This was very interesting in a number of ways. I first taught the 'speak' to Asia in the basement and then decided to try it on my 10 yr old male. He was offering every behavior he knew with a bark here and there which I marked and rewarded but he was clearly not putting two and two together. When I did this in front of him with Asia then let Jake out and crated Asia he had it no problem.

The 'quiet' is coming along, but no where where I'd like it to be yet. I'm thinking about bridging the 'quiet' command to a 'place' command but I'm guessing that's what module 7 is for.

Great work Cathy :-)

Wonderful, Cathy! If I didn't know about you and Asia I'd be almost frightend. Fabulous job.

Christina

Haha. Yeah, well make no mistake...Asia IS a scary dog as you will see when we try and do a quiet under pressure (basically a 'call off' in the sport/protection world). My son and his girlfriend are coming for dinner.  I'm going to work the quiet before hand then start the serious quiet when the kids get here. Should be an interesting Sunday.

Good gracious, Cathy! I fear it willl take me ten year, until my dogs learn to be quiet in such situations.

Christina

Asia's just a very intense and strong willed dog. She wants to be in charge but I own the door, not her!

Hi Cathy!

The barking looks great!!  Isn't it great how Jake picked up on things!  I love hearing stories like that.  As much as I love training, I love to hear about dogs making decisions on their own, based on their own thoughts.  I just love it!

One thing I've got to point out.  Notice how you are moving your hand before your mark.  What ends up happening is that the dog cues off of your visual hand movement, instead of your audible mark.  Resulting in a outcome where the dog releases itself upon the sight of a moving hand.

You can actually see her cue in this way on the video.  So, I would practice marking first without the dog, and then when you feel like you've got it almost second nature, which shouldn't take long at all, you can reincorporate the dog.

Again, the barking(which is what we are looking for) is great!  But, I would address the marking before Asia develops a habit.

Thanks, Cathy!!

Mark

Thanks so much. I was screwing up my marking/timing all week.  I'm thinking about switching to a clicker starting with very simple behaviors that she already knows. Is it too late to do that? Part of the reason I took this class with Asia was to fix my mistakes before getting another puppy. Thanks for the corrections!!!! They make all the difference for me.