How to Make a Bang Board and training session gone wrong.

Two videos one unedited how-to ending with a shut down dog.
Second one, a later session with everything fixed.

First up, how to make a bang board and why should I?

A bang board is a simple diy obstacle to prepare your dog for agility, or increase courage for skittish/noise sensitive dogs.  A bang board is a board (plywood square) placed on top of a smallish obstacle. For a beginner dog, especially  a skittish one, place your board on carpet and use a very small obstacle, even a small rag or rubber cap.
For my dog, not a rookie, but rusty, I used a small soft cap and placed the board on a hard surface--very noisy right from the start.

Click & treat (or use a very short sharp vocal reward marker) for any interaction with the board including a sniff or a look or movement towards the board.  Be ready to instantly click/treat party (shower of treats) the moment your dog gets an unpleasant surprise and back up a few steps (use a smaller softer article, move the board onto a soft surface).  You might find, if your treat party happens fast enough, you can just carry on, but what happens at the end of the video is a good illustration of what happens if you make a mistake, and you end up with a shut down insecure dog.  Obviously, if your timing and judgement is perfect or you have a bomb-proof scared of nothing dog, this is not a problem, but depending on your dog, you will have to be more or less careful.  Should things go wrong, no worries.  End the session, do something fun and easy with your dog, reflect on your error and make a plan to correct your error, and start again later.  In this case, I took Sonic inside and dremelled his nails, which he loves, and it made me feel good (useful) too.  Then I changed my reward to string cheese all de-packed and separated into wiggly  strings and went out again.

This time I made sure I could click and reward rapidly, no fumbling.  I also released him off the board with a reward frequently to take the pressure off. IE, making a bang noise get's a treat AND leaving the board gets a treat. I also threw a party every time something surprising happened, like an extra loud bang or spinning board.  Super fun, brave dog is the  happy result.  

Sonic's Pre-Agilty/Video Wobble board

Sonic's Pre-Agilty/Video Wobble board

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Here he is.
The board is a plywood board placed on top of plywood, so it spins, wobbles and bangs. Hoping it prepares him for the obstacles; at any rate, it should give him more confidence on hiking trail structures, etc...

I'm freeshaping/rewarding any engagement with the board, and changes.

https://youtu.be/rybizecQtxk

PS, some serious cat bombing going on in the background

Tug, frisbee & target--critique welcome

Tug, frisbee & target--critique welcome

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Two videos.
Sonic playing tug with tug-n-treat frisbee.
I'm teaching him to play tug & frisbee. He had zero interest when we got him. I'm hoping to use tug & frisbee as a reward some day--but so far, food is involved, which is fine.
Thoughts on timing? When to let him win, when to pull harder? When to reward with food?
https://youtu.be/F4Z8_uob8cQ

The other is me hapless doing some targetting--he looks happy, but not fully engaged. It's hot, and he just did the tugging above. Should I have ended sooner, not done it at all, tried something else that he's more confident with (sit, down,)

https://youtu.be/SHBomymUfbg

Short history--free-range tropical dog for 1.5 yrs, I have him 7 months, he's only shown this level of engagement in the past month. For the 2nd, & 3rd month, he was afraid of treats indoors, and could not be consistently trained.

Things are really looking up in the past month.

And about those metal fingers--badly sprained my hand 2 months ago on that blue long-line you see in the video--which caused more hiccups in training, not to mention serious difficulties in holding a leash and treat delivery--some delays there too. In other words, we're still taking baby steps, beginners. My goals right now are engagement & building toy-drive.

Herding Cats, session two, egads, the howling, the howling,

Siamese cats are vocal (ie. they howl), which is cute, until it's not....

Batman, Session II
Picked him out of the cat pile and deposited him in the bedroom. This did not go unnoticed. Simba at the door, howling in his high pitched "strangled kitten" voice.
Batman is distracted, somewhat. I c&t and then gets his liver bits and searches form more, wait for him to stop searching, and wait for him to stop staring at the door (from which the howling is emanating). I try not to be distracted myself. Session okay, I mean, it's obvious he's got the association between a whispered bbb & the treat, good boy, off you go.

enter Simba, Session II
Batman is howling at the door, he has a deeper voice and delivers with gusto. Simba is slightly distracted, I, more so.
He's well on his way to spins, but then he gets all lovey dove and starts rubbing and purring. Do I ignore that? Do I pet him? I ignored and continued. Next time I'll just pet him, because I think he was just saying 'I really like this, it's a fun game' and I should have responded in a proper catly way.

Conclusion: Ugh.  I feel mean.  I need to find a way to make it better, or just give up.  If I try, I will work on 'place' or 'mat' training so I can train them both together. But I'm not sure if I can stand the interim howling.
Getting them both in the same room now would be disaster, here's what happens if I give Batman a treat--Simba gets it. If I give Simba and Batman a treat at the same time, Simba gets Batman's treat, and then Simba gets Simba's treat, so 'place' training would need to be rock solid before I can deal with double-dog training (in this case 'cat').

Training a Virtual Dog

I don't have Nino, he is somewhere in the Dominican Republic, awaiting his flight date. January feels like a very long time to wait.  In the meantime, I'm collecting training information, and doing fantasy training sessions in my head. For now, Nino is a virtual dog, and of course, he's perfect. He may never be mine, as adoption approval is pending a home visit, and I'm nervous about that, so I'm channelling my energy into learning and planning, because he looks like a border collie and will likely want a fun job or three.

https://youtu.be/qqxsdCP_qyE
"Claudia Moser, Celtic dream freestyle routine, Crufts 2009"
Had me bawling my eyes out, the dog and handler are so in-tune, so beautiful.
Missing my Dynamo and agility at the same time; might be part of it.
I've been looking up freestyle while I impatiently wait for bc-mix rescue to get his flight to Canada (sometime in January). I'm hoping to teach him some moves to keep us both busy on winter days.

So here's something I want to know more about, shaping with a clicker, especially free shaping, which I didn't do much of (but what I did was fun) with my previous dog.

http://www.clickertraining.com/shaping-success <--freeshaping

So for now, I'll be doing a lot of reading, and watching, and using this page as a bookmark for those articles and videos that I want to refer back to later, when I actually have a dog to play with.

More training goodies.
Watch "Canine freestyle training display Part 1 with Richard Curtis at Crufts 2009" on YouTube, Part II is awesome too, you'll find it there.

https://youtu.be/qEbnJ-nPBSE


Sit-Stay
Kikopup's Short Version of training sit-stay

Loose Leash walking on a flat collar, Zak George.
Great video, and fun dog! I'm almost (not quite) jealous of the owner, because the dog looks like what he really wants to do is Dog Sport! Lively Heeling routines, & Tug, TUG, tug! Anyway, fun.

Found it, there are also other videos that may help you on his youtube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-VY_H_TG_Y

And another, cat dog intro's (for low & moderate level prey drives)
http://www.diamondsintheruff.com/#!catchasing/cfqj

And for dealing with the inevitable other persons out-of-control dogs (happens all the time in the woods)--the short of it is, throw a jackpot of treats at the on-coming dog. Should work with most, as the off-leash dogs  at worst are just being PITA's and not really trying hurt your dog.
http://www.patriciamcconnell.com/theotherendoftheleash/it-works-how-to-stop-an-approaching-dog-in-an-emergency