Rooster Works at SJVA "Dog Beach" and "Mad Minute" Warm-Ups

This morning Rooster and I arrived at SJVA at 7:45. It will be our first day Flipping in the parking lot. The first Flip is a small peek at what Roo experiences for 45 mins as students arrive at school. It is "Dog Beach" generalized. For the time being Rooster is in the car just watching. This morning he was really chilling. I think he's still recovering from an active and fun Sunday in Coronado working with Lynn, Lily, Jan, and Nad.... (see Mentoring Videos Sunday Dec. 12)

The Criteria remains the same. Good behavior is expected. No clicking, treats, or cues. The back hatch of the car is up. Rooster watches what is happening in front of him and I do my thing, read as usual. I set up the Flip to not be obvious to people passing. I would have liked to have it placed differently but this seemed to work ok.

After being in the car well over an hour, Rooster is ready to go to work. He met the criteria for good behavior. He never made a sound. He put himself on a Down and there he remained.

As soon as school starts Rooster leaves the car and we enjoy the parking lot and all the near-by distractions. This morning I decided that we would do our morning warm-ups or "Mad Minutes" at school. Usually this is how we start the day at home. After a quick run through of behaviors (Mad Minute or Minutes) I decide on what the focus of the day will be. This way we review a lot but focus on just few behaviors. Rooster is used to Mad Minutes at home so I decided it would be fun at school with the added distractions..... which are obvious in the Flips.

Time for Roo to go to work.

Criteria for Rooster:

• that he remain focussed w/ increased distractions
• have latency with behaviors

Criteria for myself:

• no extra talking
• one clear cue
• try to avoid pop ups
• treat in front

Our Mad Minute starts in the car with L1, Watch, and Stand

As with the RP we move through a series of tasks/behaviors ... staying with mostly L1

The level and amount of distractions start to rise, we continue with L1 and some L2 behaviors. I am watching Rooster closely for signs of a change in threshold. So far so good. He is remaining focussed and accepting treats politely without snapping.

One bonus of being at school, you can hear on the Flip. These students (middle school) are not the least bit shy about adding their own form of distraction, as if running/walking on the fence line is not enough. Calling to Rooster doesn't seem to bother him at all,... but then his name isn't Biscuit. There's a children's story about a dog ( yellow Lab or Golden) named Biscuit. I guess the boy calling, read the story. Because Rooster is remaining focussed, we up the game and go off leash adding more L2 and some L3 behaviors.

Focus on GTM

After our session yesterday I planned to spend some time this week on GTM. I took Rooster's mat and started with shaping next to the car. After a bit I moved it next to the fence line an started over again shaping. By that time the PE class had ended and relative quiet returned to the playground. You will notice that Rooster has become aware of dogs on the other side of a concrete brick wall which borders the other side of the parking lot barking. He seems to quickly get over it and is able to continue with GTM. I am including only a small part of a longer flip here. We will continue to work with GTM this week.

By the time we finished, Rooster was covered with the parking lot grime. We headed home for a much deserved and needed swim, a romp with through the horse corral, before the swim, and the chance to "veg out" for the rest of the day.

"Dog Beach" goes OTR and RP Morphed Again

It is a "New America" for Rooster as we take "Dog Beach" OTR to a new location and new "squirrels" .... time to generalize. The following flip is a look at the "new DB" though I haven't flipped any actual work yet. I am working through the issue of the flip picking up people/children in the background along with Rooster and if that's ok. The next installments will have actual working/training. We arrive at 7:45 AM and begin waiting with the hatch up, no C/T, just expected good behavior. Children are not bussed to school they arrive by car or walk. Things become busy starting about 8:00 AM and this continues to increase with double lanes of cars and children arriving until the bell rings at 8:30. By that time hundreds of children have arrived. I park in the front row, Rooster facing the drop off lanes. Children pass right by the car walking beside and directly behind as their parents escort them to the entrance gate. The Academy is K-HS so there is a good selection of students and personalities. Elementary students tend to follow along with their parent, HS and MS students tend to be a bit bouncier, louder, and more verbal, walking in small groups.

After school starts, Rooster and I continue to work outside the car, making use of the entire parking lot and up along the fence lines.

Students have outside activities on the various fields and playgrounds that border the parking lot.

It is delicious..... on leash and off leash practice for both Rooster and me. The parking lot is closed and fenced so there is no need to worry about incoming traffic. It is our own personal playground.

We have the permission of the school to be here so the yard supervisors and teachers know that we are not stalkers in disguise and they just ignore us.

It is a wonderful place to practice all behaviors L1-L3. We will be there three days a week in the coming month/s. Later on we will go back for the end of the day when kids are energized in an end of the day way. Eventually we will be on campus during the school day walking the grounds and training in the lunch area where smells are most wonderful.

I woke up this morning and decided to morph the RP Day 1, yet again. This is the first time through and the first flip. There are several things that I experienced doing this and several things I noticed watching it.

My Criteria:

• that Rooster would remain sitting for the entire time. I do not care if he moves and adjusts his position as long as he stays sitting.

The Merry Maids were here yesterday so my kitchen floor is exceptionally clean and slippery....no wet or dry drool to add traction this morning.

also:

• I hadn't thought about the logistics of treating from a sitting position so there were numerous adjustments made along the way. Ordinarily I try to treat front on.... I struggled a bit with this.... I'm still not happy with the outcome but will keep working on it.
• I decided that the clicker was an annoyance and went back to "yes" which I have used in the past
• I was using cheese. I don't know why, usually I just use kibble. Rooster doesn't need the higher value here.
• More work with Target.... which we are doing.....
• It is hard to notice Rooster's position when I am sitting. I didn't want to shift around a lot but wanted him to get the picture of me sitting facing forward and not bending sideways.

When watching the Flip I noticed:

• Again, I'm not happy with Rooster's position and that is something continue to work on.
• As mentioned above more time is needed with Target for position
• Bless his heart.... Roo self corrected to a straight sit position several times.... I guess the work on a expecting a straight sit is paying off
• I need to make up my mind about clicks, "yes", or none of the above. I like to do something to indicate a break between the tasks when we begin with a new format.
• At first, I think because of the high value of cheese, Rooster focus was on getting the treat so he was throwing in Station on my leg which we have worked on in the past...back to the low value stuff

All in all, it was interesting, insightful and fun. We will work with this a bit and after taking it to the right side will Morph again