13 Months: Training - Day 28

I am trying to convince him there are more choice places to be in
my house other than ON MY FEET!

Has it really been 28 days since I started with Mr. Jack?  Only 28 days and he knows Sit, Down, Zen, Touch, Wait (at door, in crate, in car) and so much more.  He's learned to chew on his toys, not my furniture, how to ask to go outside and how to pop a door open with his nose to get out of the bathroom. Yes folks, today I watched Jack let himself out of my front bathroom no more than six times while I was indisposed.  I was so proud - his figuring out his nose can do more than smell is a huge thing!

When Jack got stuck in the bathroom with the door open only a crack and him stuck and frozen because he couldn't find a way out I knew he hadn't been involved in daily indoor living much.  Emma, who learned the simple lesson of using her nose to push open an unlatched door by the time she was 18 weeks old (which meant about 4 weeks after arriving at my home for training) had clearly been shown how to do so by Max.  Jack watched Emma and Max let themselves in and out of the room when I was in it and today, for the first time, when the door was closed but not latched Jack put his nose on the edge of the door and pushed and walked out!  Yeah Jack!

This morning, with Ms. Emma ready to train again, I was faced with Jack pushing her out of the way and taking center stage for training.  I am pleased with the enthusiasm for learning, but there needs to be a bit of personal space respect here.  I ended up tethering him so I could train Emma.  When I finished with Emma I found Jack flopped on his side, his back to me, giving me the Poodle equivalent of a pout. So be it, but give another dog space when they are working dude, really.

So, today's lessons worked on two important concepts that come with giving space - Zen and Go To Mat.  Yesterday we worked on Duration, earlier we'd worked on Distance - it won't be long before I add all of those concepts to "stay on that mat and let me train" to Jack's overall behavior toolbox.

Today's Lessons:

Zen

Jack is working on Level 2: Step 2 Zen.  In this step Jack is asked to ignore a treat that is exposed on the floor for up to 10 seconds.  I want to add another split into this - I want him to look at me and not the treat while waiting for the click.  So, today I worked on his looking up and making eye contact before I clicked.  We worked on this lesson for 8 sessions.  Jack got the concept to leave the exposed pile of kibble or the plate with cheese on it alone and soon was figuring out it was looking up at me that got his click.  I have not added duration to this, just building on the make eye contact portion and then will work on building duration.  Next week I will work on Focus to help him understand eye contact can be held for a period of time.

Go To Mat

Jack is working on Level 2: Step 1 Go To Mat.  In this step Jack is asked to go to a mat.  The mat is right in front of me and my goal is to teach him he can approach it from any angle and be a success.  We've worked on this previous and when Jack saw the mat he remembered I'd paid for any contact with the Mat and went and sat on it.  Good job, I love shaping - their memory retention is so much better with shaping.  Jack soon was laying on the mat and approaching it well from many angles.  I am not seeing a "oh, a mat, must get on it" behavior yet, so I will keep building up good feelings with the mat.

Observations

Jack is a super sweet guy, but he's an attention hog and wants nothing more than to be touching people all the time - it's exhausting.  I love dogs, but when I have five of them touching me all day long and at times all at the same time,  it can be too much.  I have noticed that Emma and Jack seem to be the ones needing physical contact off and on all day long.  Attitude normally lays beside me and doesn't demand attention when touching me, and Dieter normally lays beside or just above me on the back of my chair and again doesn't demand my attention, but Max, Jack and Emma will get into an attention demand mode and will do it all at the same time and flood me with contact.

Emma and Jack tend to nudge me hard with their noses or lay on me or put their heads on me and demand I pay attention.  I don't think the casual contact I get from Attitude and Dieter would be so bad if that was all Jack and Emma wanted, it's the constant focused attention they want that seems to drive me over the edge.

The result.  I dove into a book today and ignored the world between training sessions.  It seems to have worked because all of the dogs went to their spots and slept.  I may have to do that more often.

Level 1

	Zen	Target	Come	Sit	Down
Step	Completed	Completed	2	4	4

Level 2

	Zen	Come	Sit	Down	Target
Step	2	0	1	1	1
	Focus	Lazy Leash	Go To Mat	Crate	Distance
Step	0	1	1	2	0
	Jump	Relax	Handling	Tricks	Communication
Step	0	0	1	0	0

Level 3

	Zen	Come	Sit	Down	Target
Step	0	0	0	0	0
	Focus	Lazy Leash	Go To Mat	Crate	Distance
Step	0	0	0	0	0
	Jump	Relax	Handling	Retrieve	Communication
Step	0	0	0	1	0

Level 4

	Zen	Come	Retrieve	Target	Relax
Step	0	0	0	0	0
	Focus	Lazy Leash	Go To Mat	Crate	Distance
Step	0	0	0	0	0
	Handling	Communication
Step	0	0