We will be working on "up," once I feel better.
So for the second time today I redid the "gimme dap" command. I'm going to let the behavior remain "sloppy." So long as he knows that a closed fist and the verbal cue means put his paw on my fist, I'm happy. I might fine tune this command later in life, but for now, he knows what I want from him, even if he dances around while giving it to me.
Next command I'm going to teach him is "up." Meaning from a down position, he sits. So starting Christmas, we will work on that.
No picture this time, since it's just a mini-update.
Christmas is two days away now and tomorrow evening I'm going to my grandparent's house to meet with all my family. I want Diesel to have the command down pact for tomorrow evening so we are working overtime for this.
Two days ago I was told that my training was "sloppy" meaning that I wasn't asking for a clear behavior from Diesel. Which is true. So now I'm clearing it up and look for a down, then a paw smack. I made another video of it as well, and as you can see, he's getting it. Took him a while to put two and two together and realize that, hey, if I lay down and then give paw, I get a treat. So I'm doing one more session tonight, which I'll record, then I'll add the verbal cue tomorrow morning before we go.
Continued working on "gimme dap." I made a video of it again, to show his progress. I think he's doing quite lovely. :)
He is making progress, pretty quickly too. He can now only hit my fist with his right paw, he'll sometimes get confused, but he's got in down. I also added the verbal cue "gimme dap" along with the hand signal. It's making him hit my fist quicker and realize that my fist is there.
I think starting tomorrow I'm going to focus on a quick run through of all the commands he does know just so he can get a refresher. So I'll be videoing "sit," "down," "come," and "gimme dap." I'll switch it up as well so he doesn't learn a pattern and not the commands. So yay!
We did another "gimme dap" training session today. No verbal cues just yet, only the hand cue; closed fist. I finally took a video of it too, and it's at the bottom of this posting.
As you'll be able to see from the video, he is getting the basic idea of "dapping" my fist. I'm not making me use only the left or right paw just yet, but if I do, it'll be the right paw. I do want to get him to touch the front of my fist, to really give the illusion of "dapping." But we are taking it a day at a time for now.
He's very excitable too! He enjoys training now, and he's enjoying the dapping, haha. Here is the video:
I stopped training Diesel for 2 days due to laziness but yesterday I started up again. I tried loose leash work, but me being fat, I got too lazy with bending over to treat at the appropriate time. Besides, he was in a goofy mood with too much energy so he wasn't responding well to the heel work. Instead we worked on the paw command.
Last time I tried "give me paw" he froze up and started hating the clicker (April 2008). So I decided to try again. I wanted to do something cute instead of the boring, cliché "give me paw" with the person's palm facing up, so we did "gimme dap" and the cue is a closed, right fist.He picked up on it quickly and I'm not really picking a certain paw he has to use either, so he bounces around with two different paws. It's cute though because he lays down then pops up and gives me his paw (by scratching my fist).
Today was the second day doing "gimme dap" and he is doing very well. To reinforce this command, any time he wants a treat I have he has to "gimme dap." I'll probably do another session again tonight to really drill it in his head. His marker word is "yes." I need to get this on video since it's adorable how he does it. But I'll wait til I wean him off the treats, which I'm slowly doing now. He'll get a treat 3 times in a row, then get just praise, then treats 4 times in a row, then 2 times just praise, etc. Very random process.
For now, I am giving myself a deadline of June 13th, 2010 to have his training complete for a CGC and then November 23rd, 2010 to have the training for his TDI complete. We have a long time to go and I figured I'd give us this long of a deadline so I don't stress. Which is why we are doing cute little tricks for now. He seems to enjoy them anyways.
Every Saturday I am going to focus on a different behavior, so until next Saturday, we will be focusing mainly on come. I more than likely will not update every day, but since this is a new blog, I am for now, haha.
So it had been raining today and finally let up and I took him out for some training. Since it was wet outside, he would not sit for the life of me, so I'm taking the sit out of the come for now until I get him 100%.
He had no issues coming to me except 2 times when he got distracted, but he came after a delay. We are doing good. I'm hoping that he'll keep coming so that by Wednesday we can up the playing field and add more distractions. If I feel that it's too many distractions, then we'll go back to the parking lot. But we'll use a long lead when I start adding in more distractions, since right now he's off lead.
Next week we will work on no jumping up on people, so that'll be fun. Gotta find some volunteers and figure out a game plan on how to execute this.
He did great until he got distracted... like 3 times? Otherwise he was quick, excited and caught on quickly. We engaged in playing, then out of the blue, I'd call him over and he'd happily run towards me. Then once I asked him to sit, he did and he'd receive the treat.
I had changed his diet to strictly kibble, to make human food/treats that much more exciting for him and it's helped a lot.
Tomorrow we will go back out again maybe 2 or 3 times. I'll see how he does the second time. I don't want to push him to where he gets shaky and shuts down. But we'll do it in the morning and nighttime again. Different parking lots with minimal distractions. For now on, no more off leash play time until he is 100% reliable and if I can call him off his distractions.
But I'm going to try to update this everyday or as much as possible with videos, commentary, and how I am training him.
