CU Homework

I want to have some notes on how we're working on the CU exercises at home and how Iris is progressing. In a few weeks, I'd like to have something to look back on so here's where we're at now.

Look at That
This isn't something we've had much opportunity to really practice. There are no strange dogs walking around my living room. Well, there is one strange dog in my living room. But I need a second strange dog for practicing. I really need to make the commitment to take Iris out where we'll encounter other dogs that are not reactive. I'm amazed at the number of dogs in the condo complex (and the apartment complex too) that are very reactive and are NOT being managed by their owners. It's not a good situation for training Iris in. While I think she's at the point where she'll handle another dog walking past, she's not at the point where she'll handle another dog exploding and straining at the end of the leash. My homework for next weekend is to get out and go somewhere that Iris can succeed at LAT practice!

Default Behavior
I've been thinking a lot about this one. When I first got Iris, she was TERRIBLE about shaping. She would literally sit and stare at me without moving a muscle. She could handle luring but if I wasn't really actively helping her out, she got stuck in a sit. My first reaction was that I don't want to train a default behavior. It's been a lot of work convincing Iris not to just sit and stare, and she still isn't always great at shaping. She gets frustrated very easily and defaults to "sit still and make eye contact." After re-reading the section in the book on default behaviors, I've decided I am going to train a default behavior but not in a "formal" training session. I'm just going to have to carry treats around with me all the time and reward Iris when she offers the default (in this case, I am going to use a sit). For example, if I'm getting Iris' dinner ready and she happens to sit, she gets a reward. If I'm putting my shoes on and she happens to sit, she gets a reward. Hopefully, that will avoid the "stuck in a sit" problem during training sessions.

Whiplash Turn
We've had a really hard time working on this. We've only tried it a couple of times, and I've ended up cutting the session short because I'm getting frustrated. Not productive for either of us. What's happening is I toss the treat, Iris eats the treat, I say her name, Iris continues to look for crumbs, and only turns back to me she's decided she's done sniffing around. I think I need to do something similar to what I'm doing with the default behavior. If I walk into a room and say "Iris" she turns and looks at me. I think I need to make a point of always rewarding that rather than tossing treats. I need a wristband to attach my clicker to! The possibility of food on the floor is too exciting right now. The other thought I had was using two different treats for the tossing food method. Toss a really low value treat so she'll turn away from me to eat it, say her name, and give her really high value treat when she turns toward me.

Doggie Zen (Leave It)
Iris already knows the Doggie Zen game and does it without any problem. In the CU book, Leslie uses Doggie Zen as the beginning of Leave It. Iris' leave it is only mediocre. She'll do it for something low value but not something high value. We might be jumping ahead a little bit, but I started working on some of the Leave It exercises in the book. Right now, I can drop one treat and she'll leave it. I think the next thing I'm going to try is dropping the single (low value) treat outside of a training session. She knows when we're playing the "leave it" game. I'd like to work on her leaving it even when she doesn't think she's supposed to be "working."

Go to Mat
I've been working on moving Iris' mat to various places around the house and at work. She's done really well at home and had a little trouble with it at work. She really loves her mat now! After we finished practicing the other day, I got a phone call and forgot to pick up the mat. I looked over and Iris was patiently sitting her mat waiting for her next cookie. A few minutes later, I looked over again and she'd fallen sound asleep on her mat. Silly girl!

Off-Switch
I honestly haven't gotten the chance to work on this at home with her. It's sort of a low priority for me because Iris isn't highly toy motivated. It's tough to rev her up with a toy so usually once I get her playing I like to keep her involved in the game. Although now that I'm thinking about it, I'm wondering if this exercise would actually help build some toy motivation as well.

Reorienting
When I adopted Iris, she would bolt out doors. Since Iris also really wants to chase cars, I had to do something to stop her from bolting out the door whenever anyone opened it. I trained her to stop and make eye contact until I say "okay" before going through doorways. It worked really well to stop the door bolting. The problem is that when I release Iris to go through the doorway, I completely lose her attention. I think I need to reframe the game. I'd like her stop and make eye contact before AND after going through a doorway. Because Iris has been practicing "make eye contact, go through door, stop paying attention to mom" for years, she's had trouble with the new rules. However, we have to go through two door to get outside of the condo so we have plenty of opportunity to practice.

Looking over these notes, I realized how much I have to make this stuff part of our daily life. A lot of this isn't things that I can work on only as part of training session. It's things I need to be aware of working on as we go through our daily activities.