DISTANCE: Level 2

Yesterday Dale and I began our session with Distance. It had been a week since I first introduced this Level 2 behavior to Dale and he, in turn, had trained it with Lily.

There were so many training lessons learned in this first 15 minutes of today's session, that we could easily have stopped right there and spent the remainder of our time talking about what had been learned.

Reviewing the videos for editing only magnified for me the unusual value of this time.

Dale has not read Distance: Level 2 in Steps. Not before being introduced to it last week. Not in the intervening week. So this is an example of "learning by doing". Training from memory. If he were taking a weekly class, however, one would assume that he would have been training the behavior at home and not be coming back to it "cold", as he did yesterday.

POINT: The value of having Steps and using it (following it) as you train.

I gave very little explanation or review before Dale began. So, in effect, I was asking him to "do it cold." Just think how often we ask the same thing of our dogs.....before they are ready to do so.

"Once is a fluke. Twice is a problem."

When that happens, what do we do? Review. Re-teach.

"Let me explain it again!"

Explain it again to Dale. So he is then able to explain it to Lily. Step by little step.

Is Dale using his body as a lure? Or as a cue?

Timing is important. What is Dale marking?

The explanation is clearer; but something is missing.

This is such a good example of why, whenever possible, we use the clicker to mark the behavior. Notice the precision of the clicker. It gives Lily a much clearer explanation.

Timing is everything. Criteria is everything.

After another short break to "re-load", Dale mixes it up a little.

Ahh! A little too much a little too soon. But Dale knows immediately what to do.

When I read DISTANCE: Level 2 I find 7 Steps. Let's go back and break the behavior down and then rewatch the videos to see if you can recognize each of those steps.

Step 1.

Step 2.

Step 3.

Step 4.

Step 5.

Step 6.

Step 7.

When is Dale INTRODUCING the cue?

When is Dale USING the cue?

Do you see when Dale DROPS the cue and re-teaches?

When we meet next week, we will review and re-teach this entire behavior "by the book", step by little step.