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He simply won't calm down for new or infrequent visitors!
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15-12-2014 4:48pm#1
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angeldaisy wrote: »Elly is the same, it drives me mental! Everytime she sees me after I've been out, away or in another room she jumps all over me. Usually nipping at anything and everything she can grab!!
We get very few visitors here, so am trying to work on it ourselves.
I can manage it when she's been outside as I've discovered she doesn't like our dog towel. So I hold it up against me to stop her jumping and then reward her. But I can't walk round holding a smelly dog towel all the time!
Opie will literally do backflips on request if I'm holding the clicker, and I try to get my OH to use it as well (he's extremely impatient as he was so used to the impeccably-trained Shadow, which he never saw as a 6-month old collie pup
). If he even hears the keyring part jingle when I put my hand in my pocket, he sticks his arse to the floor and will stay sitting for anything up to 5 minutes. But that only seems to be the case for me. For Pierce it can be 3 or 4 tries before he will stay sitting, and for anyone else - not at all. I'm hoping to continue working on it until he gets neutered and see if the lack of raging hormones might chill him out a bit and make him less distracted. 0 -
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We have the opposite problem, sort of. The only visitor who comes by regularly is my neighbour, who usually brings her dog, and she loves both of them. But yesterday my brother-in-law and his 2 daughters (3 and 4) came by, and she was scared of him as he is genormous, about 6'6", and more than half as wide! And also nervous of the kids, as they aren't as predictable as my sister's, don't seem to get the concept of "move back a bit", or "give the dog some space", and just generally don't seem to have the sort of empathy for animals that the twins have. She "got" that immediately, and just can not even begin to relax around them, the way she is starting to around the twins.
When she is out and about, she is thrilled to meet new people, although I'm not sure how she is with enormous ones, as we have a shortage of them in my day-to-day life! Hubby is only 5'10", and wiry! I had to teach her sit calmly beside me when we meet people in neutral locations, especially outdoor or spacious ones, as she used to absolutely throw herself at them otherwise. I was never punitive or aversive about it, just that's what we did in a calm, happy manner. But I wonder have I made her unsure about meeting new people indoors, or was this always just a threatening situation to her?
She was always inclined to pee when greeted by other people, and I have worked on this, not allowing them to do so straight away when she meets them, getting her to sit and calm down, and never allowing them to pat her on the head. And she has improved a lot, but still will get fits where it is tending to happen. Wondering does anyone have further advice about either problem, apart from what we're doing already?
My dad is a bit taller than hubby, and much wider, and he managed to handle meeting her, under my instruction, over at theirs last weekend without any leakage, even though he isn't great with dogs. But brother-in-law has never liked taking advice on anything, so he jumped a bit ahead of my instructions, and she wouldn't trust him after that!
Nyssa really does like to see people following the instructions, I notice. An amusing coincidence, seeing as she looks a bit like a Lego dog :P
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Sorry if it seems I'm being pedantic here! But can you describe at what stage in the sequence of events are people using the clicker?
So, people arrive, Opie runs up to greet them, they/you ask him to sit/get his ball, he may or may not do it. Where does the clicker get clicked in this chain of events?
Not at all! People come to the door and if he is off-lead, he usually runs (and has his front paws levitated for impact ) at whoever it is and as soon as he is within jumping distance, he is told to sit or get his ball. If it is me coming in the door, he drops instantly and gets his ball so for people he sees regularly, it's extremely effective. If I am here and someone else is visiting, I usually give them the clicker or I will call him and let him see it. If there is no-one there and he sees it, he will come and sit without being asked 
But he will continue to jump and lick furiously at anyone other than myself and my partner. Maybe the clicker is coming in at the wrong time?Sorry about cutting in on your thread, just a question about Nyssa's fearful behaviours - might it be helpful to give her Mimulous at times when the triggers are likely to happen? And also, to bring it back on topic, might there be any such remedy that could help with Opie's troubles? Like just Rescue Remedy, or is there something that is more effective than that for over-excitement?
I hadn't thought of this, and since I know this kind of stuff is meant to be used in conjunction with training, it would be some kind of perfect! I always know exactly when a trigger will occur, as my in-laws are the only people who visit here and we see the car long before they get to the door (we live in a very busy estate so Opie hasn't realised the difference in a car outside our house or a car next door). We always have 45 minutes notice before they call as well, so something to calm him and make him more receptive to commands he is already very familiar with would be great!!!0 -
ShaShaBear wrote: »Maybe the clicker is coming in at the wrong time?
Okay, here goes.
I'm taking it from what you've said that the clicker is visible to Opie, and always has been? I say this because you say as soon as he sees it, he does what you want him to do.
This is why I don't like the clicker being visible to the dog during training, because as the saying goes, if you allow him to see it (many, many people point the clicker towards the dog before clicking it, as if it's a remote control... this is not good), then it "becomes part of the cue"... in other words, if the clicker is suddenly not visible to the dog before you ask him to do something, the cue is incomplete, reducing the chances of the dog recognising the cue in the way you had intended it.
Can I just check that the clicker was introduced properly to him in the first place?
To intro it, you keep a bowl of treats near you, I usually keep them out of sight of the dog.
With the clicker behind your back or in your pocket, you click it, then reach for a piece of food to give the dog. The treat should not be waved in front of the dog prior to the clicker being clicked.
So, it's: click> reach for treat> give treat> repeat a number of times (10-20 clicks in the intro session is usually enough to create the necessary conditioning that click = food)
Once the above "charging" is done, then the clicker is ever after used as a marker for behaviours you like. So, when teaching the sit, the dog is for example lured into the sit position using a treat. As soon as his butt hits the floor, the clicker whilst held in the pocket or behind your back is clicked. Or you can invest in a ring-clicker (thanks for the tip tk123 :P)
If he does not sit, the click simply does not happen.
So, when Opie comes running to you, the sequence should be (in the early stages): Opie approaches you, you ask him to sit. He sits. You click (clicker out of sight). You treat him.
But if Opie approaches, and you ask him to sit, but he does not sit, you do not click.
In fact, I would be inclined to start using a very clear "non-reward marker" to let him know he's going to lose out if he jumps up, or even when he does that pre-jump up levitation! I would be inclined to not encourage the jumping up behaviour at the very early stages of its appearance, and it looks like the levitation is his prelude to jumping up? Would that be right?
By a non-reward marker (NRM), I mean a very clear verbal and visual signal that tells him "keep that up, and you lose out". A verbal NRM might be "uh uh!", or "No!", or the americanism I see being used by a lot of trainers... "too bad!", complete with american accent. *ahem*
The visual signals are usually more powerful because dogs are far more responsive to visual cues than verbal ones (hence the problem you're having that you have to show him the clicker prior to him doing stuff). So, make these very clear: stand bold upright, looking staright ahead, arms across chest. Turning your back is also a strong NRM. However, young dogs can still jump on you when you do these things, so they MUST learn that these visual signals are a prelude to something kinda bad happening.
And by "kinda bad", I mean that the greeting he was anticipating will not happen, and worse, the human he was expecting to greet disappears.
Thisis why practising this near a door is very useful. If when you tell him no, and you give the visual signals, and he still levitates and or/jumps up, you immediately leave the room, closing the door behind you.
If you just stand there and ignore him, he's still getting a buzz out of jumping up on you, and this is reinforcing the behaviour. But the buzz disappears once the human disappears, and it is a really effective punishment. You can come back in a few moments later and repeat the sequence. Levitating and jumping up must never, ever again be reinforced, unwittingly or otherwise.
Remember through all of this, if he sits, he gets the click and the reward... it is vital to always give the dog a choice: behave like an idiot and lose out, behave like a polite dog and get lots of nice stuff. But putting yourself in a position to take yourself away from his excesses, using the door, is really important.
Whilst he might be reasonably good for you, I think you can also do some work yourself to get him used to novelty at the door. Once he is reliably sitting for you, and I mean sitting without any levitating beforehand, then you can gradually prolong the duration between him sitting, and the click happening. Once you've duration built in, you can start to build in distraction, coming in the door with a bit more of a flourish, making more noise, making odd movements.. until eventually you're almost inviting him to jump up on you, but he's at the stage that his self-control has improved so much that he knows that people doing weird, exciting stuff = sit = click = treat.
One thing that the clicker is definitely not meant to be used for, and I've seen it a lot, is that people use it to attract the dog's attention without the dog actually doing anything... for instance, people charge the clicker as above, then after that start to use it if, for example, the dog doesn't listen to them when they call him... they click to make the dog come to them... rather than getting the dog to come to them in order to receive a click, if you see the difference! The former is not clicker training, the latter is.0 -
and she was scared of him as he is genormous, about 6'6", and more than half as wide!
She was always inclined to pee when greeted by other people,
I think you need to encourage people to get down on their hunkers to greet her: especially taller people. The trick is to get down on the hunkers, and turn to one side so that you-re presenting a minimal body-size to the dog, and the hunkered position tends to be very attractive to dogs, they can't help but investigate. The person can offer her a few really high-value treats, and start to put her on her chest and chin, gradually moving their hand up over her head.
Once she has this initial intro done, the person can gently unfurl themselves.
As for strange kids, I think having the dog trained to sit, and maybe give the paw or do something amusing is a great intro to kids, and means the whole thing happens under control. If she is sitting and polite, then the kids can offer her those really high value rewards, thus helping to change how she feels about them. I would put her away if the kids are not playing ball with your training and potentially doing harm by getting in her face too much. She's better having no experience than a bad experience.
But I would urge you to beg, borrow and steal children so that you can practise this with her... there's nowt worse than a dog who is leery around children, and now is the time to address it asap.might it be helpful to give her Mimulous at times when the triggers are likely to happen? And also, to bring it back on topic, might there be any such remedy that could help with Opie's troubles? Like just Rescue Remedy, or is there something that is more effective than that for over-excitement?
In the absence of any compelling evidence, I personally have no faith whatsoever in the flower remedies
They can do no harm, but quite frankly I've never observed any improvement in a dog from using them! 0 -
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angeldaisy wrote: »DBB thanks for the brilliantly simple guidelines on clicker training. Makes a lot more sense than what I had been reading!! this is our goal over christmas!
Oh! Good! I do think it's such a simple concept, but jeez, it can be difficult enough to explain!
I think it's a good idea to practise clicker training a human before your dog
It means you can get feedback from the human about your timing, and whether you're actually telling your human/dog what you think you're telling them.
So, for example, decide a task you're going to teach your OH without telling them what the task is... nothing horribly complicated. Maybe putting a hand on their head? Touching their nose with their finger? Reaching out to touch you?
All you can tell them is that the click means that they've done a part of the sequence right, that they're heading int he right direction. It's like a game of Hot/Cold: the clicker tells them they're getting warmer, whilst no click tells them they're cold.
They will move around, searching for something that works, something that makes you click. Eventually, they will make a movement that's something like what you're looking for. Click it.
e.g. say you're teaching them to touch their head. If their hand moves upwards at all, click it. They will repeat that behaviour. Click it again. Once they show they know it's a rising hand that you're clicking (they will keep doing it), then you start to withhold the click until they raise their hand a little higher... click this slightly improved version.
And so on, until they are touching their head.
Then you can ask them what it felt like, how quickly did they realise what it was you wanted, how they felt about not succeeding, and can tell you if something you did made them feel confused.
You don't have the luxury of this feedback with your dog, but it can give you some valuable insight into how a dog might feel when we're trying to teach him something new!0 -
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