K9 Nosework!

Indigo and I have recently discovered a very exciting new sport. K9 Nosework! We took a course through our local kennel club and had so much fun I just had to share.
Our teacher provided the first odor, Birch and a small tin with holes in the lid to keep the odor in. After a few weeks I made up my own kit and ordered my own oils on line. If you look around a little you can find the best deals but you can also buy already made kits for nosework online. I thought I could do it myself pretty easily and cheaper too.
To start with you will need your first odor which is Birch, botanical name: Betula Lenta. It is a lovely smelling essential oil that your dog will soon be crazy for!
I took home pill bottles from work to keep each bottle of oil in as you don't want any scent to escape and confuse your dog when you're not working with it.

You will also need a few small glass jars to keep scented q-tips in and separate jars to keep your tins with odor in. I used baby food jars that I had in my cupboard and they work ok to keep the scent in but I will tell you that the lids are a little hard to screw on. I need to get different jars. The size is just right though!

The tins I have are smaller so I had to cut my q-tips slightly smaller than just in half. Fill the jar 3/4 full with the cut up q-tips then add 1 or 2 drops of Birch oil to the lid of the jar, close the jar and shake it up. This will scent the whole jar of q-tips magically!

I had some old tins of Burt's Bees lying around so I cleaned those out thoroughly and drilled holes in the tops of them. These tins will hold your scented q-tips.

You only need a few scented q-tips in the tin. Each week at class our teacher refreshed our q-tips with new, smellier ones from her stash so the odor would be strong. You have to use tweezers to transfer q-tips as you don't want the scent on your hands, obviously.

Ok, now let's teach your dog some nosework!

Take your tin with Birch scented q-tips inside in one hand and some good treats in the other closed hand. Hold your hands out to your dog and wait for them to stop slobbering up the hand with the treats in it and notice your other hand with the TIN. When they sniff the tin, even briefly you will give them a treat from your other hand. The reward must be given directly on top of the scent tin to create association with the odor. Warning: your hands will become very slobbery! Give lots of small treats, one at a time over the top of the tin.

Here is a video!

Do this over and over and over and in different parts of the house, outside, all over! Then, when your dog is really starting to understand you can put the tin on the ground, or hold it up high, play around with it but always reward right on top of the tin and don't try to make it too hard right at first. You don't want to overwhelm your dog.

Have fun and happy sniffing!

Little stressors

I recently decided to start working with Indigo on a few things that cause her minor stress in life (I say minor because they are things that don't happen very often. She may feel a larger amount of stress about them than I imagine!). I thought I would blog about it, as simple as it seems.
Ever since we got her at 6 months she has disliked having a harness put over her head. I noticed with the harness first but anything that goes over her head is the same for her. At first she would let me put it on but every time it touched her on the way over her skin would crawl. Then she started watching to see if I was getting the harness or just a leash and if it was the harness she would back away and not want to go anymore. I stopped using it. Instead I wrapped her leash under her body and over a shoulder so she wasn't putting so much pressure on her neck. She doesn't mind that.
I had worked with her a small amount in the past but it never went very far and I wasn't very good about continuing the training. This time I was committed to doing it every day for a few weeks.
So every night after work I got my clicker and a handful of treats (I usually use her dinner kibble because she will work for it happily) and we started with the pretty purple leopard print slip lead I got for agility. In the past she would allow me to put it on but then not want to walk in it. She would freeze.
I started out just running my hand over the top of her head to give her the feeling of something going over her head. Before doing this each time I used a predictor word, "over". Each "over" got a click and a treat.
Next I held the lead and click/treat for her touching it with her nose. Then opened the loop and click/treat for touching it again, giving her the treat through the loop. Then I waited for her to put her nose or muzzle into the loop which she did. After that I felt good about putting the lead over her head. I continued saying "over" before putting the slip lead over her head to help her know what was coming and hopefully feel more in control of her situation. If she backed away from the lead at any time I backed up and when she came toward me I would click and treat that. If she were to back up and not come toward me again I would put everything away and do something else for a while.
I also clicked and treated her walking toward me while wearing the lead.

Here is our video, everything we've done over about two weeks, complete with Smokey the cow cat help!

I have moved on to the harness and she is doing very well. I had to switch from kibble to something more special since the kibble just wasn't worth it. Chicken or beef heart makes it worth it!
I put the harness on slowly so nothing flaps against her since that seems to be what she hates and her skin still crawls when it touches her but she doesn't back away from it anymore. She still won't reach down to eat a treat off the floor with the harness on but can walk in it now. Such a good baby girl!

It is somewhat startling how much I love this being.

a trick for a treat, or a toy instead!

I had to share a little trick that Indi and I have been working on. I suppose it's a freestyle move.
It is a half turn and then she backs up under my legs. I think it's pretty cute!

Someday we will put together a routine and set it to music!
Training it was pretty simple since she already loves to come up behind me and shove her head under my legs. From there she has learned to walk backward and forward with me. Next she learned to stay standing with her back to me, harder than I thought it would be! Then walk back under my legs from that position. Then we added the spin. I admit, I just kind of faked it til she got it!

The view from up here...

Claudia Fugazza seminar part two!

I thought I'd write a little bit more about the do as I do seminar I had attended a while back since it was so interesting to me!

I have not done much more with the training other than just here and there to show off for friends and family but it still amazes me.
I recorded a training session a few weeks ago so here it is.

I used canned beef tripe as a reward and that was pretty high value! It was hot and Indi's ball was just not cutting it, amazingly, so I went inside for the canned stuff. Nice and stinky!

This is after enough training sessions that she has connected the word "copy" with my actions and her known verbal commands. Now I don't use the old verbal command at all AND I can add knew actions in to the mix.
She sees what I want pretty well I think. There are a few things that just don't make sense to her like when I tried walking around a cone, that was confusing. I thought it was so cute that she added the jump before putting her paws up on the dog walk, even though that wasn't what I showed her, so then I added the two together. I hadn't thought of putting that chain together until then. After the camera was off I tried one more longer chain: pick up glove, jump, paws up on dog walk, and she did it!
I haven't thought of any real life uses for this type of training yet but I sure think it is COOL!

My thinker.

Claudia Fugazza seminar

Do as I do!

I got to attend the most interesting seminar this weekend. Claudia is from Italy where she has been doing various research on something called social learning in dogs. Social learning would be learning new behaviors by observing others.

If you have watched Dogs Decoded you know of the experiment involving pointing. A dog sits in front of two cups, human puts treat under one cup and then points at that cup. A dog can follow your pointing hand. They can also follow your pointing head and even your pointing eyes! I tried this with Indi and yes, even the eyes work! They tried the same experiment on Chimpanzees and also on Wolves and neither creature had the same capability that a dog does to follow our pointing gesture.

Claudia mentioned this experiment and also told about a similar one involving a fence with a door in it. The researchers would put an object like a bone on the other side of the fence and then have a person walk around the fence to the object and back, to demonstrate to the dog how to get to it. The dog did then go around the fence. They then opened the door in the fence which was right in front of the dog. The person went around the fence again to show the dog how to get there and the dog then did that same thing, went around the fence, not through the door. This told the researchers that dogs seem to prefer the "socially learned" method to the easier method. Hmmm. Maybe the dog didn't notice the open door? But still, neat!

For the seminar our dog had to know three behaviors on verbal command only. I picked "shake" (meaning to shake hands), "get it" (to pick up something), and "turn". They should be behaviors that you can in some way mimic easily.
You have to do these sessions in the same orientation every time, so you cannot have your dog in front of you for one lesson and then at your side the next. It is useful for them to be in front of you so they can see what you are doing easier. The other key is, if you are using an object, like "touch that cone" or "get it", you have to have that object right there near you and your dog throughout the session.

So I'm standing there in front of my dog and trying to remember the proper order in which I am supposed to say things and not make a total fool of myself (while on stage with a microphone of course)...

Start by telling your dog to sit and stay (Claudia has her reasons for it only being a sit). Next, you perform your version of the command. For shake I used what Indi does with her paw, she paws at the air, waiting for my hand. Now you tell your dog "do it". This is what everyone else used but I decided that since one of my commands was "get it" it sounded too similar so I changed my word to "copy". Next you give your dog their old known verbal command and they perform their trick, then reward.
Using your three behaviors, make sure to mix them up so you are not being predictable and no more than two times in a row for any of the commands. Your dog will eventually link your body motion with their old verbal command and start performing after they hear the "do it" instead of waiting for the verbal command. At the same time they are learning that "do it" means to copy your motions. This is the first step.
I will write more about it when we move on to the next step, generalization of the "do it" command!
Here we are practicing today. This is probably our 10th little practice session since yesterday.

What do you think, is this a useful training method? Does it make sense? Do you think a dog can actually learn to copy you? I am still not 100% sure on that but it is fun to try! At the seminar a Golden was on stage and he picked it up very quickly, he practiced maybe four times before he didn't need the old verbal command anymore. It was amazing!  He got the link between body motion and his old command, but what does that mean exactly?