Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Herding Cats, session two, egads, the howling, the howling,

Siamese cats are vocal (ie. they howl), which is cute, until it's not....

Batman, Session II
Picked him out of the cat pile and deposited him in the bedroom. This did not go unnoticed. Simba at the door, howling in his high pitched "strangled kitten" voice.
Batman is distracted, somewhat. I c&t and then gets his liver bits and searches form more, wait for him to stop searching, and wait for him to stop staring at the door (from which the howling is emanating). I try not to be distracted myself. Session okay, I mean, it's obvious he's got the association between a whispered bbb & the treat, good boy, off you go.

enter Simba, Session II
Batman is howling at the door, he has a deeper voice and delivers with gusto. Simba is slightly distracted, I, more so.
He's well on his way to spins, but then he gets all lovey dove and starts rubbing and purring. Do I ignore that? Do I pet him? I ignored and continued. Next time I'll just pet him, because I think he was just saying 'I really like this, it's a fun game' and I should have responded in a proper catly way.

Conclusion: Ugh.  I feel mean.  I need to find a way to make it better, or just give up.  If I try, I will work on 'place' or 'mat' training so I can train them both together. But I'm not sure if I can stand the interim howling.
Getting them both in the same room now would be disaster, here's what happens if I give Batman a treat--Simba gets it. If I give Simba and Batman a treat at the same time, Simba gets Batman's treat, and then Simba gets Simba's treat, so 'place' training would need to be rock solid before I can deal with double-dog training (in this case 'cat').

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Herding Cats--just practice dudes



The Dudes are my two young siamese cats (technically Simba is a colour-point shorthair and Batman is an oriental shorthair).

So I'm going to practice on them in the next month while I wait for Nino.  They should enjoy it, mmmm....liver bits, yum.

First, loading the clicker....but, I'm not using a clicker because I don't want to drive the non-trainee nuts, so the first experiment is "can a whispered marker sound" be loaded clicker styles.

Simba gets sss, Batman gets bbb (so I don't fry my brain). Future Dog (see, I've stopped calling him Nino, incase the home visit fails, don't really want to set myself up for really feeling bummed if things don't work out).

Session 1: Simba.
Easy peasy,  I'm waiting for looks, click & treat (except my click is 'sss'), then movement, and while I'm loading the the click I'm shaping turning.  Cool, we are on our way to shaping a spin.
Which tells me two things.  Simba is respond to sss and a brief clicker session I did with him many months ago left an impression, even if the marker sound and behaviour marked is changed. (last time I loaded and then began target shaping).
Fun.

Session 1: Batman
Bring Batman into the room, say bbb too loud, Simba's crying at the door, Batman leaves to find Simba (Simba is locked out). I leave my little cubby and find Batman, resume. I start out marking eye contact, but he can't find the treat (I'm dropping liver crumbs), then I realize I'm skipping steps (because Simba was such a good student and had a head start) so I c&t rapidly (duh, that's where it's supposed to start) a bunch of times. I think he gets it, but I'm not sure. Either the bbb is just not cutting through, or he was too distracted by Simba's cries, I was training too much at once (skipping a step), or he did just great for a complete newbie. Obviously, I need to be sneaky next time or train Batman first.

Everybody got a wet catfood party afterwards, in a different room.

Monday, November 30, 2015

Training a Virtual Dog



I don't have Nino, he is somewhere in the Dominican Republic, awaiting his flight date. January feels like a very long time to wait.  In the meantime, I'm collecting training information, and doing fantasy training sessions in my head. For now, Nino is a virtual dog, and of course, he's perfect. He may never be mine, as adoption approval is pending a home visit, and I'm nervous about that, so I'm channelling my energy into learning and planning, because he looks like a border collie and will likely want a fun job or three.

https://youtu.be/qqxsdCP_qyE
"Claudia Moser, Celtic dream freestyle routine, Crufts 2009"
Had me bawling my eyes out, the dog and handler are so in-tune, so beautiful.
Missing my Dynamo and agility at the same time; might be part of it.
I've been looking up freestyle while I impatiently wait for bc-mix rescue to get his flight to Canada (sometime in January). I'm hoping to teach him some moves to keep us both busy on winter days.

So here's something I want to know more about, shaping with a clicker, especially free shaping, which I didn't do much of (but what I did was fun) with my previous dog.

http://www.clickertraining.com/shaping-success <--freeshaping

So for now, I'll be doing a lot of reading, and watching, and using this page as a bookmark for those articles and videos that I want to refer back to later, when I actually have a dog to play with.

More training goodies.
Watch "Canine freestyle training display Part 1 with Richard Curtis at Crufts 2009" on YouTube, Part II is awesome too, you'll find it there.

https://youtu.be/qEbnJ-nPBSE


Sit-Stay
Kikopup's Short Version of training sit-stay

Loose Leash walking on a flat collar, Zak George.
Great video, and fun dog! I'm almost (not quite) jealous of the owner, because the dog looks like what he really wants to do is Dog Sport! Lively Heeling routines, & Tug, TUG, tug! Anyway, fun.

Found it, there are also other videos that may help you on his youtube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-VY_H_TG_Y

And another, cat dog intro's (for low & moderate level prey drives)
http://www.diamondsintheruff.com/#!catchasing/cfqj

And for dealing with the inevitable other persons out-of-control dogs (happens all the time in the woods)--the short of it is, throw a jackpot of treats at the on-coming dog. Should work with most, as the off-leash dogs  at worst are just being PITA's and not really trying hurt your dog.
http://www.patriciamcconnell.com/theotherendoftheleash/it-works-how-to-stop-an-approaching-dog-in-an-emergency