Sit/Stay/Play

This evening's walk was rather interesting. First we were in a big field. I found a stick that the human promptly conscripted into use as a training tool. I was on a 12 foot long leash and he'd ask me to sit and stay. He was so mean. He dangled the stick at me. He threw the stick off into the distance. He walked in a 12 foot circle around me. The whole time he expected me to sit in once place. Talk about difficult! I wanted that stick. The human was using the Premack principle again: if one wants to perform a given activity play with the stick) one will perform a less desirable activity (sit/stay) in order to get at the more desirable activity.

While we were doing this an older couple came up and talked to Jason. They whispered in his ear that there is a neighbor nearby that doesn't like dogs off leashes (he somehow must have missed the 12 foot leash) and that the neighbor takes pictures of dogs without leashes and their humans and turns it into the police.

That's not very nice. I wonder how we might use the Premack principle on that neighbor?

After some time spent doing that, we practiced some loose leash walking in preparation of my upcoming evaluation to be a therapy dog for the Delta Society. As an added bonus, we got to practice walking on a loose leash past other dogs. In my therapy dog test I'll have to pass by a "neutral" dog. We'll assume that dog isn't going to lunge at us or otherwise try to engage with us. While we were out on the road we got chased after a shar-pei that had escaped from his house and then two pit bulls who were very eager to play with me. How'd the human keep me focused on loose leash walking?

The Premack principle of course. That stick, with all it's magical powers, immediately appeared in front of my nose. The human said "watch me" and I did--and watched the stick, and watched him, and watched the stick some more.... It also helped that after a couple of the "watch me" commands little tasty bites of food appeared right in front of my nose too.

So let's break this down: the human used rewards (the food) when I kept my attention focused on him and not the other dogs. He also layered on top of that the Premack principle: playing with the stick is a super desirable reward for me. I'm willing to forego playing with other dogs (sometimes) if there is the promise of some sticks in my near future.

Here is a clip from a couple of days ago. We were at a local tennis court practicing down/stay. Rather than using a stick we used my favorite rope toy. By the time the human took the video I was already exhausted so I had to debate awhile whether staying down was more enjoyable than running for the rope.

Try out the Premack principle with your dog. You'll be surprised at how quickly you'll see things change.

Sit, Stay, and Other Feats of the Therapy Dog

As many of you know, one important task of any well mannered therapy dog is an ability to sit and stay. This comes easy for many dogs. It's comfortable to sit, for example. Additionally, many of us discoverer than when we sit, good things happen like treats appear or we get a toy. That's pretty cool.

Others find this task a little more difficult. Being part basset hound, I have a mind of my own. I give my best effort, most of the time. Even when I don't want to I will give a begrudging hover over the ground giving the illusion of sitting. Still, there are times when I'm just going to ignore the request. Why? Because I feel like doing something else. My history is replete with ancestors who were selected for thinking on their own. I follow scents. I make choices about what is interesting and then follow those choices with my nose.

The problem is mostly with this test I'm taking. To become a registered therapy dog, I have to demonstrate a good sit/stay (in addition, there is the talent competition and the swimsuit competition, I'll talk about that later). More then the test, being able to sit/stay is a useful thing. It makes shopping at the pet store easier on the humans. It makes people more interested in saying hello to me when I can sit/stay and wag my tail (though I think it's much more interesting to climb up on their shoulders and provide copious kisses).

What's a frustrated human to do? Real world training. I'm nearly 100 percent compliant with a request to sit/stay in situations where there are few distractions. Add in something more interesting and your results might vary.

The other day while on a walk along the river we stumbled upon an ideal situation for some real-life practice. Two birds and their babies were enjoying some shade. I wanted to sniff, investigate, and perhaps heard them into the river. I actually did get to do that with another family of geese. Here is a view of my handiwork. They do not look nearly as amused as I was. The more they yelled at me the more I decided that herding them into the river was the right thing to do. It's not very nice that they complain after I encouraged them to take a refreshing swim.

I'm digressing, however. You see, I got to do something fun and rewarding (herd the geese) and then the human asked me to do something for him.

The idea here is to have an opportunity to practice a sit/stay with a lot of distraction. Those of you who following along here know that I've practiced this in lots of interesting places like the subway station, at the river, and just about everywhere I go.

It's takes a lot of patience. There is a lot of stopping and starting. Try rewarding your pup when they sit down for just a second. If they sit for two seconds, add in the word stay. Build it up longer and longer and before you know it, your dog can sit/stay like I did in with these geese. I sat for a full minute before the human said "okay" which is my cue to get back up and do whatever it is I'd like to do. In this case, I nudged the family into the water for a refreshing dip.

Remember the premack principle: a more probable behavior will reinforce a less probable behavior. In this case, I'm much more likely to herd geese. The human "reverse engineered" this over time so that I get rewarded for a sit/stay by getting to later chase geese.