Nature, Nurture, and Operant Conditioning

Mimi's setup this morning

I am fortunate to have a fenced 60x90 training field in my backyard and a full set of agility equipment to train on. I play ball with the dogs in the main backyard but reserve the training field for "serious" play. One of my favorite training times is Saturday morning as the sun is coming up. What a wonderful time of the day to be outside.

When I choose the equipment layout each week, I consider problems we might be having in class the past couple of weeks or I go through my mental checklist of skills that I think Mimi needs to have, such as distance performance or smoother 270s. I get ideas from the Clean Run magazine and their two Exercise Sourcebooks, (which are great if you don't have a large practice space), and I make up layouts myself. Because my field is large but not the size of a full ring, and because I have equipment out there that I figure I might as well use, I always modify the printed courses, adding the teeter, Aframe, and weaves around the edge, or using two tunnels instead of one, or putting in the triple instead of the teeter since both are one-way.

My relationship with Mimi has been evolving rapidly for the last three months. I'm sure that part of the change is because all of my emotional energy isn't focused on Iz anymore. Some of it is due to the training techniques I've been using from Control Unleashed. Some of it is simply her improved maturity. She is so much more focused on me and so much more enthused about playing agility. Even when we were playing ball after training this morning, she would bring the ball back then run past me and into the training field before stopping and looking at me as if she was saying, this ball game is all well and good but are we going to do more of this agility stuff?

I decided that Mimi needs to work on distance skills. I started three weeks ago with the simple stuff--gates only, then gates and a single jump, gates and the teeter, etc. I like training distance with gates. I think using gates in the beginning make the performance less ambiguous for the dog and give them confidence to move away from you. This morning, I decided to work some obstacle discrimination with "here" and "out". I set up a nice little course with slightly curvy line of jumps leading to a tunnel under the Aframe. Going the other direction, I could have her exit the tunnel or Aframe to discriminate between the line of jumps or a single jump and the weaves. I could run both directions from either handling side. The picture at the top of the post shows the layout.

First run down the line of jumps handled from the right, a "here" and a small RFP to the tunnel--except she went straight up the Aframe! Oops, no reward, not even for her lovely 2on2off contact. Now you could argue that I was late with my here or didn't hold the RFP long enough, but this wasn't complicated handling. She just didn't listen that first time. But that was the only mistake she made for the rest of that part of our session! She was spot on.

And what about Gracie? She got her turn this morning too. Now that I'm "doing something" with her instead of just playing ball, her focus has been skyrocketing. Three weeks ago, I had a heck of a time getting her to calm down long enough to do two jumps in a row. Now she is doing two jumps into a tunnel, exit to two more jumps. Wow! And I am already moving away from the tunnel and not babysitting the entrance and exit.

I even replaced the two outer jumps with a single jump set in the middle then did a side change while she was in the tunnel. I have shown her front crosses on the flat and with a single jump but this was the first time I did one in the context of multiple obstacles. She didn't even bat an eyelash at the side change--performed perfectly. She also had to jump those offset jumps when all she's seen to date are jumps in a straight line. No problems at all. I have been using a clicker which I think has helped her to understand the concept of "more than one".


Gracie's other big project is target training to prepare her for contacts. She pounces on a target with both front feet outstretched and rocks her weight back, usually to the point that she drops into a down. Perfect. I had her bouncing between two targets about 10 feet apart this morning. She loved that game--kept going faster and faster. I think I'll start her on the tippy board and the plank on the ground tomorrow.

Despite the considerable differences in their personalities, I can already see that Mimi and Gracie learn in a similar way. They respond to praise and reward and the clicker quickly, and reliably repeat performance once they understand what I want. They are completely fearless. It's an interesting insight into the role of nature (genetics) and nurture, since they are littermates and were together until nearly 10 weeks of age but experienced radically different life experience and training during their first year and a half. They were both raised in loving, attentive households so the nurture part isn't that different. But Mimi has had three years of intense foundation training in preparation for an agility career while Gracie has had the basics (sit, down, stay, come, and some flyball training) but not much more until recently.

Mimi and Gracie (4 wks old) on the puppy tippy board

How about that? I've got my own little science experiment brewing right here in my backyard!