in2adventure Posted February 22, 2009 Report Share Posted February 22, 2009 I've been working pretty hard on Grady's teeter fear. Not only is he scared of the noise, he's scared of the movement. This in turn has made him nervous over the dog walk too, thinking it will move on him. This was not an issue until he was introduced to the teeter. I've tried it ALL, including taking a camera to class today to tape the banging noise to play around the house. While we were in class doing some box work with the jumps, he suddenly got freaked out again when someone went over the teeter on the other side of the room. At about the same time a woman was praising her golden with a toy reward. Grady got fixated on the toy pretty quick and the teeter seemed to fade away.......HMMMMMM, I wonder.......?! Sure enough, the need for a tennis ball over rides the fear of the teeter He works AMAZING for a tennis ball! He works for food, but the interest really has never been there. Even raw hamburger doesn't seem to be very high value for him. He's always seems happy to just work for praise and I've seen him turn up his nose at the reward. With the tennis ball as a reward, I had him doing perfect figure 8's over 1 and 2 jumps, sit stays on a mock start line, front crosses on a pinwheel jump setup and PLAYING/CHASING with the ball around the teeter while the rest of the class went over it again and again Next step is playing ON the teeter while it is low and padded. Why didn't I think of this sooner Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MickeyDogs Posted February 22, 2009 Report Share Posted February 22, 2009 Good for you! Border collies & games - it's a perfect match! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
in2adventure Posted February 22, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2009 Thanks! I can't believe the solution was right under my nose the whole time. He will still need a lot of work to get over the fear, but at least we are on the way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sixx Posted February 22, 2009 Report Share Posted February 22, 2009 That is so great! You could try the slam game. That's what my instructor has us do. You might have tried this technique before. This helps for the noise fear. You put a treat (or in your case the tennis ball) on the teeter (preferably a small one). Put the treat on the side that's up in the air. Your dog should then put it's front legs onto the teeter to reach the treat. The teeter will then gently slam down. The treat is the reward for being on the teeter. Give praise. Repeat this several times. Of course you may not be able to get your dog onto the teeter that day or that week, but eventually it should help. After you achieve the slam game, you can try pivot treating. It might be easier if you hold onto your dogs lead. Have your dog walk up the teeter until it gets to the point where it is going to slam. Stop your dog and give it the treat while the teeter is moving down. This is just more positive reinforcement, and showing your dog that is fun and also what you want the dog to do. Also you can try a movement board (this is if the movement scares your dog). Get a piece of plywood cut into a square. About 3'x3' Then put something under the middle of the board (not exactly sure what to put under, haha, maybe a rock) so the board is lifted and will rock while your dog is on it. When your dog is on it give loads of treats and praise. That's my only suggestions, hope it helps. Good luck! Sounds like good progress is on your way:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Root Beer Posted February 22, 2009 Report Share Posted February 22, 2009 You are really lucky that the drive for the toy can override the fear. When it doesn't, it makes it extremely challenging!! If you could get hold of the June 2008 issue of Clean Run, I highly recommend that you do so. I think that the method outlined in the article on overcoming teeter fear would work like a charm for you. Probably very quickly, too! When you call him off the teeter, you could have a game with the toy Because he is afraid of the motion, you could control the motion of the teeter so it goes VERY slowly until he gets the hang of it, but I doubt you would have to do that for very long. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaggieDog Posted February 22, 2009 Report Share Posted February 22, 2009 Ziva has teeter issues as well and her toy really helped as well; not because desire for it overrode the fear but because I could use it to get her driving *past* the end of the teeter and she's much more comfortable with that goal than stopping at the very pivot point and bottom to eat food. With the food she tended to come off the sides, but the toy has her running straight again. Congrats on your new found success! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
in2adventure Posted February 22, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2009 Thanks for the tips. The bang game doesn't work (at least it didn't with food). HUGE happy dance at the pivot helps a very tiny bit. This was done when the teeter was able to move only slightly. We propped up both ends and padded with blankets. He associates the bang and the movement, so anything that moves is the devil I have 2 "touch" boards made out of 1x12x 48" pine. I use them for contact training. (They have improved Lucia's contacts immensly-another post though) I took one and screwed a piece of 3/4" pvc off center to make it rock like a teeter. Lucia thinks it's a blast Grady thinks it's going to kill him The movement is so slight, but it's still movement. I'll work with him this week with the tennis ball and see what happens. Just being able to work in the same room while the teeter banged was such a HUGE improvement and WAY more than I could have asked for in one day. I'm not going to rush, but I'm very excited to getting him working on/around the teeter. For a dog that has absolutely no noise phobias, he sure picked a good one for his first Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlasl Posted February 22, 2009 Report Share Posted February 22, 2009 That is great! The June 2008 issue on overcoming a teeter fear is very good, I was hoping it would help with Skye's issue, but it mainly covered fear of the obstacle, not really fear of the noise so much. Skye loves the teeter at home, runs over it like a champ. She is just freaked out by the noise of others going over it. And there is nothing that is going to over ride that fear quickly for her. We are going to work on it really really slowly with no one else around and then slowly introduce others. Hope you continue to have progress... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
in2adventure Posted February 23, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2009 That is great! The June 2008 issue on overcoming a teeter fear is very good, I was hoping it would help with Skye's issue, but it mainly covered fear of the obstacle, not really fear of the noise so much. Skye loves the teeter at home, runs over it like a champ. She is just freaked out by the noise of others going over it. And there is nothing that is going to over ride that fear quickly for her. We are going to work on it really really slowly with no one else around and then slowly introduce others. Hope you continue to have progress... Good luck! I think the noise issue is a harder thing to fix than the motion issue. I let my Cleanrun run out and need to get the sub. updated I used my home version of the teeter today and he did great. Mind you, it only falls 3/4" The tennis ball kept him from freaking out about it. He was really cute doing play bows on it. He won't walk end to end yet, but he's close and is very happy trying to figure it out. I'm using the clicker with the ball as the reward. I bounce it once or roll it off the end of the board and he picks it up and throws it back to do it again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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