Control Unleashed Discussion Group

Just wanted to let everyone know that I just ordered Control unleashed from Cleanrun.com

Here's a reminder of Ruckus problems
http://www.sheltieforums.com/showthread.php?t=575&highlight=ruckus
http://www.sheltieforums.com/showthread.php?t=888&highlight=ruckus
http://www.sheltieforums.com/showthread.php?t=729&highlight=ruckus
http://www.sheltieforums.com/showthread.php?t=1217&highlight=ruckus
http://www.sheltieforums.com/showthread.php?t=1288&highlight=ruckus

If you notice most of my post are about his behavior issues. I cannot imagine a dog being any more reactive than he is. I hope this book works out for me.
 
I'm still in Chapter Two. I first thought that I needed to read the whole book, given that some exercises are related to others in later chapters. Then I doubled back to Chapter One, took notes, and started working on things.

Romeosangiovese - thanks for all the work and notes. I love your example of the sofa treats and recall for the Premack Principle. I need a fast down for Snap, as well as some targeting for agility, so I am going to pair treats on a can lid (in plain view) as a reward for a fast down. Hopefully I'll improve his speed on both counts.

The YouTube videos were also useful. I figured out that my Look at That command was incorrect.

I've been working hard on "leave it" to break Snap's concentration on other things and return his focus to me. It's helping, but is not lasting ... I suppose I could delay the treat reward some...

And the "go to your mat" command is helping settle him a lot at breakfast and dinner. He was barking and jumping and I was having to put him in a down stay, which he broke. He is much better on the mat for some reason.

The Relaxation Protocol will be my reading for this week.
 
I remember reading something about a fast down, but I can't remember it exactly or where I read it! :lol: My memory is failing! I'll go look around and see if I can find it again. Might help. But premack fast down sounds like a GREAT idea! It's a good skill to have. I should add that to my ever growing list of things to train. Sigh!

What is breaking Snap's concentration? Is it a reactive reaction from Snap when he breaks focus? If it is, maybe Look At That might be more effective.

If Snap doesn't use the mat for anything active, just for lying down, you might want to do the RP on the mat itself, so that he'll come to associate the mat with being relaxed. I used to just do it wherever on the floor, but am now doing it on the mat.

Romeo's Look At That with dogs isn't easy!! He reacts SO easily SO fast and the dogs are SO FAR AWAY! I'm haveing difficulties finding an opportunities to let him watch a dog from that distance, and the dog doesn't actually walk towards us (now we're doing it on streets, and the dogs we spot are usually walking down the street towards us which, really, doesn't help!!). He's also reactive to dogs in the dog run, when we're at the gates. Sigh. I'm thinking maybe my next trip to the dog run will be spent sitting OUTSIDE it playing the LAT game for a bit before letting him in. I'm not sure if that's counterproductive.
 
I've just ordered the book as well, to see if I can get Ella to become more focused on me and the commands as we get into agility at the end of March. She's only 9 months old still, and she is a great listener and knows loads of commands already, but it is her off leash and extremely high energy that I want to channel.

Needless to say that I'm always afraid I am training her wrong, so this will give me set ways to do it!
 
romeosangiovese said:
What is breaking Snap's concentration? Is it a reactive reaction from Snap when he breaks focus? If it is, maybe Look At That might be more effective.
Click to expand...

For the most part, movement (cars, dogs, bicycles, joggers) are breaking his concentration. Good thought regarding LAT. I downloaded the LAT instructions from the CU website and need to work first with objects, then a person, then perhaps graduate to a moving person...

As with Romeo, Snap is on the look out for his favorite moving targets in the distance. When he gets in that mode, you can see him scanning the horizon. It's pretty spooky.
 
As a little aside ...

We completed an obedience class last night, at the end of which we were able to take the CGC (canine good citizen) test. Snap and I passed, even though I believe they were very generous on our "loose leash" portion. I was pleased that he handled a "milling" crowd of people and another dog handler that greeted me well; he froze in his tracks when someone came by on a walker, but recovered and did not lunge or bark or give chase. However, I don't dare stop working with him and exposing him to "strange" dogs. We're repeating the class starting week after next, just for good measure.
 
I have a question about the recall video and the LAT game. First, please note I don't have the book nor videos. Just wanted to clarify what I saw/read.

With the recall. Is the person calling the dogs name, and then clicking to reward? Then sending the dog off again to do their thing? So, we're teaching to come to the name, right?

With the LAT game, you click when they look at the object you DO NOT want them to focus on. Correct? So you teach them, "obsession means look at me, focus on me". or what not. i.e. click (when they focus), so they pay attention to you, and treat. is that correct?

Thanks. I like the idea of the relax thing. Koji could use that. lol. I do agility training and they do clicker training there too, so I can get info from her, only reason I'm not really buying the book yet. I have too many things to work on, but recall is a must!
 
ryanelguiri, great! Let us know how you get on with the techniques in the book. It's good that you're working on her now just as she's hitting adolescence. I'm not sure if adolescence in a female is as bad as in a male, but if it is, you have my sympathies! :o Sigh!!

Katherine, that's fantastic!! Once Snap's good with people you can start work with him on strange dogs. I'm doing it concurrently. I realised that if a dog is facing us, the distance between us and that dog has to be quite long to work him sub threshold, whereas if it's the dog's butt that's facing us, it needn't be that far away. Must be the confrontational head-on posture.

k9kreationz, let me try to answer your questions! You can use just the name or "Name, COME!" for recall before sending the dog to play. I use Romeo, Come! Because for me, I won't want him walking towards me everytime I call his name. His name is more for paying attention to me. I feel that there will be times (possible life threatening ones) where I might yell out Romeo! but I won't want him to come (like if he'd somehow run across the road). I'd want to call Romeo! to get his attention but then get him to do a down or sit stay.

Re: LAT game. Yes! That's essentially it. If you click a dog while it is looking at something and hasn't started to become reactive yet (you can see the signs - the alert posture), it'll hear the click and turn back to you and you can treat it. Eventually they'll start associating these things they obsess about with the opportunity to play this looking game with you. They look at the thing, then quickly look back at you to see if you noticed and will give them a treat.

Hahaha! I totally understand having a lot of things to work on!! I've started to write everything down!!
 
romeosangiovese said:
k9kreationz, let me try to answer your questions! You can use just the name or "Name, COME!" for recall before sending the dog to play. I use Romeo, Come! Because for me, I won't want him walking towards me everytime I call his name. His name is more for paying attention to me. I feel that there will be times (possible life threatening ones) where I might yell out Romeo! but I won't want him to come (like if he'd somehow run across the road). I'd want to call Romeo! to get his attention but then get him to do a down or sit stay.

Re: LAT game. Yes! That's essentially it. If you click a dog while it is looking at something and hasn't started to become reactive yet (you can see the signs - the alert posture), it'll hear the click and turn back to you and you can treat it. Eventually they'll start associating these things they obsess about with the opportunity to play this looking game with you. They look at the thing, then quickly look back at you to see if you noticed and will give them a treat.

Hahaha! I totally understand having a lot of things to work on!! I've started to write everything down!!
Click to expand...


Just wanted to say thanks for clarifying. I haven't started on that, but will do so next time we go out, probably tonight. I'll probably work on his recall, that's more important to me right now.
 
What do you guys think? I just found out that where I get Koji trained for agility, they also have Control Unleashed Workshops. It's done by the owner of the facility (who also does a big portion of all the training classes).

It's 4 hours, $89. Will include go to your mat, look at that, toy play skills, advanced targeting, moving to off leash, building drive, creating an off/on switch and more.

Wait a second. You mean my dog can HAVE an off/on switch? No WAY!!! LOL.

Thoughts?
 
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