Last weekend was Taz' weekend. We have not yet had a weekend where it is just Taz and I working at learning. Usually it is Pepper and I at an agility trial or flyball tournament. Well last weekend was the Impulse Control Seminar put on by the Saskatchewan Agility Association. Cheryl Bartlett was the teacher. There was 10 working spots and Taz got one of them! We worked on three main tasks. First, no mugging for treats! So very hard when you want that cookie! Taz has done some work on this in that past as he LOVES to jump and steal the treat for your hand. I have had to work hard to teach him to not gnaw my hand to pieces to get the treat. We still need to do some work on when a treat is on the ground or when it is dropped as he likes to divebomb for them.
Second, we learnt how to pigeon peck. It's a game of time expansion. Shirley had taught us this over the summer time but I found that Taz would start moving his feet after a count of 10. Did you know that counting one click treat, one two c/t, one two three c/t... all the way to 10 click treat actually takes 60 seconds?!?! Try it for yourself! It is amazing how quickly you can have your dog sit or lay down for 60 seconds just by expanding the time by one second each round. The whole goal is for the dog to realize how to lay hip shot, head on the floor and to actually relax. Cherly mentioned it will take a count upwards of 200 to achieve a relaxed state. Eventually I will be able to say Relax to Taz and he will lay down on the ground, roll onto one hip, put his head on the floor and let the stress just roll off of him. It was fun to teach Taz to put his head on the ground. I think this will help us to get passed the 10 count without moving his feet. We are currently up to a count of 8 with his head on the ground!! Progress in one week!
The last exercise was how to teach turns to a dog. For example, Pepper's turn, Taz' turn, Pepper's turn, Taz' turn. The end goal is to be able to say Pepper's turn and for Taz to realize he will get a chance and doesn't need to flip out. This one will need to be practiced every day and with different dogs. Pepper will be getting some good practice as well.
We had a one on one session on the next day. I audited just about all of the dogs and had a helper take notes while I was working with Taz. We did a lot of work with him just watching a person running sub-threshold. We also did some work with him watching another dog sub-threshold. He did very well!
Not once did my reactive dog have an episode the whole weekend. He had plenty of opportunity to tell off other dogs and people. But not once did he freak out. He has come a long way for sure! He had strangers holding his leash and feeding him treats. He was close to other dogs but not to close that they were in his bubble. He showed he can work with other dogs out. I also gained some insight about his prey drive. Cheryl said that it is really high. That just means more work on our part, working him sub-threshold until we can lower his bubble and raise his threshold.
All in all it was a very good weekend for Taz. We have lots of work to do and lots of time to do it in. I have started to do work at flyball with him sub-threshold and with a clicker. Have to get through that lizard brain to the amygdila and mark his behaviour when it is appropriate. He will be able to learn new behaviours to replace the ones that are not working or are not appropriate.
Thank you to Cheryl Bartlett for helping me make a better canine citizen out of Taz!!!
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