Clean Run Magazine - May 2007 - 34

Spy Kids Refining Behaviors and Adding New Criteria By Nancy Gyes, photos by Marcy Mantell Photography The Spy kids are four and a half months old now. Everyone is healthy, and their training seems to be progressing at a steady pace. Sweep performed like a seasoned dog when I used him to demo at a puppy lecture last week. It was his first time to “work” in a noisy training building surrounded by people and other kenneled dogs. He was able to demonstrate all the handling games I wrote about last month, like riding on a blanket and or playing kick a pup while tugging. He was energetic during toy play, but responded immediately to cues for sit, down, stand, hand target, close and side, and switched back and forth training for both food and toys. Luring and Signaling If you normally have taught behavior in the past while using food or a toy in your hand and while moving or holding your hand in a specific way to cue a behavior, that is called a lure. In a previous article I spoke about teaching the down while I was kneeling on the floor. My kneeling was part of a cue (or signal) for the dog to perform a down and I had to fade that position so that Sweep learned to down anywhere and while I was in any position. If I had added a hand signal of a cookie moving to the ground, that signal would be called a lure. The luring hand is also giving a signal to move into the down. This is an easy way to teach the down, but it can be difficult to wean the dog off all the added signals. I would 34 first need to move out of the kneeling position, while also fading my luring/signaling hand. This adds extra time and complexity to teaching. Try to teach behaviors without lures if possible so that you do not add an additional step to your training. If you have inadvertently taught a physical signal (moving your hand, for example) to get a behavior, fade the signal/lure as quickly as possible so that your dog will respond while you remain still. For agility training we would like our dogs to respond to our verbal cues even when we are out of position. one side of you, or allowing your dog to swipe his nose or chin instead of nose bop. Don’t ask for hand targeting to line up your dog and then not reward the nose touch or go right to another behavior after a bad touch. hands equally in the following ways: to both your right and left sides, directly in front of you, just over the top of your dog’s head so he has to rise up at least an inch or two to be able to target. Place your hand under your dog’s chin, lower your hand all the way to the ground, hand target while your dog is on a balance toy in a variety of positions, and down low on the ground as well. Only mark the ones that are good strong nose touches. Don’t get in a pattern of only doing nose touches on Don’t mark open-mouth hand targeting. This behavior will come back to haunt you when you introduce a physical target to use for contact training. Hold out for a proper nose touch to reward, or you might click early a few times so that your dog cannot complete the targeting. If you seem to lose your nose touch momentarily after clicking early, that’s okay. Just present your hand and wait. Then build back up quickly while only marking strong nose touches. Hand Targeting Keep practicing your hand targeting by presenting your hand in a variety of ways. Present both your right and left Clean Run | May 07

Clean Run Magazine - May 2007

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run Magazine - May 2007