  Getting this picture took 6 months of blood, sweat and tears and lots of training 2004-04-28 With all the respect of clicker training, but should it really take 6 months to teach the dog to hold the dumbell??? OK, I'm exaggerating a little bit, it took perhaps two weeks of those 6 months to move from looking at the dumbell to lift it... But the other 5 ½ months we have worked and worked (blood sweat and tears!) to get Kim to keep the dumbell in his mouth long enough so that I could reinforce the hold (my criteria was that he should hold it for a half second). This winter we have put all our energy into obedience training, putting tracking and agility to rest for a while. On some exercises, we have had to turn away from clicker training and use classic methods instead. Especially with retrieving the dumbell. The first steps, oh so easy - look at dumbell, move towards dumbell, sniffing the bit, touch the bit with teeth, closing teeth around the bit - all fine. But then - take, drop, take, drop, take, drop, take, drop... Hold???? "No way", said Kim. Take, drop, take drop. WHERE shall I click for him holding, when I don't have time to hit the clicker before he drops it? Well, after about 6 months(!), I tried classic forcing, a nice one though, just holding his muzzle closed with both my hands. It worked. Twice. Then I got the reaction look away, looking bored, looking insecure and finally "get me out of here!" Not the way I want to work. Back to click for looking at, moving towards, and touching the dumbell. Happiness was soon restored, and Kim once again started to willingly reach for the dumbell in my hand, instead of trying to avoid it as far as possible. But still, we couldn't get passed to start reinforcing the hold. Take, drop, take, drop :-(
I started to test moving around. Then Kim could hold the dumbell for such a long period of time that it permissed me to click and treat the hold. But stop - and then SIT with the dumbell in his mouth - totally impossible in Kims mind. "I'm a man", it looked as if he thought, "I can not do two things at the same time". And so he dropped the dumbell before he sat down... Once again I put away the clicker and tried a new approach. If the dog is stubborn, I have to be even more stubborn. So I stopped reinforcing him! And I also added an "ah ah, wrong" when he dropped the dumbell. I once again tried to help him by holding my hand under his jaw, but had to stop that immediately from the look in his eyes. We did this little exercise three times, then I gave Kim a break for at least 10 minutes. Giving him time to think about it. We never did more then 3x3 sessions during one day, but we did work on this for 6 out of 7 days a week, for about two weeks. Then it happened - Kim held the dumbell without dropping it! And again - and again! We are finally over the difficulties! Kim finally got the idea of how to handle the dumbell. And it was so easy, it was all about me being a lot more clear about what I wanted him to do, instead of giving him treats all the time for something that looked "almost" like a hold.
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I have moved on with letting him sit and hold while I pet him on the head, while walking, while jumping and he can actually move, stop and sit down now with the dumbell in his mouth :-) But it still is not a 100 % done, he drops it about 1 out of 5 times, and his grip is rather loose, but that will be our next concern...
