Daily Training

[EverythingEnglishMastiff]

I use "off" for getting off the furniture or bed etc. The hood of the car.... We use "out" for out of the kitchen. They also know "Back up" you're slobbering on me., or back up from crowding the door to open it. I guess I use "place" as stay. But that is only an inside thing we haven't translated place to outside or different places. Roxy's place is actually one of the couches and Hank's place is wherever I move his little red bed. But if I don't put Roxy in her place first and I tell Hank place, Roxy will follow Hank and lay down touching him lol. It's freakin cute.

 

[cj-sharpy]

I think the word used makes little difference, in fact i remember my dad bringing a police dog home (twas the 80's and rules were a bit more lax back then) that was trained in german. Back then the police dogs were trained in germany and imported 90% ready to go to work. That had the added advantage of no way was a bad guy going to scream ANYTHING in German that might sound like a command he knew. I remember being scared stiff of those dogs and for good reason, they were trained that if they stopped fighting they would be beaten senseless, and this made for effective but frankly deranged police dogs. Much better today where holding a bad guy is the game they play to earn rewards. I would have loved to train Max better with the commands you mention.....place etc but unfortunately it was all i could do to train the aggression out of him before he passed

 

[EverythingEnglishMastiff]

I dunno about much better. Maybe as far as moral scope goes and the way one feels about the training is better. Personally(IMO), a dog that will only bite a sleeve that is offered and stops engaging once the sleeve is pulled off is a sport. A dog that will only bite one arm, the first one he gets, and just holds, is more likely to sustain injuries in a real life situation. I prefer a dog that will specifically target the arm that presents the threat. If a weapon is brandished in the left hand, the dog should make initial contact with the left arm being the focus. If the weapon switches hands, so too should the bite. If a dog is not used to taking a blow or 3 or 5 while working. It cannot be relied upon to take the blow and do it's job when it counts. There's a big gap in dogs that are trained for say schutzhund, and true working protection and /or police dogs. The gap between well trained protection dogs and ones that will simply do their jobs on the most basic level is even wider. That's a serious subject, with devout and passionate opinions on opposite sides of the fence. I don't want to turn this thread into a fence fight or something I had not intended to be. /\/\/\/\ I just want this to be a happy go lucky thread of people doing easy, daily stuff with their dogs. A place to share if they like, their own training sessions or to critique constructively others that have decided to share. This isn't meant to be a thread full of perfection. Rather a thread of "normal" everyday people doing "normal" everyday stuff. A place to come for people that may need or want some guidance on the subject of beginning and or daily training. If you DO train your protection dog on the daily with breakfast though, feel free to share LOL =)

 

[sjdavenport]

What a good girl Roxy is! And she is so pretty. Her stay/wait is very nice. I'm pretty sure Rhaegar wouldn't hold his stay if I came stomping up behind him, lol. He'd probably think I'd lost my mind. Here is a video of Rhaegar from this morning. I had some extra time, so we worked on quite a few things. Everyone feel free to comment/make suggestions. None of these are technically things we do daily though.....except for his foot wipes, that we are forced to do daily. He's good for it, but he hates it. Anyone have any tips? I'd love to make it a little bit less like torture for him. Rhaegar used to be a resource guarder (even with his bowl of dog food), so we do the "out" exercise with his food every once in a while, but most days I feel like letting him eat in peace does more good for him than anything else. He always eats that fast whether I'm hovering over him or not, lol. I keep meaning to drop a big rock in his bowl to slow him down. We also worked on the lightswitch again. I watched the Donna Hill video. It was good, but I don't have a light switch set on a stick, lol. I did find him a step stool though. Sometimes I make bad decisions and click him for things that, in retrospect, I'd rather I didn't - like when he uses his paw instead of his nose. He gets easily discouraged, so I kept the criteria low.....and we got a few light switch flips! Woohoo, progress! We also worked on a down on recall. I've never tried this before, so I kept it pretty easy. I just asked him to down in the same spot about 6 or 7 feet from me each time. He did better than I thought he would. I'll work up to asking him to drop different distances from me, then move it to more distracting locations once we have that down. Sorry, I cut most of him off in the video, lol. The last part is us going outside. I wanted to somewhat mimic a normal walk, but he so knew it was a setup, lol. I asked him to stay so I could plant some cookies on the sidewalk, and then we walk towards them. My goal was for him to continue to offer me attention as we move towards the cookies. He was a little distracted by people in their front yards, but he didn't scarf down the cookies, so I'll still count it as a win, lol. He likes to walk just behind me, so you can't even see him half the time. Then we turn around. When he starts to pull ahead a little, we do a little three steps back maneuver to get him back in position and paying attention to me. I was going to continue on a walk, but then I decided I looked too silly walking around with my gopro strapped to me and went back inside, lol. My video and my post turned out a little longer than I intended....And sorry about the foggy camera. The humitidy is particularly oppressive today. [video=youtube;xaPlxHwio4w]https://www.youtube.com/watch?edit=vd&v=xaPlxHwio4w[/video]

 

[sjdavenport]

Also, I didn't choose that awkward shot to be the still for the video preview.....lol.

 

[Hector]

I love Rhaegar videos and he's picking up on flipping the light switch!!

 

[7121548]

Also, I didn't choose that awkward shot to be the still for the video preview.....lol.

Haha that's funny. I love that you're training him to flip the light switch! Your training videos are impressive, and Rhaegar is a smart boy.

 

[JamieHalverson]

I'll get on this train: Here's a video of Lillie on a walk. Initially, it's just a loose leash walk, not looking for a focused heel. Then after the break, we try a focused heel, she's not as focused as I'd like, and trying to record and walk doesn't make it easy to reinforce the focus when I do get it. She does a pretty nice couple about turns, she's not quite sure where she's supposed to be, and if I go to slowly, she wants to sit. All in all, she's coming along very nicely. She DOES NOT like to down... it's like pulling teeth. My phone died there at the end, she does give me a down eventually, and as we continued that day and yesterday with a lot of practice they are coming much faster!Lillie daily walk - YouTube

 

[JamieHalverson]

So I think I finally figured out how to imbed videos.... sheesh

 

[EverythingEnglishMastiff]

:celebrate:

 

[Hector]

Rainy today, but not too bad so we went out for a walk. It's the weekend and raining and the school recently put up a fence so high school kids can't have their weekend car gathering and plus there has been 2 shootings by the school this year. Anyhow we went for a quick stroll and had it all to ourselves and he was sad because it's raining and wet = brat. I think stay is the hardest thing for him. He hates to be away or maybe he hates to be left alone. rain walk = sad - YouTube

 

[sjdavenport]

Rainy today, but not too bad so we went out for a walk. It's the weekend and raining and the school recently put up a fence so high school kids can't have their weekend car gathering and plus there has been 2 shootings by the school this year. Anyhow we went for a quick stroll and had it all to ourselves and he was sad because it's raining and wet = brat. I think stay is the hardest thing for him. He hates to be away or maybe he hates to be left alone. rain walk = sad - YouTube

Lol, aw, poor, sad Hec. He's like "this is it. This is the day she tells me to stay and then leaves me forever in the rainy parking lot." Still a god boy though! And looks spiffy in his coat.

 

[sjdavenport]

I'll get on this train: Here's a video of Lillie on a walk. Initially, it's just a loose leash walk, not looking for a focused heel. Then after the break, we try a focused heel, she's not as focused as I'd like, and trying to record and walk doesn't make it easy to reinforce the focus when I do get it. She does a pretty nice couple about turns, she's not quite sure where she's supposed to be, and if I go to slowly, she wants to sit. All in all, she's coming along very nicely. She DOES NOT like to down... it's like pulling teeth. My phone died there at the end, she does give me a down eventually, and as we continued that day and yesterday with a lot of practice they are coming much faster!Lillie daily walk - YouTube

What a good little girl! And adorable to boot! I have very, very, very slowly been working on a formal heel with Rhaegar. I'm just afraid I'll screw it up, lol.

 

[EverythingEnglishMastiff]

Aww lookie Hec with his lil raincoat on! He's such a good boy! :singintherain:

 

[JamieHalverson]

Here's Yogi and I practicing some rally-o moves. This is on a fairly busy area, we REALLY need lots of practice under distraction. I don't usually use a prong with him anymore, but chose to that day due to the distraction. He did really well, you can definitely see the change in focus when the boy and his dad were approaching. He got it back though. I really need to figure out how to give him more room to learn the "front" and I need to loosen my leash, it's way too tight for most of the session. This is why I LOVE recording training. I never would have realized the leash thing otherwise.

 

[JamieHalverson]

woops, here it is:Copy of Doodling - YouTube

 

[EverythingEnglishMastiff]

Good boy Yogi! A little constructive criticism. You walk out of the camera to much lol. Also it seems your hand signal for down and wait/stay are the same, Flat palm. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[JamieHalverson]

Good boy Yogi! A little constructive criticism. You walk out of the camera to much lol. Also it seems your hand signal for down and wait/stay are the same, Flat palm. Correct me if I'm wrong.

YES! I noticed that on the video as well as far as the flat palm. My intention is a flat palm in front of his face for a stay and a flat palm towards the ground for a down, but that is not what's actually happening. He is clearly hesitant to down, I know for sure he hates to down on pavement, but the hand signal issue might be contributing. I may try to change the down hand signal to a closed fist to make things easier for him. I think he can handle that change. I know on the walking out of camera range, lol. I did this video for myself a few weeks ago and thought "what the heck, I'll post it" after you started this thread. I'll have to get a tripod or something and get all professional about it

 

[Hector]

Here's Yogi and I practicing some rally-o moves. This is on a fairly busy area, we REALLY need lots of practice under distraction. I don't usually use a prong with him anymore, but chose to that day due to the distraction. He did really well, you can definitely see the change in focus when the boy and his dad were approaching. He got it back though. I really need to figure out how to give him more room to learn the "front" and I need to loosen my leash, it's way too tight for most of the session. This is why I LOVE recording training. I never would have realized the leash thing otherwise.

He seems pretty distracted and since you said it's a fairly busy area and you guys needed more practice around distractions, perhaps consider the use of food to help him focus around distractions. You can always phase it out later once he gets better.

 

[Hector]

He seems pretty distracted and since you said it's a fairly busy area and you guys needed more practice around distractions, perhaps consider the use of food to help him focus around distractions. You can always phase it out later once he gets better.

I must be watching another video. I saw that you did use food. He was doing well in the beginning and the people distracted him. I would probably give out more rewards to keep him focused at that point. I'm curious, why you chose to use a prong? Does that keep him more focused or ... ?