Gummi's Puppy Diary updated March 23 (pix and plans)

Okay, so I've been thinking about writing down our progress and challenges as Gummi grows up. Partly to have documentation in the future and partly to keep myself motivated. We haven't gotten as much training done as I'd have wanted, but finally started in the last week or so.

This was one trick my little mountain goat didn't need much training to learn, jumping onto big rocks on command.

Gummi is just lovely, what a stunner and a star

what a sweet pup

Thanks!

He's a handful, but he's also truly delightful. He's exactly what I wanted and hoped for - more or less exactly like Bajas was when he was a puppy. This time around I have the knowledge that things will get better, though, so I'm not so stressed out as I got with Bajas from time to time.

So far we have worked on
- sit: he does this frequently and it is his go-to response if he's unsure of what I want from him, he will sit with only a verbal cue
- down: he'll get it right 9 times out of 10 and will occasionally offer the behavior, but not nearly as frequent as the sit. He needs a visual cue to lie down, but we're working on the verbal one.
- "it's yer choice":

he's starting to understand that he has to move away from the hand to get treats, but he'll still try a shortcut from time to time. We did "crate games" today with a bowl of treats in front of the crate without him jumping out, though, so he's getting much better. He REALLY needs to learn to make good choices, so this is a good start
- crate games: started with this yesterday and he caught on pretty fast, having already started "it's yer choice" was probably helpful. Used the clicker to shape him into choosing to get into the crate. Used treats to make him sit when I opened the crate door.
- touch: I have a target stick at home, but now we're at my boyfriend's apartment up by the lake, so I did a shaping session today where he got rewards for touching his nose to the tip of the broom handle. He caught on surprisingly fast
- recall: have started a few recall games. Having my boyfriend assist me and holding his collar and for me to call him works pretty well. He's not so interested on running back to my boyfriend, though.. We'll have to work on that, too. I tried leaving a bunch of small treats on the ground for him to eat while I moved further along before calling him was semi-successful. He'd only let me walk a few feet before following, ignoring the treats. A good thing he'd rather follow me than eat treats, after all. Will try again with yummier treats, though. Sitting still and tossing bigger (easily visible) treats away while giving the command "out" and then calling for him once he swallowed it worked pretty well. Did that indoors and will try again outside tomorrow.
- leash work: haven't done much here, as he's hardly ever on leash. He's generally been very good though, but tonight he pulled a lot when I took him for a walk. I'm using a harness so it's no biggie if he pulls a little until he learns to walk properly. He's often taking the leash in his mouth, but I'm ignoring it for now as long as he's not chewing on it I don't consider it a problem. He's getting pretty good at staying on my left side, though.

Some good tips there Not sure Moo would ever understand the clip though

He's really beautiful! Love his colour.

Gorgeous boy

gummi is a star

We keep having short training sessions a few times every day. I still need to get better at keeping the sessions short enough, I've had to take the toy and beaten myself on the head with it repeating "bad trainer, baaaad" on more than one occasion.. I'm thinking about actually putting on a timer so I make sure to use no more than 2 minutes, and - of course - to end the session sooner if he does really well. I'm pretty good at giving him the jackpot and ending early, just not to make sure I end early enough when we're having very slow progress.

I've taken a couple of videos.. However phone + clicker + treat (and at one point + broom) makes it a bit tricky and his and my performance drops a bit.. Still wanted to have something for later, and there was no one around to help, so this was the best I could get.

Aww what a little star he is

Thanks! We went outside for another little session and I got another video.


It's so much fun working with him now that he's starting to really get the clicker. I've used the clicker with other dogs, but never so young, and he takes it so much faster when there's less "conventional training" already shaping his opinion of how you learn.

What a sweet pup!

Like I mentioned in a separate thread we've enrolled in puppy classes at a clicker based dog school. I'm sooo excited and already planning to take another class there if the first is any good. They have a three part class of obedience classes aimed for competitions that I'd love to take.. I really want to do it, and do it right!

We've been working on a few more things
Sit - worked on this according to the online class we did this last week, making the behavior more fixed in his mind and cue it again. He already knew this one, but hopefully it'll be even better now.
Crate games - is seeing real progress in having him enter and stay in his crate. He's also very good at waiting for permission before exiting. Messed up my video attempt so will have to do another.
Touch - tried to make him touch his paw to a piece of wood since I didn't have mouse pad available. Didn't work so good, we've only done touching with his nose so far.. Today we did it with a perch instead, more like the stone my MIL have a potted plant on. This made it much more visible and therefore much easier. Should have thought of that earlier. Got some of it on video! Also started teaching him to touch his nose to my palm. We've got some teeth issues with him touching finger/target stick, so thought it might help him touch something without wanting to use the teeth so badly. Got some nice touches with no teeth, so we'll hopefully see progress!
Drop it - he's quite good of letting go on command, now, but we've also just started passivity training. When we tug and I go completely passive he's supposed to let the toy go - he picked up on it really fast! Once he drops it we continue the game of tug.
Recall - did recall games with PA yesterday, he still prefers to stick with me rather than running to PA. But he got some good runs, and it's good to make sure he returns to PA, too.

aww Gummi is such a gorgeous boy... looks like he is so eager to learn.. and he is so handsome in his bandanna and green harness!!!!

Thanks! He's so lovely to work with - it makes such a difference starting him with the clicker right away! I loved working with Bajas, too, I just didn't have the option of shaping since he was trained differently (he was a star.. I still regret not teaching him with more precision, as it would have been so much fun entering a PUG into obedience.). The regrets of not making Bajas precise enough is part of the reason I wanted to start early with Gummi. Plus, it's nice to give a puppy something to do to tire out that little head. And you get such a good relationship when you work on tricks and obedience and all that stuff, that really is the biggest benefit you get.

Today we've worked with his fear of water (https://staffy-bull-terrier.niceboard.com/t7424-gummi-at-the-beach), more perch work (he can now rotate both left and right on the perch, if a bit hesitantly) and started working on a "stand" command.

you have inspired me to make a puppy diary!!! I've started it as a weekly submission and will move on to monthly, such a good idea since whenever we or friends have a new pup, no one can remember much about other pups they've had, itll be great to compare with pups in the future!

What a smart boy!! I wish I knew about the training video when we first got Suki. Well, she is still 10 months old so maybe not too late yet, I hope. She can do "leave it" game with treats on her paws and wait for my command to eat. But she tries to eat everything on the ground when we are walking outside. Using treats is not working any more. She still tries to eat what's on the ground after eating the treats... Just this morning, she ate a little lizard alive.

Thats Great Your Dogs Jumping On Rocks On Command Bet I Took Some Hard Work ?!

russdogmum wrote:you have inspired me to make a puppy diary!!!

How cool! I attempted one with Bajas when he was little, but never got around to do it often enough (we also had a website, though, so a lot of it went into a diary there.)

jstaff wrote:she is still 10 months old so maybe not too late yet, I hope. She can do "leave it" game with treats on her paws and wait for my command to eat. But she tries to eat everything on the ground when we are walking outside.

Perhaps try extending the "It's yer choice"-game to stuff outside? It can be used to allow access to anything they want, assuming some of the things she wants to eat outside are okay to eat? Or perhaps you could hide stuff outside to play the game - at least that would be a good way to train it initially. Once the behavior is established you don't need to let the dog have everything it wants (once it behaves), but you can use a treat or toy to reward the behavior of asking your permission.

madeira264527 wrote:Thats Great Your Dogs Jumping On Rocks On Command Bet I Took Some Hard Work ?!

LOL.. Not so much.. Two minutes maybe until I got that video. No shaping done there, didn't have the clicker with me, but just took advantage of a behavior he happily displays (jumping onto stuff). It's still not perfectly on cue (we don't walk past there all that often) - he'll still jump up without a cue from time to time. Getting the cue there isn't hard work, either, though, it's just a matter of walking over there to train.

well done you and gummi

jstaff wrote:What a smart boy!! I wish I knew about the training video when we first got Suki. Well, she is still 10 months old so maybe not too late yet, I hope. She can do "leave it" game with treats on her paws and wait for my command to eat. But she tries to eat everything on the ground when we are walking outside. Using treats is not working any more. She still tries to eat what's on the ground after eating the treats... Just this morning, she ate a little lizard alive.

...poor lizard

Winston will be the same I reckon.. whatever he can get in his mouth, he tries to eat.. he is forever eating moths....eeekk!!!

We haven't gotten as much training in lately as I would have wished. It's been really, really hot and Gummi just wants to relax in the shade so that's mostly what we've been doing.

We've gotten in a few good sessions on sit and down, though. I really saw some of the benefits in shaping the other day as we were working on his "down", but I needed to get him back up before he could get the command again.. so I took a risk and gave him the sit command. And he did! With the lure methods (or force methods) you tend to have to teach them to sit down and sit up separately, but since he's been shaped he actually knew the meaning of the sit rather than the action. I was rather impressed. He's not completely certain of the down cue yet, but it's not far off.

And yesterday we had some social training with Alto. I'm putting the video in here to keep everything together, it's also posted in the video gallery.

I just started unpacking my books looking for some clicker training books I knew I had, but as it turns out I had more than I thought!

So this weekend I'll be digging into
- Clicker Training for Obedience (Morgan Spector) - I knew I had this one!
- Click To Win (Karen Pryor) - I knew I had this one, too!
These were the happy surprises:
- Clicker Training (Cecilie Koeste and Morten Egtvedt)
- Quick Clicks - 40 fast and fun behaviors to train with a clicker (Mandy Book/Cheryl S. Smith)
- Clicker Fun - Dog Tricks and Games using Positive Reinforcement (Deborah Jones)

It was finally time for the first session of our puppy class yesterday. It was all theoretical, so Gummi didn't have to come along. He came and stayed in the car, though, so we could do some training on the way home. He also got a walk during the break, and met a couple of other pups. The trainer seems nice and we got a nice booklet where she has listed all the things we are going to work on and they all have tables with different goals to work on for that particular behavior. Then you tick the box when you have accomplished each goal (walk nicely on lead 3 meters straight ahead, walk nicely on lead 10 meters with a 90 degree turn, walk nicely on lead 50 meters with two turns and so on under the theme of walking nicely on the lead). It's really nice because it helps people break things down into segments they can achieve and because it can be very rewarding to tick another box

Haven't been able to work as much as I'd like lately, but we have been working on
- putting his nose through the collar when I hold it out
- putting his nose through the correct hole in the harness when I hold it out
- following me when I walk and run backwards
- attention
- using a bowl for treats that he is allowed to run over and eat from when I click and give him permission

We had the first practical night of the puppy class yesterday! 6 puppies - a beagle, some sort of fluffy x, a bichon havanaise (sp?), a miniature schnauzer a poodle and Gummi. All but the beagle and Gummi was a bit uncertain at first, and Gummi got a bit upset when everyone was barking like crazy, but the trainer asked the ones with insecure dogs to put them back in the car while they were talking and only take them out for training so it calmed down pretty fast. We worked on contact training, following (when I walked backwards) and using your palm as a target (the dog should press its nose against your palm). The contact training was good (the beagle had some two legged siblings that were all over the place so we got some nice disturbances to work with) and the trainer commented that it was easy to see we had worked on this already which was nice to hear. She also promised to show us some tricks to make him lie down straight. He did well with the target training, too, and I made sure to break it up with play time and he did some nice tugging. He's been teething and I've been a bit afraid of causing him pain but now he seemed to have fun. I think most of his adult teeth are in now, which is good in so many ways.. I think we got a bit less attention from her than the others, but they need it so it's okay. But I know she had been keeping an eye on us, because on the final summing up she mentioned that we had been good at taking play breaks.

i love reading this diary its such a good idea, well done gummi looks like he has the hang of things

This is fab!! Its defiantly something I'm going to do with Beau when he comes home!! I'm just so sad I never had the inclination to do this with Ruby .

Thanks lynne - we're having fun and it's nice to keep track even if the diary is mostly fun for me.

The second session was today and we were really lucky weather wise - nice and sunny and then some thunder, but no rain until we got in the car to go home!


Gummi eagerly waiting for permission to jump out of the car crate!


Come on, Mom!!! I can handle you saying "strawberries" or "bingo" or other silly words instead of my permission word, but taking pictures? Seriously? THAT's what we're here for?

There are other poopies out there!



More of our fellow students


The nice weather in the distance.. SO happy we didn't get wet (yes, we need to train in the rain eventually, and we do at home, but I appreciate the nice weather when we have to stay outside for a whole hour. When we train in the rain at home it's for 1-10 minutes, tops!)


Doggie zen training - treats in the bowls on the ground and the puppy doesn't get the treat until it's given the magic word (like "get it" for instance).


Gummi's bowl - with a nice piece of lamb heart (raw). Went out especially to get heart meat today to try to use it as treats, heart is a very firm meat and it really worked well. I'm sure beef heart would be even better, but my guys just LOVE lamb.


Yum!

A few pix from last week - the trainer used one of the puppies that hadn't learned the palm touch already to show how fast and easy it is to learn and she caught on in no time. Also - it really helped her connect with the trainer. She didn't really want to meet the trainer initially, but after a minute of training she both knew the palm touch and was thrilled to see the trainer when they arrived today!



Gummi, just being cute!

Lovely pics, Gummi is going to be a stunning and well balenced dog

This has been really enjoyable to read,thanks.

Gummi is Super Cheeky-Cute! And I love his harness!!

Thanks for the update he is doing so well

Not just Gummi being cute... Gummi being super cute!!

Thanks everyone! He really is a wonderful little guy.

I've posted these pix in the gallery along with others, but wanted to put them here, too. I haven't been able to convince anyone to come along to the puppy classes to take pix so far, so these are the closest thing I have to training pix so far.





We've done some great progress with him holding or picking up the dumbbell, but we're struggling with the mouse pad target.. Perhaps I should have chosen his left paw rather than the right.. Either way I think I got an idea today that will hopefully increase his paw awareness

We had a good session at puppy class today!

Worked on
- leash walking toward a temptation (treat in a bowl)
- sit/stay
- down

He did pretty well with the leash walking walking towards and around the treat bowl - then at some point he'd get the permission word and could walk over to take the treat. We really made some progress with the sit/stay, which was great. Need to keep working on that! The down was pretty good - he's got a nice voluntary down, but I've kept from putting a cue on it as he tends to rest on one hip and I don't want him to do that when he gets the down command in the future. I want one lie down (relax) and one down (for obedience) but for now they're sort of mixed up. Incorporated the stay work from the sit/stay to a down/stay while we were at it.

Our fourth class was yesterday - nice and sunny this week as well. We worked on
- loose leash walking with disturbances
- having the dogs sit nicely while people approach.. as you can imagine Gummi found this VERY challenging.. He was so frustrated the poor baby, but he was slowly learning it might pay off to be patient.
- recall.. OMG I want some pictures of him running, he is so CUTE. He runs as fast as he can manage - he looks like a little brown ball, his legs all a blur.

We worked in pairs most of the time, and I was lucky to work with a lady with a super cute poodle called Cosinus. I feel I don't get enough time to train lately.. there's so much going on. But - we've been able to take some nice walks lately. It's wonderful to have a dog old enough to come along for more than little baby walkies around the house. We've also signed up for a competition focused obedience class (level 1) that starts in mid-October. It's all about learning basic behaviors, though - and they are then turned into the actual obedience exercises in another class later.

Really pleased all is going so well with Gummi, and I'm pleased to hear even Gummi has difficulty in learning patience!

Thanks for the update and yes, would love to see a clip of him giving it his all whilst running sounds very cute Xx

yes it is interesting reading about Gummi's classes.

A couple of videos from our classes - not of Gummi since I took them. (Though he's in one of them for a few seconds )

Gummi is 6 months today! Yay Gummi! And yesterday we finally made some progress with the mouse pad targeting (right paw to mouse pad). It's taken FOREVER to get there, but I think he started to grasp the idea yesterday. I've tried many different methods, patience included (LOL) so I'm not sure if it was the new method I tried yesterday or what.. Either way I'm thrilled and can't wait to try again tonight.

What ended up working was this:
- mouse mat on top of the (lidded) trash bin in the bathroom (we do most initial training in the bathroom as it's small and easy to control disturbances). 30 cm above the ground
- threw the treats to the direction where he seemed most likely to put his right paw on first (I don't really care if he puts the left one on there, too, but I wanted him to know the right one was the important one)
Once he got it about 80% right I..
- put the mouse pad on a low box (10 centimeters off the ground perhaps)
Once he got that about 80% correct I..
- put the mouse pad inside the box so basically ground level, but with "edges" around

Tonight I plan to start with the mouse pad within the box and then progress to mouse pad on the floor. Wish me luck!

wow good luck animother, gummy is a real star, i look forward to hearing about this its so interesting

Thanks! We initially struggled with the mouse pad again on Tuesday.. But now I think we've finally gotten it - he seems much more deliberate now.

Yesterday was the fifth practical night of puppy school and he did really well. We arrived early and after the pre-training walkies we had some time to train. Lucky for us a boy was practicing on his roller skis! He kept going up and down the length of the parking lot, which meant we could stay in the middle and he'd come past fairly regularly. I'm hoping to train him to notify me of anything fun approaching (dogs, people, horses and so on) for the times I'm not paying good enough attention. Basically I reward him for looking at something exciting and the connection between "see something fun" and "turn to mom" should be established. Eventually. It's going to take quite a bit of work I'm sure, to make the concept understood and generalized to all kinds of places and fun/interesting things. But when it works it's really valuable, so I'm going to try!

He's really becoming more a young dog than puppy - sniffing more and so on. I'm sure we'll have some challenges ahead!

We've finally got the mouse pad target down! Yeah! I tried moving further away from it today, with varied success (I want to increase the distance fast enough for him to run versus just trotting calmly over). We've also started working on him freezing on the target (remaining there until I release him).

We graduated from puppy class on Wednesday and got a diploma and everything. We did some more recall training, worked with the mouse pad (ironically - but at least he showed he really understood it in a new environment), and started teaching a "spin" trick. I hadn't put a cue on down yet, so when we were supposed to work on that we didn't get anywhere as he didn't offer it. He's gotten great at sitting down in heel position (coming from the front and moving his hind quarters in a half circle to end up facing the same way I am and sitting down all at once) and I had obviously given him too much attention for that behavior as he kept doing that and nothing else.

Next week is off and the week after that is theory for our new obedience class. I really should try to do LOTS of work next week while I have some extra time on my hands. Started putting a cue on down yesterday (he does know the behavior, once he knew what I wanted he offered it very fluently so it was easy to put a cue on it) and roll over today to make it easier for him to separate the two.

So happy today! We did some great progress with Gummi freezing the hand target (keeping his nose on my hand until I release him)! Used the "it's yer choice" principles and it worked really well! Of course I'll need to fade out the help from the IYC, but it was soo much easier than gradually making him keep his nose there for longer before clicking.


And a few silly pix of my cutie

He is stunning, and coming on nicely Xx

What a brill diary and update on gummi

I made a couple of videos yesterday

Not our finest work, but fairly representative for the average We work on several things we haven't done for a while, which increases his frustration levels.

Today was the theory class for our new obedience class. We're going to learn 15 basic skills that can then later be combined into the complete obedience exercises. The group seems really great! My favorite, the poodle from puppy class, a short haired collie (or do you call them smooth in English as opposed to rough?) and three Tervurens. I can't wait to get started. I do feel we have some of the basic skills already, which will hopefully get us some extra time working on the others!

Certainly keeping on top of the training. What are the '15' basic skills???

janey wrote:

Certainly keeping on top of the training. What are the '15' basic skills???

Focus (looking at the owner)
Targeting
Sit
Hind quarter control/awareness (Being able to walk backwards and turn at the same time)
Find the heel position while the owner is standing still
Recall
Walking + looking up
Down
Stand
Stay (as in remaining in the position)
Doggie-Zen (self control - reward in a bowl somewhere away from where you train and then permission to go get it)
Hold (an object without chewing)
Drop (the object)
Jumping an obstacle
Scent discrimination

I'm especially exited to get some help with the scent work!