Thread: The getting of accuracy when training in drive :-)

Hi Jolanda

Bronson is also ball and toy mad which I have used to gain obedience, it's without using a drive exercise an obedience for reward system is when he is harder to handle with haphazard behaviour. Bronson is my first full working line dog too and we trained him from scratch from the Balabanov tapes in drive exercises with a lot of work on the basics to form a solid obedience and reward foundation, so every routine I teach him unless he does it right, there is no reward and we start over again, but is done in small steps so he learns exactly what the game is.

What are her basics like?, does she out the ball and give you a commanded behaviour, sit or drop awaiting release to get the reward? will she give you a focused heel and eye focus on a "look" command before release that type of thing?

What do you mean, "she logs off" in frustration and does what?, Bronson used to start launching himself at me trying to get the ball/tug in frustration with a tendancy to bite me when witholding reward too long ramping up with the shits on so to speak, is it that type of frustration, or does she loose focus and look for another activity?

Originally Posted by Ann-Marie Abbott

Hi Jolanda

Bronson is also ball and toy mad which I have used to gain obedience, it's without using a drive exercise an obedience for reward system is when he is harder to handle with haphazard behaviour. Bronson is my first full working line dog too and we trained him from scratch from the Balabanov tapes in drive exercises with a lot of work on the basics to form a solid obedience and reward foundation, so every routine I teach him unless he does it right, there is no reward and we start over again, but is done in small steps so he learns exactly what the game is.

What are her basics like?, does she out the ball and give you a commanded behaviour, sit or drop awaiting release to get the reward? will she give you a focused heel and eye focus on a "look" command before release that type of thing?

What do you mean, "she logs off" in frustration and does what?, Bronson used to start launching himself at me trying to get the ball/tug in frustration with a tendancy to bite me when witholding reward too long ramping up with the shits on so to speak, is it that type of frustration, or does she loose focus and look for another activity?

Hi Ann-Marie

Kira's basics are quite good but I am trying to sharpen them ie sitting straight, stand for exam, dropping straight, staying in the heel position rather than rounding me up. . . . She will 'out the ball' but some sometimes doesn't bring it right back and I have to get it. (I guess there is a hint there?). Her focus during heeling is excellent . I haven't thought of giving her a command and then releasing her to get the reward. . . I aim to give the reward as soon as possible after she has completed the behaviour asked for. To complicate things - she was trained using CROATIAN terms!!! The only one I can remember is 'Pisha' and you can guess what that means but she does it every time on command LOL

When she 'logs off' it means she loses interest and can't be bothered trying. The other thing that I need to do something about is my tools! I need a ball on a string but I can't get the right size here. At the moment I am using a chucker and a tennis ball but it is unwieldy and hard to put away. If I put it on top of the tank, she only gives me 60% attention because the other 40 is on where the ball is. I don't want to work with the ball alone because she is very rough with her mouth so I DO need a ball on a string. So to answer your question, she looses focus and looks for other things to do ie pick up a pine cone or something like that.

I have only ever trained using food and so this is a new experience for me. I love it but I am still trying to get my where-with-all together to do is properly. Not having any local help is also a bit of an impediment. In theory my timing is good (I know when to reward) but in practice I am still fumbling with things.

Having said all that, she has been shining at the obedience club and we passed our last test with room to spare. But we are talking pet dog training and I am expecting slightly more polish.

So please don't get me wrong. . . . I am really enjoying working with her, it's a whole new experience but the fact is that I got her half started in Croatian and I have to unravel that as well as a new method of training.

BFN

Jolanda

Oh and PS

I just ordered Balabanov's basic DVD and book set to get me started. You can 'borrow' DVDs on line but I so far haven't been able to get the sample to work. Maybe the fact that mine is an Apple Mac has something to do with it. . . . Either way, I was keen to learn about how you play with the ball in drive.

Cheers

Jolanda

Have you tried without a toy reward at all? Just verbal praise.
You really need to cap that drive.
A dog at our sch club gets so worked up with a toy in obedience just like you have described. The toy was taken out and the dog was almost perfect. These working gsds will just work for the handler.

If the dog won't work for verbal praise you may have to up to a food reward. It won't cause the dog to go into overdrive but you can still mark the desired behavior with a reward while the dog is calmer.

Hi Jolanda

The Croation commands she has learned could be a problem and guess that ideally she needs to be retrained in english for simplicity?. We did a lot of tennis ball work with Bronson outside of the Balabanov system when he was teething recommended by Brad Griggs trainer and owner of Bronson's dad (Erger) so we didn't compromise his bite on tugs from a sore mouth during that period, but no, he doesn't loose focus on the game, he gets more intense and faster with drive building and teasing, we more had to stop him biting hands and arms trying to snatch the ball, same with food, focus and retrieve wasn't anything we had to deal with to build up, but having said that, chasing the ball, bringing it back, outing then having it thrown to chase it again was a game he enjoyed and would do repetitively as a puppy and flop down ball in mouth when he had tried himself out. As he matured, he would launch himself at you to get the ball and the high pitched prey bark by 10/11 months old started to turn into dominance and aggression, like "we are playing ball NOW", he would ramp up and have you in a bark and hold almost, slamming his teeth together and spit flying all over the place with a real shitty on if you wouldn't play ball "THERE and THEN" holding the ball out of his reach beyond that, he would bite you for it..............so we used that drive intensity to get obedience when he was young and silly.

What I did was get the ball out and he would go nuts, yipping and yapping and bouncing around and would I command a sit in a dominant fashion, he would sit and then I would release him with OK and give him the ball (reward). He would run around a bit with his prize, then I would call him to me and command "out", then do the sit and release him to have the ball, over and over again increasing the time in the sit, until now I can hold him in a sit or down and walk 50 metres away with the ball and recall him to a frontal sit with eye contact, then he gets the ball.

Drive training I guess is using the drive to get obedience from a dog who would be otherwise out of control. To me it's the training system that makes high drive dogs easy to handle and can be adapted to anything the dog has value for on the basis, give me the behaviour "I" want, then you can have your reward, but it's done when the dog is at it's highest drive levels, with food only, the dog is often passed the point of interest and doesn't work.

Originally Posted by Jonathon Howard

Have you tried without a toy reward at all? Just verbal praise.
You really need to cap that drive.
A dog at our sch club gets so worked up with a toy in obedience just like you have described. The toy was taken out and the dog was almost perfect. These working gsds will just work for the handler.

If the dog won't work for verbal praise you may have to up to a food reward. It won't cause the dog to go into overdrive but you can still mark the desired behavior with a reward while the dog is calmer.

My dog has high intensity for the ball like it's the only thing on earth at the time, NOTHING gets his mind off it in drive, as Jolanda said her dog looses interest and will look for something else to do, perhaps her dog didn't have as much drive building with the ball as mine did as a puppy? Mine was the opposite on field with a toy reward he is fast and accurate, with verbal reward he was slower and a bit sloppy and have had to wean him off the toy reward and work for praise which I am in the process of now.Attachment 0D7000 017 (Small).jpg

Thank you for your help and suggestions.
Johnathon; you are correct and I have gone back to using food for the more sedate exercises such as the stays and the stand. But heeling is one of those exercises that you need a high level of accuracy and focus. The downs and the sits also need to be fast and reliable (not half cocked in case you get the ball. . . .)

Ann-Marie, I don't have sufficient privileges to open those links

I can see that I need to establish some rules in relation to the reward itself! I think I will do some work with the ball and a simple command and go from there. BTW, Kira does know the commands heel, sit, down, stay and now stand but I haven't worked out a suitable release command. What do you use?? Also, as far as returning with the ball, should I really go and get the ball off her or should she bring it to me??