[nagdu] follow was Grave problems with Pilot Dogs program

[Tamara Smith-Kinney]

Teehee!  Are you sure he and Mitzi aren't trading secret phone calls in the
middle of the night.  If the man of the house is too boring, well....

I finally gave up on convincing people to give up calling Mitzi or giving
her commands.  It was easier just to click her for not obeying their
commands, then repeating the command -- or the best version of it for our
needs -- and click and treat her for that.  I always tell the person in a
calm, easy-going tone that it's better that they let me know where they are
by sound so I can tell my dog which way to go, etc., just for the sake of
communicating and educating.  Meanwhile, I can work with my dog myself with
or without their interference.  It may not work with every dog, but the
Mitzi poodle is pretty one-woman to begin with, so simply reinforcing her
natural decision to wait for my command has been the easiest way to train
her to do it that way.  /smile/

She still drives DD crazy sometimes when he forgets and wants to be in
charge, even though he knows better.  /lol/  He knows Mitzi well enough to
really know better.  It took over a year for her to decide that she would go
out for business first thing in the morning when he opens the door for her
instead of making him wake me up to open the door.  BB has been here a mere
8 months and was kind of grumbling the other day that when he got home from
swing shift, she kept telling him she needed to go out, and he would open
the door, and she would just look at him and grin and wag her tale without
making a move towards the door, so he would close it and she would...  I
told him he should just go ahead and wake me up when she tells him what she
needs, but he's a bit more tenderhearted about dragging someone out of bed
in the middle of the night than DD.  /lol/

The saga continues...  Mwa-ha-ha!

Tami Smith-Kinney

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of d m gina
Sent: Sunday, April 17, 2011 7:33 AM
To: nagdu at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [nagdu] follow was Grave problems with Pilot Dogs program

One thing you need to watch, is the person doesn't need to call the dog 
when they are following.
this happens with strangers.
also I share with the person when they are turning left or rite let me know,
some times my dog will think someone else is better to follow then my 
husband lloll.

Original message:
> Update on teaching follow to a nonfollowing dog...

> Yesterday did turn out to be a beautiful day!  No rain or snow and only a
> light breeze.  I enlisted the help of Kiddo, my teenage son, to help teach
> Monty follow.  He was wearing wind pants, you know the ones that make all
> sorts of noise when you walk?  We hadn't planned it, but it worked
amazingly
> well.

> We started out in the front of the house with a planned route in advance.
> It was basically a square from sidewalk to driveway to porch and then back
> around to sidewalk.  I told Monty to follow and kept repeating follow,
> giving hand signals if he needed a little help.  He seemed like he was
> starting to get the concept.  He did remember to stop for elevation
changes
> so that was really good.  that was something that Belle had difficulty
with.
> If she was following, she wasn't doing anything else.

> Then we headed over to the college parking lot.   I wanted Monty to really
> get the idea of follow without the hint of a specific pathway.  We
practiced
> for 15-20 minutes.  I'd click and treat at varying intervals for following
> and tell Monty "no" if he went off in a different direction.  I also cut
> back on the number of times I told him to follow as well as the extra hand
> gestures to indicate the turns.  I may have gone a bit fast in the
training
> pace, but Monty seems to have picked it up, so I think it was okay.

> I'd say Monty was about 75% accurate with Kiddo in the parking lot,  which
> is good for a start.  So now I need to find other people to practice with
> and lots and lots of different places.  I need to get the accuracy up and
> get him to generalize that follow means follow for a waitress in a
> restaurant or the husband in a theater or the secretary in an office
> building.  It could be a while before we get this down pat. *smile*

> I did notice a couple of interesting things though.  Monty prefers the
> person to be a bit to our left and ahead.  In the wide open area I let him
> follow wherever he wanted.  Most of the time Monty would place himself
> behind and to the right of Kiddo.

> The other thing I noticed that Monty doesn't follow as much as he notices
> where the other person is going and plots a parallel course.  He truly
does
> not like to follow, but that's okay as long as we stay with the other
person
> and get where we are going.

> Julie



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