I feel Baron is more in the game now for sure but even though I think and received confirmation that he passed Level 1 I would like to work a bit on tighten up his responses to cues.
Also since I've been back I have found that Sue eh? has published her new Training Levels in book form and they are different then the old Training Levels. I have put in an order for a hard copy and I want to go through Level 1 via. her book instead.
Something I found while browsing through all those old emails was this comment.
To answer your original question! -- How can you test if Baron really knows what "touch" means?
Stand silently, without stick and without holding out your hand. Have clicker and a treat in hand, behind your back, so he can't cue off of an involuntary hand twitch. Say, Baron, touch! See if he looks around excitedly for something to touch (such as your hand). If he just stands there, or if he offers another behavior (such as a sit or a down or whatever), he doesn't know the cue.
I think I'll put Baron to the test tonight to see how he acts. I actually anticipate he will offer another behavior if not instead but when I don't provide him a target.
This is MY fault. I am not a good trainer unfortunately but I would like to be. I receive a ton advice from people and sometimes all of it gets jumbled up in my head and no two people really do things the same all the time. So one of my goals before I try to start working on Level II is to first work on retraining / training me. Go back to practicing clicking and clicker timing. I also want to practice and get into the habit of breaking down exactly what I want a cue to mean. Not knowing this myself I think I confuse my poor dog. Then I want to go over Level 1 again.
Hi again Lisa,
ReplyDeleteI didn't get your email from the other post but always enjoy coming back to your blog. Try not to be hard on yourself. You are learning a bunch of stuff all at once. And for what it's worth, it seems to me that Baron understands cues _very well_ for a beginner dog.
I really support your being thorough about continuing to go over Level 1 but make sure your goals are doable. My dogs have been doing the Levels for 4 and 2 years and I regularly find situations where they don't understand some basic cues. That's partly one of my flaws as a trainer, but it is also just part of how dogs learn.
You'll really enjoy the new Levels book. It takes care of a lot of this stuff for you by helping with generalization and being very explicit about what you can reasonably expect from your dog before going on to another step.
I think you're doing a great job.
eileenanddogs