Mama's Monday - Touch/Target

*sigh* If only he was this tiny...I could keep him in a matchbox.

I know it's Tuesday today, but it's pouring down buckets and I've been at my wits' end trying to come up with things to tire out two damp, crazy newfs. And finally I decided we'd do obedience work because it exercises their brains and they a bit nappish after having to think hard, which would enable me to get some stuff done without someone shoving a wet nose into me with a toy and a look which invites me to play the "it never gets old" game of Tug and Chase.

And I decided to video tape it this time around, for posterity.

Nanook and Pooka already know how to "touch" - a command to push their nose into the palm of my hand - I thought today we'd try and teach Nanook, at least, how to use that command in helpful ways around the house. I thought we'd try first with closing doors, although you can also use it to teach them to shut off the lights...

So, step one is to teach the command "Touch." You do this by having your dog on leash and active, get him up physically and mentally - you want his brain in high gear. Unless of course you have a totally spastic terrier-type dog in which case you want them awake but not excited. It's up to you how to do this - I usually play tug or have Nanook do a few hops or ask him to speak a bunch of times - all of which relieve stress and get the blood flowing. Once he's awake you have to get him focused on you - treats will help, and playing tug also gets the dog's attention onto you.

Take your hand, palm towards the dog and flat. Move it away from your dog a little...he should naturally be curious about what's going on, and he should move forward to sniff your palm. The instant his nose touches your palm click or do your click equivalent (whatever your marker word or sound is - if you are unfamiliar with clicker training or operant conditioning please click here) and give him a treat. My marker word is "yes!"

You don't want to shove your hand into your dog's face - you want him to come to you. If you can't get your puppy to sniff your hand, try rubbing some strongly scented treat onto your palm - liver or cheese works well. Remember that moving your hand away from your dog should create curiosity in him, and he will follow it. Once he's consistently touching your palm with his nose every time you show it to him, introduce the command "touch!" then show him your palm.

Touch!

Since Nanook already knew the command this was by way of reminding him so he'd be thinking about it when I introduced the next stage. But it's important to teach them to touch BOTH hands, and in all sorts of positions, over their head, pointing down, pointing to the side, pointing up - you don't want them to fix only one idea of how your hand should look in their head.

Next I hold an index card or something like it in my palm. I just grabbed a flyer that was on a nearby table. I ask the dog to "touch" and he touches the paper instead of my palm. Once he gets that you can start holding the paper down instead of cradling it in your palm...and again, once he's touching it, I have him touch it in many different positions.

Targeting a Piece of Paper

I also started to introduce a new command - because it occurred to me that it might be easier for him to associate touching the paper with a different command than touching my hand. Especially once I start taping the paper to objects. So I used the word "target." You can use whatever word you like, or even "touch" if it doesn't seem to confuse your dog.

Nanook is sort of a work horse, so I was able to move through all these steps really quickly and all in one go, but it's important to keep sessions short and fun and above all quit while you are ahead so your dog feels successful!

When your dog totally understands that the command means "touch the paper" you can try removing your hands from the equation. I taped the piece of paper to a door, right underneath the handle. This is hard for the dog since the situation has now almost completely changed - instead of touching your hand, or something you are holding, they are meant to touch the index card alone - and I found that with Nanook it helped first to point and tap the paper with my hand while saying the word, then to point close to the paper while saying the word, and to try and wean him off the hand gesture by making the point less and less dramatic and further away from the paper target as we went along until I was barely gesturing with my index finger in the direction of the door. I think it will take a number of sessions before I feel he totally understands that "target" means "find the paper and bump it with the nose," but he did pretty well for his first time...

Touch the Paper Taped on the Door...

So now he's basically got that down, (although I'm going to keep working on it so that he can learn to target it without me pointing), I'm going to make things a little more interesting by moving it to the other side of the door, and opening the door a little, so he can try his paw at CLOSING the door with his mighty nose shove.

Closing the Door

He was doing so well that I decided to try a little bit of generalization - changing the scenario so that he'll learn to target the piece of paper no matter where I stick it. In this case, I stuck it on the fridge. We ran into a little bit of a roadblock, because quarters are pretty tight in the kitchen and he was having trouble getting a good angle on it to really give a good nose push, but he was definitely TRYING. He was sitting, too, so he couldn't really give it a good push. And then when I tried to get him to stand up, he just scooted closer to me on his butt...ridiculous. But he totally improvised with his paw, which was impressive...

Pooka gave it a try too, but let's just say his efforts were sporadic at best. He's a scatterbrained little lad, as yet. He WILL touch the paper, but only while I'm holding it so far. We'll get there.

Anyway, hope this gave you guys some ideas for what you can do with your next rainy day...