Teaching an old dog new tricks

Biscuit is an old man - he turned 14 in December. He used to be a dog dancing star in his younger days, but he has now retired from competitions. He still enjoy the one on one time in training sessions though and he likes to feel useful and to have a job. 

So I try to have a training session with him every time we are in the training hall. Sometimes we play with moves that he already know and sometimes we work on new moves. 

What we work on is not important since his training is just for fun and to keep his brain active. It is not about the result, but about the process of learning. 

Today I started teaching him to put his head in a bucket/container. Eventually I want him to put his head in the bucket and keep it there until he gets a release command. Today I clicked him just for putting his head into the bucket.

I made a small video to put on Instagram - you can see it here. 

The important thing at this stage is only to click when his head is moving down - never when it is moving up. If I click for moving his head up, I will never get him to keep his head in the bucket as he will learn that he gets a reward for pulling his head up.

If I accidentally click for pulling his head up too often, he will start thinking that he needs to put his head down and then pull it up to get his reward. He will not put it in the bucket to keep it there, but only to get a chance to pull it back up. It will give me a yo-yo kind of movement. 

If I can time my click correctly, he will understand that it is putting his head down into the bucket that is rewarded and then I have something to built on, when I want to extend the time before he is released from the position. 

A silly little thing to teach him, but we are both having fun with it. Also I get to practise my timing and Biscuit gets to eat lots of treats and he enjoys the challenge. Win win :-)

See you tomorrow
Emmy and the Hazyland Boys