Glindy and I went to
The Canine Club for training
this evening. It was an unusually successful night for us, and I
wanted to share the details.
While I always enjoy working with both of the owners, Glindy is
usually a little cautious around Robin because she's such a
high-energy person. Tonight, though, she was so happy to see Robin
you would have thought they'd been best friends forever. She was
actively seeking out attention from Robin, and threw behaviors at
her all night long. It was great!
Tonight, we particularly wanted to work on several new behaviors.
The things we focused on were waving, front, and retrieving
people.
As I've mentioned before, both Glindy and I prefer to avoid tactile
greetings with strangers. So, as a substitute, we're working on
teaching Glindy to wave hello to people. A dog waving at you is
likely to distract from the fact that no one is shaking your hand,
which lets me off the hook nicely. In addition, it allows Glindy to
avoid having her paws handled (as with "shake"), which will make
her happy too.
It only took about five minutes or so for Robin to elicit a paw
wave from Glindy. My timing was a bit less exact; and since I've
also taught Glindy an imperfect paw-touch command, she often got a
bit confused between the two. Still, inside of ten minutes we were
getting a reliable wave from Glindy. After a little more practice,
I plan to put it on a "say hi" cue before taking our new task on
the road.
Next, we worked on "front." I'm not after an obedience-style front
here; what I really need is better maneuvering through doorways,
especially in cases where I'm dragging luggage behind me and it
would be inconvenient to step through together. At present, Glindy
will either go through with me, or go out ahead when I give her the
"go on" command. The new idea here is that Glindy will step through
a doorway ahead of me, then turn around and face me until I'm over
the threshold.
While I haven't really put it on cue yet, I found I could elicit
the behavior I wanted in about two minutes by using my fingertip as
a target. All our previous target work really paid off here. I'll
continue practicing this one, and add the "front" cue and fade the
fingertip targeting once the behavior's a little more solid.
Lastly, but most importantly, we worked on "get Todd." This is a
key behavior which is tied directly to my disability, so mastering
it is a vital step on our road to full service dog status.
I determined that this command would mean "locate Todd, and then
lead him back to the person who issued the cue." I felt that this
entire sequence would be easier to teach than "find Todd," even
though it sounds counter-intuitive since "finding" seems like a
prerequisite to "bringing." My reasoning was that having Glindy go
in search of me without outpacing the person who wanted to do the
finding was a more complex task to teach.
At any rate, we started out slowly, with me only a few feet away.
Robin gave Glindy the "get Todd" cue, and I encouraged Glindy to
come over to me. Then I walked her back over to Robin for praise
and a treat.
It sounds pretty simple, but Glindy was clearly confused the first
few times we tried it. In short order, though, she was coming to
get me at distances of up to 20 feet or so, and eagerly leading me
back to Robin. All three of us were excited that the session was so
successful.
We need lots more practice with "get Todd," but we're definitely
making quick progress. Next time, we're going to add an unambiguous
visual cue, so that Glindy won't go running off to find me without
someone's direct intention. The visual cue I've selected is the
get
symbol from American Sign Language. It's a sign that's pretty
unlikely to occur in casual usage, while still being intuitive and
apropos.
Overall, this was a great night. Glindy had fun, and we both made a
lot of progress. I could use more evenings like this one.