Oh Canada

I had half a Tim Hortons iced cap, a few bites of Poutine, and a stroll through beautiful Toronto today. Portions due to Met belly that has been rebelling grandly at my food choices this week. Aside from that fact, I know you're jealous. Don't hate on the lucky.

Cute Baby

My boy is fast asleep beside me, and man is he precious.

Quick cute story: Hub was playing a video on you tube for E. It stopped playing for a moment (as it often does to load or when E hits the pause). Before Hub could say or do anything, E said, "Hold on!" then typed on the keyboard, jiggled the mouse and said, "OK!" Adorable parrot.

Training Questions

I had a couple of great thoughts/questions on my last post. If the ladies who posted them don't mind, I will answer them in post form so that we can hash out possibilities and learn more about training! It's always a work in progress.

Training Tutorial

Before you continue, if you want to know the theory and whys behind operant conditioning and positive reinforcement, here are Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

So... let's pretend we're going to train a dog to target to your hand. This is one of the easiest things to train and will give you confidence for more complicated behaviors. First off, we need to set up our toolbox.

Is your dog motivated at all? Is it overweight and doesn't care about food? If it is, proceed with a diet first (overseen by your vet), then continue. Remember too that you can feed in different ways or use other rewards (though they are sometimes harder to be clear with).

In your toolbox, you will need:

a reinforcer - In this case, let's say it's pieces of kibble
a bridge - we will use a clicker with the word "good" as a secondary bridge since most
can't help but say it anyway. For a more skittish animal, a quieter sound may be
needed.
knowledge - understanding of the animal's habits and when and how it will work best
ex) Is he too distracted when the whole family's home around dinner? Short
morning sessions may be best then.
a training plan - We're going to basically make one in our tutorial, but a step by step plan of how
hope to proceed builds confidence and shapes your training. It's definitely fluid
and can be modified, but as a new trainer, it's best if you have this on your side.
Later, as your skill set improves, you can do more spur of the moment training.
A planned cue - In this case, let's say it's an open palm held out to your side along with the word
"target."


Find a good place to stash your reinforcement (the kibble.) Fanny packs work nicely. You can line it with a plastic bag if you want.

• Step 1 - Condition the bridge by going to Fido and then just click the clicker and give him a treat immediately after. Do it many times in a row, but not too many that he loses interest. When you think he may have the idea, wait until he looks down or somewhere else and click the clicker. Does he look to you for treats? If he does, you know the bridge is established. He now knows that that sound means treats and will eventually get into the "training game" and know that it means, "Yes you did the right thing!" and that a reward is coming.
  
• Step 2 - Hold out your hand, palm out toward Fido. He is likely to investigate it with his nose because that's what dogs do. The minute he does so, click with the other hand and then reward him with a treat. (Don't feel you have to do the reward in a great hurry. That's why we established a bridge.. to give you time to get the treat.)
• Step 3 - Repeat step 2 a few times until it seems like he's getting the idea.
• Step 4 - Now to add the verbal cue, when he touches his nose to your hand, say, "target" quickly and then click immediately. Repeat this step a few times.
• Step 5 - When you've done step 4 a few times, hold out your hand and say "target" simultaneously. When he touches his nose to your hand, click and reward.

The behavior is trained! See? Simple! And since we've established the verbal cue, you may be able to generalize "target" to mean "touch your nose to whatever object I'm offering." If at any point, he isn't getting it, he's losing interest or he's offering the wrong behavior, take a short time out where you turn your back and withdraw the opportunity for reward. When we do this to people, we often call it "reverse psychology." Works like a charm doesn't it? If you find that either of you are getting too frustrated, shorten your sessions, or don't train when you know you aren't in a patient mood.

And now I totally want to go back to Jen's and train the little dog to station to the carpet when the doorbell rings. It would be so much fun!

Questions? Concerns? Cries of agony? I hope to open up a post soon to training questions, difficulties, situations etc where we can all brainstorm together on how to deal with them. We can extinguish behaviors or reshape them as needed as well, but that's more advanced stuff I didn't want to get into with this first tutorial. And remember, it's all the same principle for ALL of us.... human and animal alike. We just need different tools and expectations for different individuals and situations.

Posting in the Comments

So lately, (as some of you can attest), I've been writing more in your comments sections than in my posts. And I think that some of this material that was prompted by your lovely thoughts should have been used to create my own lovely thoughts here... except that I have been somewhat brain dead and distracted. Therefore, I will share with you just one of those since I particularly liked the original post that spawned it.

Recently, Dresden (yay for a name!) at Creating Motherhood posted asking what you think parenting newsletters should really tell you but don't. This was my contribution:

How, although the whole newborn thing is magical, wonderful, lovely etc, you will also feel like you’ve been hit by a mack truck for a while… and then can’t stop crying that you just didn’t get hit by that truck in the right WAY. You’re a horrible accident victim. And everyone else will tell you how if you had stood just a little to the left, the truck would have creamed you SO MUCH BETTER. OK.. actually, it’s probably easier being hit by a real mack truck.

Highlights

• It's a miracle! I had a fairly drama free bed time and (so far) evening! I'm going to write a few things!
• But just a few because I'm a little jealous of this alone time and need to catch up on LOTS.
• Liiike, our trip to visit relatives soon. Need some thoughts on the whole strapping the car seat to the suitcase to drive E around the airport in thing. (Jen, I know you've done this. Fess up.) Or should I just check it and take his umbrella stroller? We'll be by ourselves for the trip there.
• I've been getting decent sleep, but only because it was so horrible, I gave in and let E sleep with me for a few nights. He sleeps pretty well then and only shrieks a few times. It has to be the teeth right? He's in his crib right now and seems ok. I also wonder if it's just more separation anxiety stuff since it eases on non-daycare days. :( Way to make a Mom feel super guilty for working.
• As part of the aforementioned sleep issues, E has been requesting to fall asleep to music off and on. Usually he enjoys himself a little Jack Johnson. The Curious George movie has made him a fan. However, he also loves him some Jeopardy and dances to the theme.. especially during Final Jeopardy. Two nights ago, he was so taken with it that nothing would do for him to fall asleep to except, "SONG JEPADY! SONG JEPADY!"
  
• Testament to my fatigue is the fact that I was also able to sleep to "Song Jepady" on repeat approximately 1000 times before I woke up and turned it off.
• Bonus to sleeping with E for a few nights: I've found out that he full on belly giggles in his sleep. It's one of the most adorable things I've ever seen. The other night he even said, "Agin??" in between giggles just like he does when he wants us to tickle/chase/whatever him again.
• And my final cute baby thing... he can now sing all of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. He's so proud.
• I wrote half of a really nice post to Hub for our anniversary. Maybe I'll get it finished at some point.
  

Sleep has been interesting again lately. You always know that's the case when I'm very silent in pretty much all online media. Oops. Gotta go again! Work calls!

Laters (hopefully)

It's Our Anniversary All Week!

It's really only our 8th wedding anniversary the middle of this coming week, but why not celebrate for days? Since Hub is working on our real anniversary, we decided to start early with our day off together. When I came home from work last night, Hub had some of my favorite stuff from Whole Foods ready for me along with special desert that my tummy can handle! Tonight we made our way to Seasons 52 where I had a most delicious tamarind glazed turkey tenderloin skewer with vegetable couscous and green beans. Or as fancy restaurants like to say, "hericots verts," which means the exact same thing, but I guess the French just sounds so much better. I also had one of their amazing shot glass desserts. It was the sugar free cookies and cream, and I was highly impressed with the delicious non-sugar free taste.

E came with us and was less than pleased for a lot of it since his evil canines were bothering him (still coming in), and we hadn't brought any "meh-sin." He was pleased that he got to eat the Oreo from the top of my dessert though.

If you haven't yet tried Seasons 52, please do. They rotate their menu according to what's in season to use food that's as fresh as possible. They also strive to keep their food heart healthy and low calorie yet amazingly delicious. I adore it. Those of us on Metformin should probably send them a huge thank you card.

Tomorrow I post a step by step training post. I swear! If I don't do it, please hound me.

For whatever reason - be it being busy, other worries, fatigue or just plain apathy, I'm not that interested in writing right now. I'm worried about the state of our political system and planning some trips. I'm also, after seeing the last Harry Potter and finding it brilliant, immersed in re-reading the series. I'd forgotten how much I liked The Prisoner of Azkaban.

Oh. And my baby is a full fledged gabbering toddler. Loving it.

Thoughts in my head right now

Harry Potter movie rocked!

I'm going to re-read all the books

Baby, 30 mins is NOT a nap when you only slept 9 hrs last night. PLEASE GO TO SLEEP.

Mommy obviously needs a nap too.

There is so much to be done today that is not going to happen. Sigh