Training The Amazing Al
So. . . How did Al, the shy PBGV, become highly trained? Al became the Amazing Al by constant training and patience. As pointed out in the first article about The Amazing Al, he has been in school since June of 2000.
I train Al everyday. He has two training sessions a day, one in the morning outside and again in the evening in the house. Al sometimes forfeits his A.M. training for serious squirrel hunting. I keep training treats and a clicker in my pocket at all times. I have him do tricks off and on all day. I always give Al a treat and praise him when he comes when called. The come command cannot be overenforced.
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Wednesday night performance class. Al hiding in box from his instructor Melody. |
Beginning and intermediate obedience skills are necessary to start adding more advanced performing skills. Al also completed Advanced Obedience and Beginning Utility. Skills that helped him in performance were: retrieving, directional jumping, weave poles, scent discrimination, directional retrieving and of course the socialization from being in the classes. After obedience, just a few more commands and skills will enable you to teach your dog more entertaining tricks. Commands such as "get it", "bring", "dump it or dunk it", "go", "paws on", "hold", etc. These skills are by voice command without hand commands. After a while I found I could just point in the direction of the prop, say just about anything and he would perform the skill. Once a skill is mastered your dog will know what you expect, but may choose not to do it!
Some of the initial skills that we taught Al were spin, turn, bow, around and circle. I would hold a treat at his prominent nose and have him follow my hand with the treat in the motion I wanted with the appropriate command. Then click and treat. Then we go for multiple spin, etc. before giving a treat. Nowadays Al prefers to choose his own sequence of dancing moves when I give him a command. He gets bored with the basic and ads variations to his "freestyle". We trained with a touch stick (a dowel with a colored tape on the tip) after that so the dog would follow the stick instead of the hand. Initially a treat is given for any attention the dog gives toward the stick. Click and treat. Then a reward only when his nose touches the stick and finally the dog should follow the movement of the stick. Another training technique that Al didn't follow well. Al learned easier with just the treat.
Al had a little better success using two long touch sticks (dowels). I would hold the sticks next to each side of his body and give him a nudge with one of the sticks. If he moved I would click and treat. Forward, back, side and a moving side in a circle were taught this way. Al still has not mastered going sideways in the opposite direction. Like everything they have a favored side or direction.
Another basic skill needed with a performing dog is to go to his rug or mark and stay. Unfortunately Al still has not mastered this. His nose keeps him wandering. During performances Al needs to be confined to keep him from wandering. This way he just snoozes while he waits for his next performing turn. Those retirement homes have a lot of crumbs on the carpet!
It doesn't matter what your command is for the skills, just be consistent. I use spin for one direction and turn for the other. Around is like a spin, but the dog is going around your body and circle is the opposite direction. There are many variations of these basic moves using different combinations of the turns and weaving through your legs.
We started out teaching Al to pull; a skill he uses to open his door and pull his wagons. We taught pulling by using old white sport socks tired together. Melody, his trainer, suggested using a toy for pulling. Al had such fun stealing Steven's socks that we found the socks worked better for Al. You play with your dog and get him to grasp the pulling object and say "pull" while you pull at the other end. Keep encouraging with an upbeat voice. Constantly praise and click and treat. In the beginning you click and treat the dog for any motion close to what you are training. After the toy or rope pulling is mastered you can introduce a rope with a not on the end. Some dogs need to have some fleece or something soft around the rope to get them to put it in their mouth. After they get the idea for pulling you can give the command "pull" and have him pull a rope attached to a door to open it, pull a wagon with a rope attached to the handle, etc.
One of Al's first props was a door that we made for him to pull open, push open and close. Al opens the door for the rest of the dogs in our group for performances. He also sits behind the door, waits for my command and pushes the door and takes off on his skateboard. I find Al does better when he has several tricks in a row. Al will sit and stare at you indefinitely for the skateboarding command "hang ten', but behind the closed door he finds it fun to push open and take off on his board!
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Al practicing his boxing
One of our early lessons was to get our dogs to pick up and retrieve different objects; assorted textures, materials and things they don't want in their mouths. This skill is very valuable later on. Al will hold anything I give him in his mouth with the command take and hold.
You can train your dog to put his toys away. Train him to retrieve his toys and dump them in a bucket. At first you might hold the bucket under the toy and have him drop it in the bucket. Click and treat. It all takes a little patience. Al added a special touch of his own. After he has put his toys away he knocks it over as if to say "that is what I think of that!" Al, from years of word/object association, can retrieve many objects by name; boots, bucket, lunch, cone, box, baby, chicken coal to name a few.
When your dog makes a mistake with his skill he is learning we say "wrong", not "no". No is reserved for being a bad dog. Training should be fun! It is important to change your training locations and training surfaces. It is obviously more difficult for a scent hound to keep focused outside and on lawn or soil. Your dog may become quite good at his tricks in a certain room in your house, aimed a particular direction on the hard floor. Change any of these elements and you provide distractions. Since we perform inside and out and with different smells, it is important to expose them in training to as many different situations as possible. We use little short tab collars so we can grab the dog to reinforce that he should be paying attention. Most of the advanced performers do not need these, but of course wandering Al does! The most popular excuse Melody hears in class for a dog's poor behavior is: "they did it perfect at home."
The type of treats I use makes little difference with Al. If the treat is too good he just goes wild, barks and does every skill he can think of frantically and looses all focus. They only need a tiny amount. I don't give him a treat for everything. Sometimes in training I do and sometimes I don't. This unpredictability keeps Al hopp'in. He will do an entire routine with only one treat. Al likes to show off for an audience.
Al likes to do a series of trick/skills in a routine. A popular routine is his coal mine routine, done to the music "Working in a Coal Mine" by Lee Dorsey. He places his orange cones where I tell him too, puts his coal in the dump truck, pulls the dump truck to the 'PBGV At Work' sign, dumps his load and then brings his lunch box to me, has a snack and takes a quick snooze.
His latest routine is a western theme. Collecting and creating the props were a challenge. Al also has a wardrobe for some of his routines. He doesn't mind the clothes, but the hats are a bit annoying. He has been known to dart in the yard in costume to make his squirrel loop! He wears a cowboy hat and a saddle for his western"dance". He also has some little cowboy boots that he will put on to "Al, put on your boots". Al just retrieves the boots in his routine. Al didn't seem to like jumping through the lasso that I made for him, instead he picked up his chicken prop, threw it through the lasso hoop and looked at me for a treat with his "what do you think of that" look. He can be very stubborn and sometimes I let him do things his way. Al likes to choreograph and add his touch.
Al has a hide in the box routine where he hops in, pulls the lid shut, peeks twice and jumps out of the box. We put food in the box and Al, being a PBGV, jumped in to get it. We would have Al down in the box and slowly put the lid down. Then we would have him pull the rope attached to the inside corner of the lid and the lid would come down. At first we would make sure it didn't go down too fast to scare him. Recently Al has decided to use his time in the box to ponder. Each phase of the routine needs a command.
It is possible to teach a dog dissimilar actions with similar props. Al can jump directional jumps and jump freestanding agility hoops. Al has a special set of jumps that he distinguishes between any others. Al has been trained to knock these down for our group "flyball" routine. Al loves to jump the agility hoop, but when it comes to a stationary hoop that I hold he becomes lazy and brain dead. Al prefers to step on the hoop to bring it down and slowly walk through.
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Al posing with some of his performance props |
Melody Daggs, our training instructor, had a correction from my first article on Al. Melody says Al is quick to learn and does as well as the other dogs in class.
The limits of performing dogs are limited by your imagination. A trained dog wants to perform and take on new challenges.