in 4 minutes. The goal is that she can focus on me no matter what other distractions are out there. And so, while at first I was annoyed that a cat walked through the room when we were trying to do our training, or some other interruption happened, now I see that’s all part of the process. We start with the little distractions and build, build, build.

Zika’s focus is getting stringer and stronger. Meanwhile, my fine motor skills have never been better!