Instructor: Mariah Hinds
Course Details
Can your dog spy a cookie on the floor 60 feet away? Does your dog do whatever it takes to get to that cookie? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to put a treat in a bowl, walk away and see your dog cooperate with you to earn that treat? It’s possible! This class will go over teaching your dog to cooperate with you in order to earn the treat even when the cookie is right under their nose or on their paws or laying out in the open. Teams will get to practice lots of fun versions of these games: walking past cookies on the floor, zen bowl, rolling food to the dog, and adding duration and distance to our cooperation games.
We will go over adding distance, duration and out of sight to leaving food alone on the countertops or in the trash cans. We will also go over teaching the dog to wait to be released to zen bowls, walking past food distractions on or off leash and cooperating with you instead of diving for the rewards when we roll food towards them.
Join us for the fun and teach your dog to cooperate with you to earn that cookie!
Whether your dog is brand new to impulse control with food or has some experience with impulse control with food, we can find a challenge level that is achievable and challenging for your dog!
*If you want to take the class "Proof Positive: Adding Distractions", this class is a recommended prerequisite.
Registration
There are no scheduled sessions for this class at this time. We update our schedule frequently, so please subscribe to our mailing list for notifications.
Registration will begin at 9:30 AM Pacific Time.
For answers to commonly asked questions see our FAQ page.
Enrollment limits: Gold: 12 students, Silver: 15 students, Bronze: unlimited.
Silver level for this class is offered as "Working Silver". In addition to asking GENERAL clarification questions about the class lecture materials, silver students will now have the opportunity to submit two short videos, one minute each, for critique and review. You may submit two questions. Each question MUST have a one minute video attached so the instructor can actually answer a question that they can see. The question must relate to a topic in the class and the video must be a demo of the question. Please see the discussion forum for a detailed explanation - feel free to sign up at bronze, read the explanation, and then come back here to upgrade to silver if that interests you, and if space is available.
If you are interested in a bronze level subscription, you can sign up at any time during the registration period.
Syllabus
The bullet points underneath each topic are suggestions of real-life applications for the skills that we are going over.
Week One
Cooperation with food in your fist
o Grab handful of kibble from a bag
o Grab handful of meatballs from the freezer or a piece of lunch meat from the fridge
o Grab handful of treats from treat pouch or pocket
o Adding a cue for cooperation with food distractions
o Practice in a sit or down and in a stand or while the dog is walking
Adding duration to food in fist game
Cooperation with food in your palm game
o Grab treats from treat pouch and hold the treats out
o Grab handful of crackers and keep open in your palm
o Grab chunk of cheese or lunch meat and hold open in your palm
o Hold a hotdog or cheeseburger in your hand
o Adding a cue
Bonus exercise: Can you sit, down and hand touch with food in your fist and food in your palm?
Week Two
Adding Duration to food in your palm game
Cooperation with food in a bowl game
o Handful of kibble in a dog bowl placed on the floor
o A salad in a bowl, a sandwich in a Tupperware container placed on the coffee table
o Chili or soup in a bowl placed on the couch
o Adding a cue
Adding distance and handler motion to food in a bowl game
Bonus exercise: Can you sit, down and hand touch with food in a bowl on the floor?
Week Three
Cooperation with food on the floor/ food on the coffee table/ counter top game
o Handful of treats on the ground
o Stolen item on the ground
o Chicken bone on the ground
o Plate of crackers or crackers on the coffee table
o Food in the trash can, food on the coffee table
Gourmet dinner party for humans: Adding distance and handler motion to food on coffee table/ counter top game
o 5 pan meal prep with bowls and pans spread around the kitchen
o Carrying bowls or pans of food with the dog cooperating with you
o Meal transfer from kitchen counters to dining room table and back again
o Putting the food away with the dog cooperating to earn rewards
o Loading the dishwasher with the dog cooperating to earn rewards
Cooperation with surprise food discovered on the floor- walking around it
o Trash blowing in the wind
o Chicken bones on the sidewalk
o Cat poop on the walking trail
o Pile of treats discovered by your trashcan outside
o Bowl of cat food discovered outside a downtown restaurant
Bonus exercise: Can you sit, down and hand touch with food on the coffee table at a distance?
Week Four
Dropped treats
o Dropped pills (supplements to start with then building up to more dangerous pills)
o Spilled shredded cheese on the floor
o Oops! Dropped chicken
o Tossed treats to the dog- releasing the dog to the treats
Food in a bowl (Zen bowl)
o In front of the dog
o Next to the dog
o By the dog’s rear left leg
o By the dog’s rear right leg
o Behind the dog
Gourmet meal for humans: sitting on the floor edition
o Steak dinner with the dog nearby
o Eating French fries with the dog nearby
o Eating a cheese plate with the dog cooperating with you to earn rewards
Bonus exercise: Can you sit, down and hand touch with dropped treats?
Week Five
Slowest dog trainer ever
o Cooperation while pretending to be a child that is slowly and tentatively delivering a treat to the dog
o Waving food around in your hands and the dog cooperating with you to earn rewards
o Waving around a giant piece of bread and the dog cooperating with you
o Spoon feeding a child and the dog cooperates with you to earn their reward
o Slowly delivering the treat to the other dog followed by slowly delivering the treat to the dog in training and the dog in training cooperates throughout
Cooperation with food on the floor- Adding handler distance and motion
o Ham and cheese on the floor challenge
o Broken plate with BBQ sauce and pulled pork pieces of food all over the floor. Can the dog cooperates and leaves the mess alone while you go get the paper towels and dustpan?
o Dog food spill- the food spills all over the floor and your dog will get sick if they eat it all. Can the dog cooperates and leaves the food alone with you get a broom and dustpan?
Trashcan games- out of sight
o Leftovers in the trash can. The dog cooperates and leaves the trash can alone while you go out of sight
o Canned dog food cans in the trash can. The dog cooperates and leaves the trash can alone while you go out of sight
o Chicken bones in the trash can. The dog cooperates and leaves the trash can alone while you go out of sight
Bonus exercise: Can you sit, down and hand touch with the zen bowl behind you?
Week Six
Off-leash cooperation with food on the floor with the dog closer to the food than you are
o You see a big discarded chicken nugget on the ground with your dog ahead of you off leash and you ask the dog to ignore it. Will the dog cooperate?
o You toss a treat to your dog, send the dog to get it and change your mind at the last moment. Can the dog cooperate with you?
o You put a dog bone on the ground and send your dog to get it and change your mind at the last second. Can the dog cooperate with you in order to earn the bone?
Cooperation with food on the floor- Walking over treats
o Can you spread out a large pile of Rice Krispies cereal and ask the dog to cooperate with you and walk over the treats?
o Can you put shredded cheese on the floor and ask the dog to cooperate with you and ignore the food?
o Can you put shredded chicken or pork on the floor and ask the dog to cooperate with you and ignore the food?
Out of sight with food on counters, coffee tables
o Can you leave a piece of pizza on the countertop and go use the restroom?
o Can you leave your steak dinner on the coffee table while you go get more A-1 from the fridge?
o Can you leave your salad on the countertop while you run out to the car?
Bonus exercise: Can you sit, down and hand touch with food on the floor with the dog closer to the food than you are?
Prerequisites & Supplies
This class is a prerequisite for Proof Positive: Adding Distractions.
Supplies:
You will need food and more food. In week 2, it's best to have a variety of food items that can be held in your hand. In week 6, it'll be beneficial to have a variety of food items that can be spread out on the floor.
Sample Lecture
Week 1, Lecture 2:
Adding Duration to our Food in the Fist Game
Now that we have shaped the dog to offer attention instead of trying to get the treat from our fist, we are going to work on building some duration first and then generalizing the behavior.
The goal is that we can have our fist full of treats in front of the dog's nose and the dog offers to look at you or keep their nose and paws away from your fist and that is rewarded often.
Generalization Games
Grab a handful of kibble from a bag
Grab a handful of meatballs from the freezer
Grab a piece of lunch meat from the fridge
Grab a handful of treats from treat pouch or pocket
Remember to practice with both hands. Reward with the hand that doesn’t contain the treats in your fist.
Week 2, Lecture 1:
Adding Duration to our Food in the Palm Game
Now that our dogs understand the basics of the food in the palm game, we can start working on duration. In lecture 3 from last week, we worked on offered eye contact and now we are going to include it in our criteria today. All we are looking for is our dogs to look at us in between reward deliveries. If the dog moves towards your hand, go ahead and close it and if the dog doesn’t move towards your hand and looks at you reward the dog.
Week 2, Lecture 4:
Complexity and Reward Markers with Cookies in the Bowl
Reward Markers
Once we have worked on the cookies in a bowl behavior and the dog is really successful there, we can start working on building complexity with cookies in a bowl. To start with, we can practice our different reward markers with the cookies in the bowl. This is challenging because we told the dog that they have earned the reward so the dog wants to get the reward and they want to get all of the rewards. We want to teach them that they can get the reward that we cued but not the rewards from the different locations. We can use additional hand signals such as pointing to the reward that we want the dog to get.
With the reward markers video, I'd like to see all 3 food reward markers- the don't move and I'll bring the food to you reward marker, the come get the treat from me reward marker and the get the food off of the floor/ bowl reward marker. After you cue the dog to get the food from the bowl, I'd like to see another repetition with more food in the bowl. If you have additional food reward markers, I'd like to see those as well. Once the dog is confident with the reward markers, then we can add the cookies to the bowl.
In this video, my puppy thinks that yes is the reward marker for get the food from the bowl. I recently changed it to treat so I just laughed it off and she decided to stop eating the treats out of the bowl. The next repetition, I used lots of body language help to remind her that she should come get the treat from me. I also noticed that she also thinks that she should sit near me when I say "yes" so I'm trying to reward her out of the sit and away from my pocket. Next time, we will warm up with our reward markers before we practice anything else and I'll do a few repetitions with the food in my hand so I can reward her before she sits.
Distance
We can also start working on adding a bit of distance to our bowl on the floor. We can start off with sitting on the floor with the bowl, then kneeling, then standing and rewarding the dog for leaving the bowl of food alone. Once we are standing, we can practice with the bowl to our right and to our left and add a bit of distance between the bowl and the handler. For now, we are going to avoid placing the bowl in a location where the dog can reach the bowl before you can.
Skills
Once our dogs can successfully do our reward markers with the bowl of treats on the floor, we can start mixing in our 3 skills as well. We can start off with holding the bowl of treats and slowly build up to the bowl with one treat in it on the floor.
Can the dog sit, down and hand touch with the bowl of treats on the floor? Can we mix in releasing the dog to the bowl as our reward followed by asking for another trick or does the dog think that one release to the bowl means that you can release every time to the bowl afterward?
