Mine all mine and 'on the ball' (with some footage now)

My Mum came for something to eat last weekend bringing Scout, her collie. Our toybox is pretty much first thing on his mind when he comes in. Henry, Pop and Nellie have all enjoyed the numerous nylabones (varied flavours and sizes), kongs, assorted indestructable (haha) rubber items including blue bally and red handled thing....Nellie and Pop would play tug with the latter as did Henry and Pop. Archie has never been into any of them particularly. Nellie isn't really that bothered now either, without Pop to tug with or vie with over the 'best' nyly (ie the one the other had...) Until Scout turns up that is. He merrily flings the toys in different directions and while his back is turned looking for the next she sneaks in and nicks them, taking them off to the living room mat and making it very clear that THEY ARE HERS. OK?



On the heath in more sunshine one afternoon earlier last week:

Apart from one I took on the stile last week but didn't publish these are the first pictures I have taken of my dogs on their own since Pop died. Took me a while before I could take some of the three of them after Henry died. It just reminds me that they are gone when I look at the picture so I don't take them. It just feels very sad. On Saturday it was 2 months since she died.



Sent this one to Iain as he was away a few days for work. Haven't sent a picture attachment before (my old phone I'd had for what felt like centuries - well about 5-6years - was too prehistoric to bother trying and of course I'd argued many times that such facilities were a waste of time but I have eaten my words. It was a nice thing to send a picture to him.)



Here's a trick I have been working on since a little before Christmas in my usual way - sporadically!

These first three pics are Nellie responding to my 'sit' command while I get myself sorted to get pics of her doing 'on the ball'. Bless her, she decides to offer other things that may get a click while she waits for the OK release but she is still sitting!! So before I say the 'OK' I got some pictures of her looking too cute.









In the next pictures Nellie demonstrates her ball skills....She motors up and down the kitchen like a demon. Not as fast as she skateboards but then that really only goes forward or backwards. With an occasional flip! A ball goes everywhere. She really has to be able to multi-task to keep it moving forward in a straight line..I compare it to us tapping our head while rubbing our tummy while hopping on one foot.....I was teaching Pop this one too before we discovered her toe and she was really getting the hang of it. I was really pleased with how dexterous she was. She started off less confident but she then caught up with Nellie quite suddenly. Archie is becoming more confident and is starting to push the ball by himself without any gentle resistance help or food lure. Couldn't get far enough back from him doing it to take pictures just yet.

Nellie sees the ball as her cue to interact with it, same as the plastic box, the mat, the skateboard and various other items we use to play these balance games. I do think we can be too keen to put words onto behaviours way too early in the shaping process. I used to be too. Although I call it 'on the ball' as far as Nellie is concerned it is just 'see the ball, I get clicked and treated for pushing it about..' For a long time now I have been more keen to get the behaviour really strong through making it highly rewarded/re-enforced ('building value' I think is what some call it)and then proofing it out in different places with different things going on, BEFORE I start to put the word (that will become the 'verbal cue', or name of the action) in place.

I have found that if you put behaviours on a verbal cue too early the dog may learn to do the behaviour slowly (ie in the more tentative learning stage at the start) or form an unwanted behaviour within the whole behaviour that more careful tweaking of the learning process in a later stage of the shaping will iron out. I don't put a verbal cue even to a 'down' until quite some way in to the process ie when I'm stood up and the 'down' hand signal is working alone. Otherwise you can end up with a slow down. Just my view! I have a hard job convincing those who come to my pet obedience of this. Like most humans they find words too reassuring and forget that for dogs it is about association. Once I have what I want is when I want to put a name to it. Up til then I am reliant on how well I can create the value/reinforcement in the item being interacted with itself (ball for example) or in the shaped behaviour that is not reliant on an item (doing a high five or a down for example). Sometimes I will use a hand signal that may or may not come from using food to lure a behaviour at the start.

For anyone who might be interested in teaching this and maybe isn't sure how they could start or didn't have anyone to chew ideas over with.....here is a guide to how I have. I am sure there are other ways but this has worked or is working for me with three dogs.

The clicker is in my hand while holding the ball. I have a pile of treats on a lid next to me on the floor so that I can have one qucikly in my hand as soon as the last one has been either fed direct (very early stage with all of them but the girls had the treats thrown ver soon after we started. I have taught both of them elephant on a stool that is a bit lower than the ball height and all of my dogs could skateboard to a greater or lesser extent so already they had an understanding about putting paws on 'things') or after the previous treat has been thrown. If you are fumbling around for another treat you miss the opportunity for a quick repeat of the behaviour or the dog repeats the behaviour, you click and then take too long to give the treat so you have missed an opportunity to reward and reinforce the exact behaviour you marked with the clicker.



Ball skills began with my dogs with me creating resistance (holding the ball with one hand while on my knees on the floor!)with the ball so that all they had to do first was find putting both paws on it rewarding (at this stage a food lure in my hand helped with all of them initially though I faded it very quickly with the girls and less quickly with Arch as he had less physical confidence with the ball). However, not so quick that the girls weren't sure what I wanted, but quick enough that the lure didn't influence the behaviour incorrectly (that is, make the dog only able to do it if my hand was in front of their face). I wanted them to be able to act independently on the ball by the endof the process and not need me or food to do it. So I was careful to build independence in as I developed their learning.



I threw the treats away from me but still near the ball. It did not come from my hand. As they found this stage really rewarding and wanted to repeat doing it, I gradually allowed the ball to move slightly forward though not sideways yet. I let them learn that moving their back feet while keeping their front toes balanced on the ball was a good thing to try to do (ie if they showed any small sign of doing this I clicked and treated) and so gradually they did more of that until they were quite competent and began to move the ball forward a little themselves. Which of course I clicked and treated.



(Little Archie waits for his turn. They have all been taught to do this in a line up in the room we are doing stuff in even when all four were with me. I started to work on this aspect of their training back when I just had the two boys and had managed to make some progress with Arch's general training. This was before agility began for us(2002?),so bringing Pop to that level and then Nellie seemed like a good idea when each of them came along. Regular treats for 'wait' reinforced it. But I needed good 'waits' first. And no I have never even looked at a copy of 'Crate Games'though I am led to understand that these are the sorts of things people can learn to teach from it??)

Back to 'on the ball'. I with-held the click for tiny increments of distance as and when I felt they were capable of moving it further distances while maintaining their balance and control. This was to ensure I didn't ask for too much too soon in their early shaping stage. Once they were doing this more confidently I began to let them move the ball slightly side to side and as they did this I clicked.



Then eventually I made controlling the ball in all directions (though in tiny distances) very rewarded. As this stage became more 'valued' ie they were rewarded a lot and were obviously keen to get on the ball as soon as they saw it, I let them have even more control. Before Pop died I knew in my heart of hearts we were going to lose her but I let her do tiny bits of this trick as well as skateboarding and the wobble board. If it had made a difference to her survival I wouldn't have, but like everything else we did, it was about making sure she enjoyed her last days as she had enjoyed her life with us. She really wanted to do stuff with mom and took particular enjoyment in these games. I didn't get any pictures though as we hadn't got to stage Nellie has got to and no video clip either.



Pop was beginning to move the ball around without me nearby and starting to wheel it away from me as Nellie does. I get this stage as soon as they are independent on the ball by clicking for interaction with the ball that takes the ball in the opposite direction from me. At first this happens randomly but enough reinforcements of it as well as ensuring the treat is thrown in front of the dog as they are clicked really makes it clear to them.



In all these pictures Nellie demonstrates her ability to work the ball independently. She can turn it with two paws on the ball and get it out of corners and off walls. She can manoeuvre it towards and away from me. She's definitely got it. Archie is a bit further back but he'll get there too.



I would never teach this behaviour to very young dogs or pups as it is a hard one to do requiring as it does a lot of strength and balance skills which should have been developed more gradually with gentle progression. Nor would I teach it to older dogs that have little muscle strength or that are overweight. Or ones that are recovering from recent injury. There are again much gentler ways to teach or develop balance. Dogs need highly developed balance skills before learning 'on the ball'. It is asking too much otherwise to do something this hard with them.

Archie is nearly 10 (in May!) but he likes to learn things and it does him good to keep finding ways to keep him balanced and strong in his soft tissue. Pop was 7. Henry learned to skateboard at 9! And Nellie will be 4 in April.

But all four of them were or are incredibly fit and strong with excellent proprioception skills built up over time through other behaviours and walks in very varied terrains. So even Archie can learn this one despite his age.

Balance and proprioception skills are not just for young or adolescent puppies. I think they are for life.

Here's a little bit of footage. My ineptness with technology revealed itself again today. Went to take a picture of Nellie on the ball this morning and must have accidentally touched the video option that I hadn't yet noticed. Couldn't understand why there was suddenly a red dot on the camera shutter button and it made a different noise when I pressed it...Several video clips of the kitchen work surface later (!) I realised what I'd done. So finally I 'work out' how to take video clips with my iphone.......and upload them to youtube....Sad or what?

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This clip shows that there is a lot more I can do to improve her skills. She does well to turn but she doesn't maintain her hold on the ball. So I need to shape this a bit more with some micro-shaping on how she controls it as she comes out of turns.

There's more to do on maintaining the straight trajectory when she is coming towards me too - she's keen to see if I am going to click (even though I keep my iclick very firmly hidden in my hand she is looking to see any thumb movement..) so she looks up and 'takes her eye off the ball' as it were, which means she heads towards the cupboard. This is my fault too. If I hadn't been so busy doing the filming I should have clicked her while she was still concentrating on and successfully holding the forward line she was travelling on before this happened and while she was still getting the balance right. But because I was filming it, I with-held the click too long so got some 'undesired' behaviour. It doesn't matter. I can iron it out. If anything it helps me see how she is learning and how I need to to tighten up where I put in my reinforcements in order to keep her learning of the behaviour progressing the way I'd like it too.

I may never get it as perfect as it could be but we can enjoy the process and enjoy thinking and working through that process, taking heed of the small things within it that add up to the bigger picture.

This is one of the reasons why I like to work at teaching behaviours sporadically with different ones on the go all the time. Gives me time to think about how a behaviour is progressing before I have accidentally built in too many things that would be really hard to unlearn. Can't say I am always successful in this endeavour but I'm better than I used to be.

Nevertheless, no more vid clips for a while ...

Notice the emphasis is on me to teach and shape it effectively, not on her to work it out.

*No 'feeding from the hand' aka 'learn to earn' practices have been used to teach this skill or any others my dogs have learned in or out of agility. In case you've missed me on this subject before - I hate it. I really do consider it an admission of failure to create the right bond of fun and trust with a dog. Too often the dog is labelled as 'difficult' or 'stubborn' as a result but if you are an experienced owner who has had the dog since puphood and it won't interact or work with you unless you are with-holding its meals (ie it is so hungry it is desperate to please you) then you've gone wrong somewhere - why should the dog pay for that? Or it is a failure to understand how to break down a behaviour for a dog. Just with-holding the dog's food unless it 'works a behaviour out' that hasn't been carefully shaped and reinforced positively and thoughtfully is to my mind cruel.

I do however recommend this practice in three circumstances: with young pups who need a lot of re-inforcement and who need lots of small meals but who fill up very quickly I tell people to use some of the meal kibble or food to teach some of the things they are working on and just reduce the amount they have in their three meals a day OR if someone has a rescue dog that they need to do a lot of intensive interaction with I suggest this for a brief time particulary if the dog has resource issues OR if someone who is either very inexperienced or has personal problems that mean they have not been on top of aspects of training and they hit a crisis with their adolescent dog (very often this is when they contact someone who might be able to help them) and need to get back on the dog's radar. I have never used the practice with any of mine despite Henry's 'behaviour report card' when I got him at 14 months. As with Pop (also rescue) we just did things together and I made sure doing them was FUN and I don't think anything was missing in our bond or in our successes together. However, I perhaps wish I had known about it when Arch hit his adolescence. It would have helped me get back on track with him sooner. Even then, almost ten years ago, I would still have seen it as an admission of failure but I got him in the throes of depression and most definitely did not have the right frame of mind for such a teenage terriorist. This wasn't his fault - it was entirely mine. Still we got through our troubles together without it in the end, by sheer bloody will power ('I will pull myself through this') , some hard learned lessons (Mine. Ones that I have shared repeatedly and helped others from having learned) and eventually, more formal dog training culminating in agility! I am proud of the bond he and I have. But I am aware that not everyone has the patience or the ability to push themselves that hard. So I will recommend 'feeding from the hand' to those who have bitten off more than they can chew and who acknowledge they have 'gone wrong' but who can't get back on track with the dog the way I managed to.