OB435: TEAM 4 and More!

Working Around the Reward Pt1: Heeling

Goal: 

This lecture and the next one look at various skills you want the dog to be confidently doing with their reward on the ground/zen bowl:

• Pivoting away from the reward
• Heeling towards the reward, including a thrown reward
• Reward behind the dog when working
• Recall away from the reward
• Recall done with dog's back to you (and reward in front)

I work on these skills for 3 reasons: 

1. To strengthen the dog’s ability to work with rewards off my body 
2. To strengthen the dog’s ability to work with distractions and pressure 
3. To build a solid foundation of processing their cues when they are thinking about something else 

All 3 of the above reasons are tested in TEAM.  There are a few exercises where the reward is directly placed near the dog while working both when close to the handler and when working at a distance.  

And this last goal also will become important for the lectures related to thinking around the retrieve item.  I want all the exercises done with thinking around the retrieve item (pivoting away, recalling away, heeling away, etc done with their reward before introducing the db to the chain.   

Part 1 looks the goals of pivoting and heeling with the reward out. Part 2 will look at the remaining items on the list!

Pivot Away From Reward: 

This may be review if you’ve worked through some of the zen bowl movement skills! 

You can use a perch if needed, but your goal is to let the dog watch you set the reward down- return to heel position- then cue a pivot away from the reward.  Practice pivoting both left and right (remember only use a perch for pivoting left, never to the right), and send the dog to the reward after you have nice focus on you. You may need to also have treats in your pocket/hand to reward from if the dog needs extra help.

Here Ginny is working on this skill.  She struggles a bit early on (maybe due to feelings about the naughty cat?!) and I start to reward from my hand to help her focus back on me.  I then make some headway on pivoting away on the perch and at 1.20 I get rid of the perch.  I keep up the rewards from my hand as her pivot skills aren’t quite as confident in moving with me.  But I do build up to occasionally pivoting right! 

Heeling Around the Reward 

If you haven’t yet worked on this skill, make sure you first have the foundation of movement around a “distraction” the dog will not be sent to. Rewards from your hand as often as you need to with your goal of focused heeling regardless of where the distraction is.  

If your dog is successful when they know it’s a “distraction” then it’s time to start working on this skill with their zen bowl! 

A big circle around the bowl or zig zag approach is easier than a straight line as the dog isn't directly approaching the reward for more than a step as you turn to pivot in a new direction. You can release the dog to their dish when they are still a distance away from it and only gradually work up to being closer!   

This is Aero working on the zig zag.  I still give her some treats from my hand to help!  Because I did some hand touch straight to the reward too much, you see she starts to see that as a marker cue. Around 1.19 I  need to start working on "touch - pause - dish cue" to uncouple that.    

And here Ginny started out doing well with lots of treats from my hand then her brain exploded. I go back to doing some cookie tosses around the dish and then end the session to let her brain recover!  This session was really just too long especially considering I had done the pivot exercise with the zen bowl before this (although not back to back).  There’s only so much “thinking brain” in our novice dogs that it’s easy to use it all up in a session! 

Ultimately in TEAM 4 you need to heel around in a large figure 8 pattern with 2 rewards as the posts, then do a tight pivot in the middle.

Here Zumi is working on that skill. I don't do just the figure pattern as I don't want her to pattern train and assume where I am going.

Heeling Towards a Thrown Reward 

This section has the same goal of being able to keep focus while heeling while moving towards a reward.  Now we can add difficulty by throwing the reward first.   

While a thrown reward and then heeling towards it is not specifically tested at any level of TEAM, there is an exercise that tests throwing a formal retrieve item and then heeling away and towards it!  Plus I just really want this foundation to be solid to help me know the dog has a solid understanding of ignoring the reward until cued.

Unfortunately, this is hard to do with food as I ALWAYS put a reward in a container or on a lid if they are going to get it. This makes it different from a distraction. If your dog doesn’t like toys, you can try to do this exercise by putting the treats in a small sealed tupperware container and then tossing it.  It might not trigger the same “prey” response as with a toy, but it’s still good practice! 

Here Loot works on this skill with a thrown toy. I make sure to always start out with either a left pivot away from the reward or going perpendicular ot the reward to make it easier for him to think about me before we start moving towards the ball.  At 35sec we have more difficulty because I actually had to throw the ball twice (the first throw is edited out as it rolled in a bad spot).  Having to watch it thrown twice was too much for him without getting a reward in between.  (Although as he gets better with this I may want to purposefully do that for shorter throws to mimic the occasional need to re-throw the db in a trial!  Some dogs spiral up when that happens!) 

Overview 

Work on your dog processing their cues with their reward off your body!  I work primarily with a “zen bowl” or toy on the ground so that in both cases the dog is sent to their reward.  However you may choose to use a a container with a lid if you choose. 

In all these variations, start out with also having treats in your pocket that you give from frequently to help your dog focus on you. You will still release to the reward at a distance frequently, but adjust your ratios of food from your hand vs the dish to whatever your dog needs. 

1. Pivot away from the reward- both left and right pivots.   
2. Heeling towards and around the reward
3. Heeling towards and around a THROWN reward (try a sealed container for food if your dog doesn't like toys!)