Dog Swordfighting - Lesson 3: "HOLD IT!!!"
- Christopher Tiller
- Apr 17
- 3 min read
Alright! In the previous two posts we taught Missile to engage with the sword, and then we taught Missile how to grab it properly. Now we're going to spend a moment to get him to actually hold it for more than 3 seconds. Ideally much, much longer than 3 seconds.
But why is this a problem in the first place?
That's a very good question! To answer that, take a quick look at this video:
For those of you who have seen it already, that's from the "Hold Object" demo we recorded for DogKatas. The goal was to hold a toy for at least 3 seconds. Should be easy enough, right?
For him? Not really. We hardly ever practice any duration behaviors because, well, we never needed to. So that 3 seconds was all his little lemon brain could manage after longer than I care to admit.
To understand more, we need to take a step back and revisit when he was a little potato.
This little brat had a really bad habit of grabbing, running off with, and potentially eating anything he came across. (Usually mulch)
In one instance he grabbed a dirty pooper-scooper and proceeded to juke me like he was in the NBA.
After picking up the shattered remains of my ego, I put a lot of effort into teaching him how to drop things. We brought it to the point where it's basically his default behavior.
So, circling back to the hardest 3 seconds of Missile's life, he has a tough time holding things because it directly contradicts everything he's ever known since he was a puppy. Should be an easy fix, right?
The fix
Well, he can get 3 seconds, and the problem was that we never practiced it.
So we just hammer it in.
I initially had a crazy complex intricate plan here about how I was going to mix up shaping and capturing and perfectly time everything while mercury was in retrograde to perfect the hold, but simplicity is the best weapon, and sometimes you don't need a strategy besides hitting it really, really hard.
So all we have to do is:
Take his current 3 seconds and beef it up with a different object. Gradually keep adding duration until the goal is hit. In this case we'll stop at 15 seconds.
After he has hit 15 seconds with that object, transition to an object closer to the final object. (In this case, a section of pool noodle)
After 15 seconds with that object, transition again. (Bigger section of pool noodle)
Finally, transition to the sword, and of course, hit 15 seconds with that too.
Of note, 15 seconds is not nearly enough for the final behavior, but it's good enough for now. We can keep building up that time more and more, but that time should be long enough for any other skills we need to build.
So let's go!
Demo: "Hold it!!!"
Knocking these out back to back! Step 1:
Here we just used one of his toys. It's one we never really play with, and it's only to be a stepping stone so it shouldn't be a big deal. Step 2:
Here I cut out a section of pool noodle. It's bigger and has a different texture, so it is different! He handled it well!
Step 3:
The piece he has to grab is the actual pool noodle, so we covered that texture in the previous step, but the sword is an object that has its weight distributed differently, not to mention the length. Suffice it to say it's a different experience, so I wanted to get closer to that "long awkward object" experience and build that up.
And at this point, we'll call it! Jumping from an object to the sword toy is actually more work than anticipated and warrants its own post.
Wrap up
And there we have it! This week we focused on building Missile's hold duration with the sword. He's going to be using this a lot in the future steps, so it's great that we nailed it down now!
If you enjoy this sort of thing and want to try it out for yourself, I invite you to share in the comments what you're working on! I'd love to see your progress! I would also love to have you over at DogKatas, where we're building a community of fellow Dog Training nerds practicing all kinds of skills! I'm even breaking out everything I do for this trick into individual bite-sized exercises, so check it out! Next week we're making the jump from holding the noodle to holding the sword, so stay tuned, and Happy Training!
Comments