OB580: Articles from the Ground Up

Teaching an Alert Behavior

Description

This lecture is on teaching your dog a duration touch to a lid, aka a sticky target, with their nose or chin.  The dog will move to push their nose/chin into a target held in your hand and then on the ground and will hold duration until the marker cue.

Before going on to this lecture, please make sure you have taught your dog a sticky target to your hand or to the ground, discussed in the previous lecture.

 

Goal of the Exercise

This is part two in the pre-scentwork lectures for teaching an indication behavior.  At this point, your dog should already understand either a chin rest and/or a duration nose press to your hand. Now we are going to expand that and teach your dog to offer that sticky target behavior of freezing to an object such as a lid.   

This freezing of their nose or chin to a lid will eventually be the dog's indication when they find the correct scent article.  While a retrieve of the correct article will eventually be the end goal, it is strongly recommended that all dogs also have this non-retrieve type of indication as an option when learning or for troubleshooting.

The goal for a sticky target will be 1.5-2 seconds of freezing with either their nose pointed on the lid or their chin resting on it.  It doesn't matter whether the dog does this in a stand position, a bow position, or even a full down.  (In order to the chin rest, the dog will have to be in either the bow or the down!)

OR

Jump to the bottom of the lecture for an alternative indication of the dog lying down without a chin rest.

 

Materials Needed

A flat lid.  Does not need to be metal, leather or wood at this stage.  For dogs obsessed with retrieving, a ceramic tile or heavy electrical plate works well once you get to the stage where your target is on the floor.

Here is a link to a metal electrical plate sold at Home Depot and other hardware stores for less than $1 each.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/RACO-4-in-Square-Blank-Cover-Flat-8752/100542712

Sticky Target to a Held Target

Hold the target in your hand and mark/reward when your dog sniffs it.  If your dog tries to bite it that’s fine. Just try and mark early before your dog makes physical contact until the dog stops opening his mouth. 

With Splash I held it in the palm of my hand since he knew a chin rest.  This allowed me to get duration quickly.

 

 

If your dog already has a duration nose touch to your hand, it's the same process but hold the target more vertically. (see the video with Arlo in the next section for an example)

 

Lower Target to Floor

Once your dog knows to hold their nose to the target in your hand, start to lower your target slowly until you can leave it on the ground.

Here is Splash's second session with the target being moved to the ground.  You can see he gets stuck staring at me sometimes and half way through we do some reps with the target in my hand again.

 

 

Arlo is working on this with a duration nose touch instead of a chin rest.  I start the target up high  and gradually start lowering it, occasionally throwing in easier "chin rest" reps since the nose press isn't super solid yet. Because my goal is a nose touch I want to keep him in a stand as I start to lower the target.  I try to move the target away form him if he downs.

 

 

With Wren, she was still learning a chin rest to my hand when I decided to jump to teaching it to a target.  You don't NEED a chin rest to your hand in order to do a chin rest to a target!!  Here is her second or third lesson in shaping head dips to the target.  Most clicks are for head dips, not real chin rests!

 

 

Here Ginny was working on the target in my low hand to being set on the floor.  She gets this quickly so I start to jump to the next stage (adding motion) the last few reps!;

 

 

Once it's on the floor, I like to reward ON the target to reinforce the idea that the target itself is important!  Rewarding on the lid will also be important as we work on the dog remaining at the target to wait for your reward to come to them.

 

Adding Motion Before Sticky Target

Since the ultimate goal when working with the scent articles will be for your dog to alert to a lid after some walking around and sniffing, we need to work on the dog being able to go from moving to doing their sticky target.  This also works on the dog actually looking for the target and really aiming versus just automatically pressing their nose/chin to the ground directly in front of them.

After your dog does a sticky target, move the lid a few inches to the side.  At first you might want to move it so little that all the dog has to do is turn their head to be able to touch it versus having to get up and walk.

If that goes well, try moving the target further away.

Or even toss a reset cookie so that the dog has to look for the target as they return from their cookie toss.

Here Zumi practices this skill.  She's already had practice with this so it was more of a review.

 

 

Splash is in the earlier stages.  Here he works on just moving slightly to find the target. It goes pretty well but clearly at the end he shows me that he his more familiar with moving to his right to find it versus to his left!

 

 

And here a little bit later I work on it again and try to teach him to find it even if it's behind him.  Splash really wants to come directly in front of me to offer a chin rest to the floor versus looking for a target.

 

 

Loot is working on this stage of doing the down+chin rest out of motion. He seems to nose target well but his offered down isn't quite there. I frequently reward the nose touch and then use the reward to lure the down.

 

 

The goal of these exercises is to teach your dog a non-retrieve indication.  You don't need to have a perfect sticky target! Ideally, you will have a solid two seconds of duration, but even repeated bobbing of the head will be just fine!  A down alert without a touch is fine too! The most important piece is the dog learning to REMAIN at a target and at least offering head dips.

If you run into problems teaching this, do not panic!  I will be with you to help!  We can also switch to an alternative method if needed, but the more tools you have in your bag the easier problem solving will be.

 

Alternative Alert - Down at Target

If you don't want to teach a chin rest, that's ok!  An alternative alert can be lying down at the target.

1. First mark any interest in your dog's head lowering at a target on the floor.  If your dog is very pawy, warmup with just dropping treats on the target!  You can then mark as the dog is eating as their head is likely low!
2. Start to mark the head dip and then use the reward to quickly lure a foldback down at the target.  The dog is not yet offering the down. You're making it happen!
3. Wait for the dog to get to the target and then offer the down!  You can do this with very little motion at first by handing your dog a cookie so they have to sit or stand in order to eat it, and then need to offer that down at the target to get another cookie. Gradually add in the motion game listed in the section above.

Here is Wren demonstrating steps 1 and 2.

 

 

Final Notes!

The goal of these exercises is to teach your dog a non-retrieve indication.  You don't need to have a perfect sticky target! Ideally, you will have a solid 2 seconds of duration, but even repeated bobbing of the head will be just fine!  The most important piece is the dog learning to REMAIN at a target and at least offering head dips.

If you're doing a chin rest, keep in mind that your dog will either need to this from a bow OR a down.  Either option is fine!!!

If you run into problems teaching this, do not panic!  We can also switch to an alternative method if needed, but the more tools you have in your bag the easier problem solving will be.

 

1. Get a chin rest or sticky target of some type to a target held in your hand.

2. Lower your hand/target to the floor until the target can be on the floor and your dog does the chin rest/sticky target. Note that if you have a chin rest your dog will likely need to be lying down or in a bow position.

3. Add motion. From a short cookie toss, can your dog find the target and do his sticky target?

Or! Look at the alternative alert (down at the target) steps!