Fun fun fun

we had an interesting day today. I did a little bit of work with Peepers between the 2 perches. I remembered to close the blinds, but that did help with his discomfort with going to the red perch. I am not certain what this was about, but we worked through it, and I will be sleeping on it and figuring out what I need to change to make Peepers more comfortable with the exercises. That video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYWJH5-8pUw

Sparky did another session of 101 things, and since I had a rough time keeping her attention yesterday, I set the timer and accepted just her moving the block towards her with her beak. It doesn't feel like a new behavior, but I think I need to be careful with this that I don't lose her interest before I can get the thinking portion of this down. I set the timer for 4 minutes, and that was a little bit ambitious. She was done at about 3:30 or so, but she did do more in that time than she did yesterday. So, I think I am on the right track with her. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX1RO2tNbCg

Then the fun got started. My BF wanted to go get lunch, so I thought it would be a good idea to take Peepers with us to practice easy little behaviors in his carrier. So I pulled out the cage from yesterday's training, and Peepers immediately flew to the island and climbed in. We headed to Bostin Market, and when we got there, Peepers was off and running, targeting and waving like a little professional. I couldn't keep him busy with those through the entire lunch, so we also started a new behavior of dancing, which got him really going. Our finale was a duet of the Andy Griffith tune (remix), done loud and proud LOL. He was aware of his surroundings (we had a pause when one of the kids went to the dumpster about 50 feet away), but he was really focused and seemed to have a good time.

This is starting to get really fun. Sparky's getting into the whole training thing, and Peepers is starting to do fun stuff. I finally bought the PVC for a frame for the hoops and also some PVC for a pole to send Peepers out and round. And I have a harness to start working towards training for. Fun fun stuff.

Fun with the birds

Well today was busy for the birds. Peepers had 2 sessions with new behaviors, and Sparky had one. The dogs, of course, did nothing so far :(.

The first session with Peepers I worked with the red and sisal perch on sends and recalls, and a couple of reps from perch to perch. I think I need to close the blinds for him in future sessions, but he was still a total rock star. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gfcc_1xO2ic

Then I decided to work with Sparky on her own, and I think she needs to learn to think and do, so I did 101 things with her. I had had to start woth just hanging out on the kitchen island, which was done earlier in the day. We got to touching the block with her beak. I messed up this session, because I tried to make it too long for her attention span. She quit, and didn't come back for one last time :(. I'll be sure to shorten the session next time, but she did a great job. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jDavtVwi0Y

AND, now Peepers is getting to work on "ship it", which is getting into a carrier on cue. He had seen and been in this carrier, but it was well over a year ago, and he hadn't even set eyes on it since. I taped this, and in the tape, you can't see that the sides of the carrier have flaps in the cloth that are open, so he's not going into a closed up cave. But, Peepers was a star and was climbing in and out of the carrier by the end of the 8 minute session. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6hm5NNEhRQ

While I was typing this, Peepers went back to the carrier and got right in. Joe got him an almond and I took it as a reminder to make sure I remove all the training stuff from the area. I want to be sure to reinforce every repetition and make sure nothing goes horribly wrong with the stuff I am training.

going backwards...

hey, today Dempsey's session was a bit of a disaster. I had to move the poles over a little bit because he was digging into the ground so much as he pushed through the last pole, he was digging a hole at the exit. We went out after I did that, and he pretty much said he couldn't do the poles at all. We worked through it, but after I got a couple of successes, I quit so he could end on a positive note, and before he got too tired.

Shortly after that I let all the dogs out and Dempsey went to his private potty area, so maybe he needed to go while we were training. Dunno, so maybe I'll head back out later and see how he does. I just don't want to push him too hard if he's having a rough time.

Did session #5 with Peepers, and 1o1 things (It's downloading now to youtube). This time he picked the block up with his beak, took it with his foot, then back to his beak. I thought that seemed different enough, so that became the behavior I clicked. I really am just about done with this, although I could come back to it, when both of us are more used to thinking of and offering novel behaviors in other settings. I am sure that there are some behaviors he could do that don't involve his beak or feet, but right now neither one of us is really thinking about those. And I think that there must be a dimension to his thought process that would benefit from going outside our current box. But I get bored with this game, so I need to do other things. I'm thinking of working on recall next, and maybe sends. I'll either use a chair back, or some perches I made for this a while back.

Sparky was excited about the idea of training, so I took a wooden spoon over by her, and she immediately targeted to it like a champ. It's time for her to venture off her cage for training, so maybe tomorrow I'll work on that with her.

I still have yet to play with the other dogs, but it's time for dinner, so they'll have to wait until I've eaten :). Bungee's definitely getting a turn, and Dempsey maybe another one.

Things got kind of interesting...

Today was a pretty good day. Dempsey got to have 2 weave pole sessions, and Peepers got one session of 101 things. Both of them made some pretty good progress in their training.

Dempsey just is really getting the idea. Today he went right down the line of 12 poles over and over again, and now he's growling as he enters. i think he's getting the idea that he has to do all 12 poles, and he also thinks it's hard, so he growls as he goes to enter them. I also tried to move some of the poles more upright (#2,3,4,and 5 in stages), and each time, he would try and skip the pole that had changed and reenter at the point where they were the same as before. He worked through it, but I think that I need to be careful how I close the poles, cuz I think that the behavior is a little fragile right now. But I feel a real need to close the poles as quickly as I can. So we'll see how that goes, and how well I balance the 2.

Peepers has session #4 of 101 things today. Since I messed yesterday up, I worked really hard at just letting behavior happen, and clicking something new. Within a very short time Peepers had come up with picking the block up with one foot, taking it with his beak, and putting it in the other foot. That seemed super-clickable to me, so that was the behavior of the day. It was a fairly slow session, in that he didn't do a ton of clickable behaviors, but he was engaged and active. The session was cut a little short when Joe walked in and started talking to me. Peepers got a little offended by the interruption, and we also needed to go, so I didn't try and work through it. I have this video, and you can see at the end one of the day to day behaviors I've trained with him, which is to give things to me. It's a trade, so when he lets me have whatever it is he's playing with I give him something in return, which is usually an almond or a nutriberry. It's a handy behavior, since he's always getting into things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=128YsCZ_Pho

I didn't work with anyone else today, cuz I had to run out. Sparky was only mildly interested in training anyway, so I don't think I really missed a big opportunity there. I do need to add Bungee back into the training mix, he thinks he's just going to DIE if he doesn't get a turn :). Maybe tomorrow...

K, so i am looking at the video of today's session, and really it is a lot of fun. First, Peepers goes thru each of the behaviors that he was reinforced for in each of the previous sessions. Then a quick pause, and then he comes up with his new behavior. This is only 30 seconds or so in. I just love to see that!

More progress than I thought

Well I got back from our trip yesterday, and today got back into training the critters. I was surprised by what was retained. Dempsey got right back into the weave training, and his footwork improved immensely from the 3 day break. I had Joe video it, and it's here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mgvsx2vNZZA. I was so relieved to see that we didn't take a million steps back in training, as I expected.



Peepers did session #3 of 101 things. I kind of messed it up, as I went into it with the idea of reinforcing Peepers picking up the block with his right foot, rather than just reinforcing anything new. He dealt with it ok, and of course I video'd it. He had a moment in the middle of the session where he just stopped doing anything for a bit, I think cuz it's getting a little confusing for him now. We'll see what happens tomorrow. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0vwWucGrRY



I thought today I would give Sparky a go at 101 things, but she decided today that she really didn't want to hang out on the kitchen island where I've been doing the sessions with Peepers. That was a surprise, but I just gave her some almonds for being on the island.

One step forward, 2 steps back

Hey all,





Today was kind of an interesting day with the training. Dempsey seemed to decide that wiggling thru the poles was really hard, and started experimenting with different behaviors to see if he could get the cheese some other way. Happily, Joe taped this session for me, and its here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-SK0Gewtb0 for all to see :). It's a heck of a session, it looks like a little bit of a disaster as far as progress goes, but i suspect he needed to do all those other things just to find out what would happen.





Peepers had session #2 of 101 things today. Today's behavior was picking up the block with his left foot. He had started doing a bit of that yesterday, so today he picked that behavior right away when picking it up with his beak didn't work. He did stop to think for a few seconds in the middle of the session, but this is different than the newbie pause, in that the animals new to the game actually walk away from the object, while in this case Peepers stayed right there, and to me obviously was still fully engaged in the game. I can't get this vid to successfully download, so I'll come back and link it when I finally get it going.





Sparky got to play a bit with the block too. She was very interested in Peeper's training session, but when she saw the block she attacked it. Of course, since she touched it, it was click/treat time :). In real short order, she was touching the block with her beak without all the aggression. I should have taped this one, but I didn't think to turn the camera in her direction to capture this. She's pretty aggressive towards anything strange, so I'm sure I can find something to replicate the situation and film that at some point soon.

All the animals will be getting a break from training for a few days, as I am going to aravaipa canyon this weekend. I expect Dempsay to take a few steps backward with this break, and Peepers to pick it up just like I had never left. I dunno what Sparky will do, she's already surprised me by getting back into the training game so quickly this time around.

Progress!

Today Dempsey started wiggling thru the poles until the last 4, then made a big leap thru the rest. He's really excited with the training - so I guess the weave-a-matics work really well for him. He's also clearly trying to work out his footwork, which I would guess will take a while to really get down.

Peepers and I played 101 things to do with a block today and I filmed it to put on youtube. As soon as I can get it to upload, I'll post it here. I was hoping that he would show what I think is a typical behavior for this game, which looks to me like a pause to think about the situation. I always get a little panicky, thinking that the animal is quitting, but they have always come back stronger from that break, so I think it's worthwhile getting that on film and showing that apause isn't a disaster.

Sparky got to work on targeting to a stick, as I thought she would need some time to remember the training game. In the past, she's attacked the clicker after long intervals between training sessions, so I expected to see that again. Boy was I wrong. Little miss was all over her targeting behavior, and clearly sh's ready to rock and roll with the training game.

Poor Bungee thinks he's being neglected. I didn't train him or the older dogs today, so tomorrow I really need to make sure they at least get a few minutes to work.

Most of my day has been spent trying to get my camcorder to work with my laptop. It looks like the problem is that the cam records in mts format, and the programs I have don't recognize that. So I finally dowloaded a player that recognizes mts files, which gave me the codec so the other programs can see and read them now. I still can't edit them, nor can I save them in a different format. Maybe tomorrow I'll be successful with that aspect of this project, which should help with the youtube part, as I think that also is unhappy with mts files.