Thursday, July 30, 2009

Free timing for tRicky T-Day

Well we tried free timing again - this time with a pillow instead of with a box. We had a little better success this way. I offered several behaviors - putting my paw on it, then my other paw, then digging, then both feet and elephant, and finally nudging at the pillow with my nose. You can tell when I get stressed out and you can tell that mom and I really don't know what we are doing. She doesn't have very good criteria and she doesn't treat me for small enough behaviors and she tries to get me to move to the next behavior too fast! But it was fun and pretty interesting. We were inspired by Ludo, Oreo, and Honey to give this another try. So here is our video (by the way, you have to have a lot of free time yourself to watch this long video - I won't be offended if you skip around!):



Gotta zoom!


Ricky

11 comments:

Sara said...

That was great Ricky. I could see your brain working to get those treats! Love the nose nudging, and your sneaky fake nudges...that was a great trick you came up with:)

Unknown said...

Hey Ricky - I don't know why you keep saying you're not good at free-shaping - I thought you were brilliant! You came up with so many tricks with one pillow...I think I would have just slobbered all over it and that's it! :-) I love your trick of nudging with your nose! That's really clever coz a lot of dogs would just pick it up in their mouths, I think, rather than nudge it! By the way, what do you mean when you say "elephant"??

Wow, you're such a gentle free-timer...gosh, I always bash and knock things around with my paws so much - they usually break! :-)

Hey - we couldn't hear the sound in the video very well but was your human saying the same word (verbal marker) every time you did something she wanted? Coz maybe that is one reason why you might be confused - even if your human doesn't use a clicker, if she's using a verbal marker, its REALLY important that she sticks to one word and always try to say it with the same tone...she can still say the other "good dog!" stuff afterwards but she should always use the same word to mark the behaviour.

Slobbers,
Honey the Great Dane

Arran, Arthur and Mum said...

Hi Ricky, I dunno what you're on about saying your not good, you did great! It be really fun to watch you thinking and trying to figure out what to do and you comed up with so many things! Well done to your Mom and you, I bet you'll be hooked on free timing now!
~lickies, Ludo

NAK and The Residents of The Khottage Now With KhattleDog! said...

I'm soooo not worthy of woo khlever trikhky Shelties!

Hugz&Khysses,
Khyra

Cool Design Shelties said...

Well done :o)

//Bente

Xsara and Tani said...

Very well done!

Cowspotdog said...

that was an excellent video and wow you sure do have focus. I do a trick once or twice and then sit there looking at mom with "I have done the tricks - why should I do them again' look. You are soooooo clever and doing wonderfully

Marie said...

Looks like you two did just great! The thing that I have trouble with in shaping, or free triming is my own timing in either clicking or marking consistently small enough steps to communicate what behavior I wanted. OR, I get a behavior and apparently click or mark it enough times that the dogs have trouble moving along in changing the behavior to be able to get the end behavior. :-P

Dawn said...

Wow Ricky! Good job! That's a lot of stuff to think up to do with a pillow! Katie would have just sat on it and gone to sleep!

Johann The Dog said...

Ricky, you guys are really great at shaping!!! And what really impresses Mum is how quiet you are, unlike me of course :)

Natasha said...

See, you're getting the hang of it! Great job Ricky!