A LESSON IN COACHING

On Coaching:   

Take advantage of this time to work your most troublesome behaviors, rather than trying to impress the teacher!          

SA, Working Behaviors

TEAM:   Sharon and Barnum
COACH: Sue Ailsby
MEDIA:  You Tube and email
BEHAVIOR:  Training Lazy Leash in a wheelchair

On the Training Levels list, Sharon wrote to describe her frustration in training Lazy Leash and sent 3 videos to illustrate. Sharon asked for coaching help.  Sue's response illustrates step by step, second by second coaching.  


4a.
LLW practice videos - help?
Posted by: "Sharon"

I made three short videos because how we do depends on where we are.

In the house, he's often perfect. (With the smaller chair, for indoor use, and sometimes in the yard, I use a 4-ft leash.)

In the yard, he's about 80%.

Once we leave the yard, usually all hell breaks loose.

I made the videos to ask for help because yesterday (Weds), I just stopped and cried partway through our walk. Walks with Gadget used to be the highlight of my day -- I miss him so -- and walks with Barnum have broken 3 leashes, damaged my wheelchair (permanent damage to leg rests, and left armrest needed major repair because he pretty much pulled it off), cause me physical pain, and often result in minor injuries (scrapes, bruises, muscle/joint stuff, etc.). And being yanked around the neck can't be great for him, either. When I can't take it anymore, I switch to the harness and let him do what he wants.

For example, on yesterday's miserable walk, he "piked" my chair probably 15-20 times; since there are no anti-tip wheels, if he pulls hard, and I don't let out the leash in time before I reverse, or if we're going downhill, the chair goes off the wheels and onto the foot rests. If I hadn't developed a system of using a 6-ft leash wrapped 3-4 times around my hand holding onto my grip, and then right before the leash gets tight, I let it out to give me time to stop and reverse, we'd probably pike 50 times per walk. Or, more dangerously, he might pull me hard sideways, which he did twice yesterday, almost pulling me out of the chair (despite seatbelt).

And normally he wants to smell everything, in every direction, so even when I'm going backward, he has his nose to the ground, sniffing. Is that still less rewarding for him than going forward?

I wanted to ask for feedback on what I might do differently, so I made these videos today (Thurs) to show what's happening.

Two problems:
1. The light is so strong on most of the outdoor/walk one, that I don't know how much you can tell what's going on.

2. While the camera was rolling, he was the best he's EVER been. Loads, loads better. Like a different dog! And then, for the rest of our walk, too, so much better than usual. I have no idea why. We went the whole 1.5 miles using the collar! We've done a quarter of that at most, before. Will this last?? Was it a fluke?? The only times he went gonzo and pulled me onto my leg rests was when there were other dogs around he was trying to get to.

Here are the videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4_7Yt4jZuQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKSnvDDClx4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEs55L5vMeY

By the way, we don't normally do so much turning around. He doesn't really "get" how to turn with the big powerchair yet. I was doing that to stay in range of the camera.

Final question: Earlier there was a conversation on this list about whether it was good to praise/cheerlead your dog during LLW to let them know they're doing the right thing. The consensus seemed to be that it wasn't good, and you should use something higher value.

But on a walk past our yard perimeter, Barnum will totally ignore food, clicker, toys, etc., BUT he will respond to praise. (He has always been surprisingly attuned to affection -- praise, petting, etc.) Sometimes, in fact, if I am TOO quiet and "stony faced" during training, he seems to respond as if it's a punishment.

I often consciously smile while training, because it seems to make a difference to him. So, I don't want to have to keep up a constant chatter for the rest of our walking partnership, but is there something to be said for using praise now for training LLW, just to get the behavior?

I'm sorry this was so long. I'm trying to keep my posts shorter, but really, if we keep having walks like the ones we usually do, it's unbearable. Thanks for any help.

Peace,
Sharon (and Barnum)

4b.
Re: LLW practice videos - help?
Posted by: "Susan Ailsby"

Let's start by asking for MORE than you need in the finished product. The first thing I generally say about Lazy Leashes is that the dog doesn't need to be looking at you to be doing it right. In your case, I'd recommend that he DOES need to be looking at you. Later, when you can't remember being this frustrated, you can relax the criteria.

So if he's not looking at you, he's not doing the job. Why am I saying this? Because I don't think he understands what you want at all.

Backing up with the chair is so slow it doesn't tell him anything. Backing up is supposed to re-orient the dog so he sees that he's working with you, but that rarely happens, and when it does, it's after he's had another 5 seconds to wander around looking at stuff.

Let's take the first, indoor video.


He's near you. Does this mean he's near you on purpose? Yes, I think it does. The leash is loose. Does this mean he's keeping the leash loose? No, I don't think it does. I think it's just loose because there isn't really room for him to be sort of near you with a tight leash.

Since he's had so much practise in not really knowing what you want from him (he looks like a nice reasonable fella with a good attitude to life), again, let's crack down a bit.

• Instead of thinking about the loose leash, let's jump ahead and think instead about him being with you.
• Think about your criteria. What exactly do you want from him?
• Here's what I would want at this point: he walks pretty close to you and checks in or looks at you at LEAST every 2 seconds.

Let me take what I see on the indoor video.


12 seconds, glance at you, good start. If you're demonstrating what he does, fine. If you're in life or training mode, I would have clicked right there.


14 seconds, a bit wide and forging for Service Dog Walk (how do you tell? If you decided to turn left at that moment, he'd have to do some heavy scrambling to get out of your way), but still with you and still paying attention. For LLW, that's another click point.

15 seconds, a real check-in - you're still a team. Click.

16 seconds, bam, he's gone. You're not part of the equation any more, he's thinking about the door. Knowing the trouble you're having, HERE is where I'd back up because HERE is where he made the decision to abandon you.

Really, training is never about the action, it's about the DECISION to act.

• If you're rewarding or punishing the ACTION, you're almost always too late.
• If you reward or punish the DECISION to act, you'll be brilliant.

For LLW, this is good enough since the leash is still loose, but again, since he's just not getting it and you're getting frustrated, I wouldn't accept this.

17 seconds, leash still loose, and whoa, what's this, another check-in! Good!

22 seconds - another check-in, but there's nowhere for him to go and you slowed down so much. Nice to see he thought of you, but too little, too late. Also 5 seconds between this one and the last time he noticed you.

24 seconds - now you back up. I couldn't really see but my guess is that he walked that extra inch forward and the leash tightened.

I don't want the dog working on the last inch. The last entire FOOT of the leash is MINE, he doesn't get to use it at all.

27 seconds - and we're going this direction now, what's over there? Cool. Oh, now we're going forward again...

• When I back up, I need the dog coming directly to me, not going for a walk in another direction.
• The point of backing up is to refocus the dog on ME.
• This is a team effort and I'm part of it.

So from this video, I'd say that he has the idea as long as everything's going well, but he really doesn't see it as his job to make it happen.

Sue Eh?

4c.
Re: LLW practice videos - help?
Posted by: "Susan Ailsby"


Now the yard video.



What I'm seeing here is the same sort of thing. He's a big dog, the leash is long, and your chair is slow, so by the time something happens that he might have gotten information from, it's long past the time when he'll learn anything from it.

4 seconds, check in. Click.

6 seconds, check in, and he was keeping half an eye on you in between the two.

8 seconds. Leash still loose, but in your new life, that's too far away. The leash will be shorter.

10 seconds, and he changes pace. In a learning situation, this is too early. Still keeping one eye on you, though.

11 seconds, now he's out in front of your front wheel. OK and safe for the yard, but not for later, and he's using your foot of the leash.

13 seconds, getting further and further out in front. This is how it WILL work later, but right now it's too much freedom for him.

15 seconds, he finally gets to the end of the leash (you knew it was coming, he's been going faster than you have for at least 5 seconds).

15.5 seconds, you start to back up.

• Your response time here is excellent.
• It's your criteria that's fuzzy.

18 seconds, backing up. La di da di da, is that a bug on the ramp?

19 seconds, you start forward again because your leash was loose, but the dog NEVER REORIENTED ON YOU.

20 seconds, he's with you, two friends having a good time.

23 seconds, he's gone again, oh boy, we're going for the gate! whee!

25 seconds, still rooting to get out the gate.

26 seconds you back up again. Again, your timing is good, but you're still responding to the ACT, not the decision, so you're... 3 seconds behind the moment he made the decision to pay attention to the gate instead of keeping the leash loose.

31 seconds, he focuses on you. Great, except it took him 5 seconds to acknowledge you were on the planet with him once you started to back up. Taking that long in a low distraction zone like your yard, this is NOT going to translate well into the Universe.

34 seconds, he's going back to the gate. He didn't stay with you for a moment.

Sue Eh?

4d.
Re: LLW practice videos - help?
Posted by: "Susan Ailsby"

I'm not going to comment on the outdoor video because I think you can fix the problems in the house and yard and then slowly translate them to other places.

Sue Eh?