Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am wondering if anyone here does any directional training. I have a project that I need to work on and this is what I need to do. The city of Virginia beach is looking for a dog to keep the geese out of their public parks. They have requested that this be a rescue out of their Animal Shelter. I have trained Personal Protection K9's, Thereapy dogs, Drug dogs, and I do alot of Obedience training ect. Now I have never trained a dog to do any type of directional training from such a long distance. How do you train a dog to go right or left on command, were do I go after off leash training this dog? If anyone has any suggestions I would LOVE to hear them!!
Cavalier K9

Most herding seminars would go into the details of this kind of training. I haven't attended them, but I use directionals in agility with my dog. I actually use slightly different words than right or left and my dog does work a bit closer to me than one would ridding a field of geese, but the theory is the same. Start close and transfer it to further away.

I started with my dog next to me and with my clicker I'd click his head turning away from me. Once I got him understanding that behaivor, I built it up to while we were moving he'd do it and then I'd shape it while we were running and th "click" would come as he directed himself away from me further and further. I have a pretty clicker savy dog and this process didn't take too long overall. I eventually added a que to it and just went from there increasing speed and distance.
-----
Chelle and the rest of the crew including, but not limited to Kita and Taiko (the shiba inu wrestle maniacs), Adi (reserved and dignified tabby cat), and all 28 reptiles

Thanks Chelle for your advice, that's what I was thinking, it goes right along with pavlov's theory. I just use the word good in place of the clicker. Seems like such a long process, but it will be worth it in the end. The next thing is to teach the dog around about, and to swim in the water after the geese!!! I will be going Sunday to look in the shelter for my prospective student! I am getting very excited about the project!
Cavalier K9

Training the behaviors doesn't really take that long once your dog understands the marker (in your case marker word). The long part tends to be the proofing so it can be done with distractions around. My dog is brilliant at home. At home he understands over 100 words and hand signals quite reliably. It's when I bring those same words and hand signals to the real world and not our living room is where I find out what we need to train further. Still, it doens't take long to "reteach" a command or signal in a new place.

The thing I have found most interesting when teaching my dog is I'm not as consistent as my dog needs me to be or I'm not as black and white about what I want from him as I should be. That creates confusion for him and I have to step back and figure out exactly what step in the process I missed and what exactly my dog is interpreting from what I've asked for. It's not always easy to figure out.
-----
Chelle and the rest of the crew including, but not limited to Kita and Taiko (the shiba inu wrestle maniacs), Adi (reserved and dignified tabby cat), and all 28 reptiles

Just so I know I understand everything correctly the "Teaching" Phase should look like this. I mainly use Operant Condition from Pavlov's theory. A little Classical Conditioning mixed in every now and then. Not sure if you know about him or not.

1. Use food to manipulate the dog to look right, when dog looks right say "GOOD" then give treat.

Do the same for the "Left" I will probably use diff command just not sure what yet. LOL

2. Get the dog to take a few steps to the right, "good", Food

3. Start spacing the food out every few commands.

Maybe it wont take the dog to long to catch on do short training sessions 10-15 minutes, 2-3 times a day. And of course REPETITION REPETITION REPETITION!!!! LOL
-----
Victoria Harter
Victoria@Cavalierk9.com
http://www.cavalierk9.com

That's the idea. Your dog will dictate how fast you can progress, but a marker savy dog understands fairly fast when they are getting it. I personally don't with hold food if I've given a marker word during the learning phase. I instead increase the criteria for the dog a little bit (take 5 steps instead of 4).
-----
Chelle and the rest of the crew including, but not limited to Kita and Taiko (the shiba inu wrestle maniacs), Adi (reserved and dignified tabby cat), and all 28 reptiles