She’s a Superstar!

Posted on November 16, 2017 by upwarddogmom

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.

Fine motor skills, and focus

Posted on October 29, 2017 by upwarddogmom

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!

Ziva Marie!

Posted on October 26, 2017 by upwarddogmom

Sue and Ziva sit on a deck We have a lot of nicknames for Ziva: Z, Queen Z, Zivie. But last night at the very end of our first Rally class, Ziva got the ultimate “you are in so much trouble” callout from the trainer. It was a fairly successfully class as far as Ziva behaving herself, but by the end the Queen was done. When it was our turn to exit, I said “with me!” to begin our walk out of the large multipurpose room. I took one step and Ziva lunged ahead. So I stopped and tugged the leash. What happened next was a bit of a glimpse from walks past: Ziva bucked like a bronco, bouncing up in the air. And that’s when I heard Tecla call out from across the room: “Ziva Marie!” And then, “You know you are in trouble when you get the first and middle names!”

After about 10 minutes of CR massage in a corner of the room, Ziva was calm enough to exit in a more dignified manner. So let me describe the class and you’ll understand why she was so ready to go.

As is often the case in the first class of anything, most of the time was spent listening. We stood in a circle with our dogs beside us and listened as Tecla told us about the sport of Rally, the basics of what we were going to learn in this 10 week class, and some housekeeping about the schedule over the holidays. Ziva started out fairly quietly, with a couple of barks, but that was not unexpected as there are 2 other pretty energetic dogs in the class and she definitely feeds off their energy. (The other dogs are familiar to us, having been in other classes with us. )

Then we finally got to do some actual work. But for Ziva, it must have seemed like really boring work — despite being an easy way to get treats. For the first 2 weeks we work on getting the dogs focus. And that is all. And we do that by feeding them bit by bit as they look at us. So in other words, if you can picture this, for 3 and half minutes, (repeated twice) Ziva sits to my left and I make a noise to get her to look at me, and then I give her treat, treat, treat, treat, as she keeps looking up, probably thinking “ok crazy lady, moar hot dogs please.”

But that was the extent of her activity. And for an energetic dog like Ziva, she must have thought this was all pretty disappointing. I mean, this is the building where she gets to walk around, and sit and lie down and run, and do all kinds of stuff. But last night was just sit here, eat a little bit, go home.

She must really wonder about me sometimes.

But now the work begins. It all seems to be really on the handler at this stage. You have to be fluid in giving that reward so that there is no confusion on the dog’s part: “if I look at her I get food.” I admit I fumbled last night. Because you want to give them treat, treat, treat, you have to have a handful of treats ready in your left hand. Which are stored in your right pocket. So you have to deftly pull treats from your pocket with your right hand, transfer them to your left hand, looking at the dog the whole time, and making sure there is not a m moment when the dog is looking at you and not getting a treat or praise. Whew! And! Hot dogs get really slippery. Ziva was being very gentle taking the treat, but there was slobber. Much slobber. Fortunately — or unfortunately, we shall see — training begins tomorrow with her meals. Much like we did in Obedience 1, she will only get her food from hand when she is focused on me (or Laura). If she doesn’t focus, she doesn’t eat. It really sounds cruel, but I have no doubt she will pick this up real quick. Ms Smarty Pants (ooh, another nick name!) has learned so many things so quickly. She’ll get this down, as long as I am consistent.

It’s harder than it sounds — last night I got dinged for my posture! Without realizing it I was leaning down and around when I gave treats, and Tecla said that the dog will eventually learn to be in front of me, and that’s not what we want. She’s a stickler but it makes sense: Train the basics correctly and you don’t have to go back and fix bad habits. Oy.

We have 2 weeks before the next class. I hope I can get some video of us trying to do this.Or at least of me trying to do this. This is gonna be really interesting ….

Our little graduate

Posted on September 1, 2017 by upwarddogmom

Ok, ok, I fell a little behind with my posting. Life comes at you fast, as they say. I work in education, and summer disappeared and the Fall term arrived with a vengeance. So now that we have a few minutes to catch our breath, I’ll try to catch you up: We passed our Obedience 2 test!

Ziva sits looking up at Sue, who is holding her certificate I cannot tell you how thrilled I was. She did great — I had a couple of flubs, but the trainer had faith in Ziva and let me redo when I messed things up a bit. He knew it was my nerves making me stumble on my words, I’m sure. Because on all the tests where it was totally on her, she did great! For example, when she had to sit and stay in place while I walked back about 6 feet, and the trainer came walking by, tossing a frisbee — she stayed in place! She had to do several commands, and I won’t list them all here unless you comment that you want to know more. But I will tell you about the elusive “Here!” command, because that was a great success.

You can see in the photo that she is wearing a harness. We did that because in learning the “Here” command, we realize that she has developed her boundary ~~corruption~~ correction so well, that any tug on her collar would make her stop. The boundary correction exercise helps her learn where the end of the leash is, so that she will not lunge and pull. To teach this, you let the dog roam around, and the second they get to the end of the leash you give it a quick pop, say a very excited “Yes!!! What a good girl!!” and reward with food. Ziva picked this up really quickly, which is great, but that meant some complication when learning “Here.” In this exercise, the trainer held her on a very long leash (30 ft), then I love on Ziva and get her a little excited, run about 20 feet away, turn, and call “Ziva! Here!” Once she reaches me, I give her high reward food (chicken) and put her short leash on.

The first time we tried this, Ziva started to run in my general direction but then felt the tug on her collar and stopped. She was really confused. So it was suggested that we try it with a harness. We have purchased a few different types of harnesses to get the right one for her. We have a Kurgo one that I really like, but it s a little complicated to put on her, and she gets so excited that it’s an ordeal. I have hopes she will get used to it. But meanwhile I found the one she’s wearing in the photo online, which is a “step in” model. Even getting her to “step in” is not a simple task, but it is easier than trying to get the other one over her head. But this one’s lightweight, mesh, and she seems very comfortable in it.

I enlisted my friend Amy one day during the week before the Saturday test. We went to a local park and used the tennis court to practice “Here.” The first couple of tries were less than stellar, but as I’ve seen before with Ziva, very soon something “clicked” and she started running right to me. It was a hot day, and there kids and dogs around, so it was really a test for her concentration. Ziva still reacts quite strongly to other dogs, and so when a man came walking along right by the tennis courts, we had to take a break. Once they were out of site though, Ziva was able to get back to work.

So! When it came test time, she was a star! I have such a wonderful memory of that moment when I turned and said “Ziva! Here!” and she came at me at full speed. Straight to me, despite there being other dogs and people in the room, with a look of pure joy on her face. It’s a good thing the trainer had her on a very long leash, because I don’t think he expected her to be quite as fast as she is. She is fast. I really hope that some day we can do agility, because she loves to run, and I think she would be great at it. But, we’ve got some more obedience to work on before we get to her listening to my commands for an entire course. But racing from one side of the room straight to me is an excellent start. And if you met her a year ago, you’d understand just how far we have come.

We have much to keep working on, so we’re taking a little break from the Obedience classes. But we’re still going to go to Pack to Basics and Behavior Modification classes for a while. The only really frustrating thing for me right now continues to be her reactiveness with other dogs. Until she understands that she does not need to bark at every new dog she encounters, we’ve got work to do. My goal is to get her to a point where we can go to public places and have her ignore other dogs. I don’t necessarily expect her to be friendly to every dog she sees, but just to ignore them, understanding that we’re a team, and we’re ok. She’s getting there. And so am I.

A day at the beach is no walk in the park

Posted on July 14, 2017 by upwarddogmom

Ziva sits by a sign that reads In my ongoing quest to expose Ziva to as many new things as I can, yesterday I decided to take her to a dog park that is on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay. As I learn more about dog handling skills, I know that what she needs the most, in order to lessen her adrenalized reaction to new situations, is … to experience more new situations. Because she really just needs to begin to understand that everything is going to be ok. As our trainers have said to me many times, “she needs to learn that you have her back.” So I took the day off from work, packed a lunch and lots of water, and we set off on an adventure for both of us. I had never been to this park, and it’s in an area of Maryland with which I’m not very familiar. But we made it with only one wrong turn (following gps leading us to a gate across the road from the actual entry to the park — the attendant said “yup. everyone does that.”)

I unloaded Ziva from her crate in the back seat, and she actually stood quite still for me to put the harness on her. The last time I put it on it her it was like putting a saddle on a wild horse. All bucking and jumping. So I don’t know why she was so subdued this time, but it was very helpful! I wanted her to wear the harness because I knew she would end up pulling on the leash, and I didn’t want her to get used to feeling it pull on her collar. She’s been doing really well on the “With me” command while walking, and I don’t want to blow that with a walk in the woods.

We walked the short distance through a wooded path from the parking lot to the beach. She did a lot of sniffing along the way and I did not hurry her. She very patiently sat for me to take her picture by the Dog Beach sign — it was only 10 am but it was very hot at this point, and we were in the full sun. When we got to the actual beach, I was a little disappointed at how small it was, but there was no one else there so we had a chance to test the waters without encountering other dogs. Ziva loves to jump into the large fishpond in our backyard, but I have no idea what her experience is with large bodies of water — and specifically, with waves. The waves of the Chesapeake Bay are very small — ripples, really. But I think it’s safe to say she found it a little stressful.

So how does it look when a dog gets “adrenalized” in a stressful situation? The following video is Exhibit A. It seems playful and fun, and I was talking to her and laughing with her, but honestly, she is ramping up the adrenaline in this video:

Notice how she runs at the water and growls? Her tail is also wagging pretty quickly but not maniacally. So she’s not out of control, but she is making herself get very excited. She’s kind of scared of this new thing, “waves,” but if she gets herself really wound up it feels good! In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have been laughing here — I probably should have been bridging her with “Water, du du du du, YES!” But it’s hard to remember what to do when in the thick of it.

But I’ll tell ya, I remembered how to bridge when another dog showed up! Because Ziva was already so wound up that she just started barking and barking and barking. And then a second dog appeared, and she was really almost more than I could handle. She barked, but she also pulled on the lead so hard that I almost lost my footing a couple of times in the wet sand. (Note to self: Why do you always think Tevas are a good idea at the beach? They are not. Sand gets in the velcro and the next thing you know the shoes are flopping off your feet. )

Anyway, I was just about at the point of thinking that we would need to leave — I was trying to stuff hot dog in her face and bridging, and also trying to distract her with a stick — when her barking began to decrease, and then she started to pay more attention to me. And suddenly I remembered the two golden rules of Ziva: Bridging and Paying for Engagement (with me). So I continued to do bridging with “Dog” and I continued to distract her with the water and really praise her and keep her focus on me and not on the other dogs. The other dogs, by the way, were both Labradors. And neither one was very interested in anything beyond their tennis ball in the water.

Ziva stands on the beach as other dogs are in the background We were at the beach for only about an hour, but it seemed like that was enough for this day. It was very hot — in the upper 90’s — and while Ziva seemed to enjoy the water, by this point she seemed just as interested in the grassy marsh area behind the beach. According to her DNA report, she is a quarter Lab, but that percentage had been used up by this point. So we sat in the shade for a little while and had a drink of water. And I was so very happy to see that she could do this — be in the presence of strange dogs with out caring much about them. She watched them at a distance of about 20 feet, without barking or getting excited. Hopefully she knows: I have her back.

Hitting the wall

Posted on June 30, 2017 by upwarddogmom

In the weeks since we finished Obedience 1 Class, it’s felt a little bit like we hit a plateau. Going on our walks, Ziva seemed to consistently challenge the “With me” command, constantly trying to walk ahead of me rather than by my side. We have a neighbor up the street with a couple of dogs who sometimes bark from behind a wooden privacy fence, and that has set her off at the start of walks so that she doesn’t seem to be able to keep herself under control. It had started to feel like we just can’t get past this challenge.

Neighborhood walks have also become a little stressful since one of our little canine friends, Peggy, was attacked by a loose dog while on her walk. Peggy was fortunately only bruised, and the loose dog was collected by animal control. But it made me nervous, and I started carrying a stick with me. I should probably still carry it, but I found that I had too many things in my hands. I’ve just gotten to the point where I can hold the leash, put my hand in my pouch for treats, reach for the spray bottle of water/vinegar, and keep an eye out for dogs/squirrels/cats/bunnies. So then I started to feel stressed about not having a stick.

But yesterday we had just the best walk. It was short, but doing behavioral down Ziva calmed herself before we left the house, and immediately she sat down when we went out the front door. Then she did a very nice “With me” down the street, with just a few corrections. I kept telling her what a good girl she was, she kept glancing up at me, so then I kept giving her treats. It really was pretty much textbook good walking. And what made me even happier was how happy she seemed to be. Because sometimes she lets me know how frustrated she is that I’m not walking faster, or that I keep stopping to get her lined up beside me. (How? She talks to me! Or rather, she talks back to me. She definitely has that vocal German Shepherd gene in her mix.) But yesterday she just seemed so happy. So when we got back home, we played in the backyard for a long time, and she kept bringing the tennis ball to me — another new thing (usually she needs a lot of coaxing to bring it and drop it).

A tired dog is a good dog, and a good dog is a happy dog. Tomorrow we begin Obedience 2 classes, and while a few days I ago I was starting to feel a little stressed about it and thinking we’re not making any more progress, now I’m back to looking forward to learning new things with Ziva and helping her reach her full potential — whatever that may be! Maybe I was stressing her out, and then she was stressing me out, which then made me stress her out even more. But she can be such a big love bug, I really just need to breath deeply, and remember this face:

ZIva lying on the bed

A “Bridge” over the River Ziva

Posted on May 24, 2017 by upwarddogmom

One of the best techniques we have learned is called “Bridging.” This is a truly positive method of training, and from what I understand it was originally developed for working with zoo animals, to desensitize them to “triggers” or targets — anything that might make them upset or excited, such as getting examined or having someone or something in their area. So you can try this with any animal: your cats, your birds — heck, apparently even your goats!

So, they’re not speaking English in that video, but it doesn’t matter. Here’s what is going on there. The woman is trying to get the goat comfortable with having a collar on. So she names the target — if it was in English she would say “collar.” Then she makes a series of hard consonant sounds — she says “gee gee gee gee gee,” while have been using more of a “duh duh duh duh duh” sound — while the target is near. In this case, she’s getting the collar closer each time. As the goat stops reacting to the collar, she stops making the bridging sound, and says “Yes!” (or whatever she is saying in this video), and gives a food reward.

We started using this method for Ziva’s dog reactiveness. It is similar to what our first trainer and other friends had suggested, which was to have high value treats and give them whenever a dog was nearby. But the problem was, once Ziva saw a dog, she became so wound up that she never really cared about the treats. I was holding the leash with one hand while she pulled and lunged, trying to stuff treats in her mouth with the other, all the time saying phrases that I don’t think she even heard: “leave it!” “take it easy” “it’s just a dog”

Needless to say, that wasn’t going too well. My phrases turned into “Stop it!” “No!” “Ouch! You’re pulling my arm!” At least those were the G-rated versions.

We started doing the bridging method during private lessons at TK9, with another dog standing on the far side of a room. Our trainer Will came in the room with a delightful Golden Retriever who couldn’t have cared less about us. Ziva started to pull and bark, but I said “Dog! duh duh duh duh” and stuck some hot dog pieces in her mouth, with a “Yes!” . She stopped to eat the hot dog, and I said again “Dog! duh duh duh duh” then “Yes!” and a treat. Over and over and over again. To the point that when I said “Dog!” Ziva whipped her head around, not paying attention to the dog any more but to me! (well, and the hot dogs).

It has taken a LOT of practice with this method, but we use it on our walks, and we even started using it around the house. I believe it helped Ziva calm down enough to be able to be around the cats, to the point now where they kiss noses, and the cats rub up against her. Our cat Zeke is the more interactive one with Ziva, because she still can get too excited for Juliet’s taste. But to get from Ziva flying toward the baby gate whenever she saw one of them in the hallway to where we are today, where she lies in her bed and watches them walk by — that only happened after we started saying “That’s Zeke! duh duh duh duh. Yes!” And “That’s Juliet! duh duh duh duh. Yes!”

This method has been crucial to helping Ziva learn to control her energy — this, along with Behavioral Down and Conditioned Relaxation. But this technique has really made the most profound and obvious change in our daily walks. What a joyous feeling when I realized that I was actually hoping we would encounter another dog on our walk so that we could practice bridging. That was a real “Whoa!” moment for me: We had gone from dreading the idea of running into dogs to actively seeking them out. If you have a dog-reactive dog, you understand how powerful this change in mindset is.

I’m not being overly dramatic to say this is life-changing. Using bridging has gotten us to the point now where Ziva can lie down in a small room, waiting our turn to go into a room for Nose Work practice, even with a not very social Belgian Malinois and a perky Pomeranian just a few feet away (not to mention 4 other lively dogs in the room!).

Other dogs waiting for their turn to do Nose Work

Ziva was lying at my feet in Behavioral Down while I took this picture. Another dog was behind that blue wall doing a search, another small dog was practicing what I call “little dog tricks” to our left, and a Lab and a Cocker Spaniel are sitting to our right.

When we started this journey with Ziva, she was unable to participate in a Basic Obedience class because it was too much for her to handle her adrenaline in that situation, being around other dogs. And now? She is able to enjoy new experiences like Nose Work. I don’t know if we’ll keep up with the Nose Work or try to get certified, but she really seems to love doing it, so …

Plenty of praise and payment

Posted on May 21, 2017 by upwarddogmom

Whenever I tell someone that we’re not doing “purely positive” training with Ziva, I’m always afraid it sounds like we’re being really mean. But the truth is that she gets more praise and reward than any animal I have ever had, because we are spending so much more time consciously training her than any animal I have ever had.

During the 7 weeks that we are in Basic Obedience 101 class, we’re feeding Ziva her morning and evening meals from our hand. She gets food when she looks at me. She also gets tons of crazy praise. Because when we are trying to reinforce positive behaviors, the praise needs to be effusive — consider this: You finish a project at work and your boss notices. But she says “Oh. Thanks” rather than “Fantastic job! You’re awesome. Well done!” Obviously as silly as it may sound, the second version is more meaningful to you. Same thing here. Here’s a quick video of me feeding Ziva this way. Thankfully we’re only doing this for 7 weeks, because it is pretty time consuming. I thought I was doing enough by having Ziva wait for a minute after I placed her food bowl down, but our trainer said (to the class in general, because I guess this must be a common misconception), “Making your dog wait 1 minute for an entire bowl of food is not making her work for it. That’s like telling you to sit still and you’ll get a million dollars. That’s what a bowl of food is worth to your dog.”

I won’t lie and tell you that we do this for every single meal. Life happens, and sometimes I’m in a rush to get out the door, and I do put her food in the bowl. But I would say about 90% of the time we do the hand feeding right now. Here’s a quick video: