[nagdu] follow was Grave problems with Pilot Dogs program

[Tracy Carcione]

That makes sense.  If he followed with the person on his right, he'd have
to watch for your clearance around the person. If the person is on his
left, you and he have a clear path.
My shepherd was very particular about where people we were with should
walk.  If he didn't like it, he'd nudge the person with his nose to get
them in the proper position.
Tracy

> 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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