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Obsessive Phantom Squirrel Chasing
Dec. 5th, 2008 06:49 pmPanic has a very annoying and incredibly obsession behavior. As soon as I let him outside, he runs from tree to tree in the backyard, puts his paws on it, and looks at me for encouragement. If I am in the yard with him, he will just keep running; I'm sure he'd do it for hours if I let him but 30-45 minutes is usually my limit.
Somehow I'm sure I have taught and inadvertently rewarded this behavior but it is driving me NUTS so now I'm trying to nip it in the bud. My initial thought was the Give Me a Break Game. First I called him to me, rewarded, played with him, then released him back to run and wait for him to acknowledge me at all. At first this worked okay; he would come back on his own occasionally, but the entire time he was on edge and jittery and I could tell he was waiting for me say his release word. (That's how he is most of the time in the back yard if I try to play with him now; he just has a glazed over look and isn't enjoying himself. He so obsessed with those trees that he can't focus on anything else.)
Eventually he thought it wasn't worth it to come back at all, and this is where the sitting-in-the-yard-for-half-an-hour-until-I-lose-my-patience part came in. So I tried this for a week and almost every session ended with me freezing my ass off in the cold for a long time. No progress was being made. I'm sure if I had more patience it eventually would have worked, but I'm just not a patient person.
So the other day I had a lightbulb moment; I could try rewarding him for the behavior. So today I grabbed his dinner and a clicker and trudged out in my coat and hat to try again. This time, as soon as he even looked towards the tree, I clicked and fed him. Soon we had a game of LAT going on with the tree. After a while, he got bored of that so started offering other behavior, completely turning his back to the tree!! Eventually he offered heel position, so I started heeling him through the yard, then we would stop and look at the trees again for awhile and then started heeling again. He was totally attentive and really into the heeling. He wasn't antsy or on edge at all. I think we made a breakthrough!! Tomorrow, of course, he will forget it all and we'll have to start over, but now I know what direction I should go in.
I love border collies, not because of how easy to train they are or how much natural ability they have; just the opposite. They are so darn smart that they throw the strangest behaviors at you. Having Panic has really made me think hard about what and how I'm training him. Nothing in his training has been easy. I've said before that owning a BC has been the most frustrating, unnerving, challenging and certainly most rewarding thing I've ever experienced. The harder the challenge, the sweeter the victory, no?
Somehow I'm sure I have taught and inadvertently rewarded this behavior but it is driving me NUTS so now I'm trying to nip it in the bud. My initial thought was the Give Me a Break Game. First I called him to me, rewarded, played with him, then released him back to run and wait for him to acknowledge me at all. At first this worked okay; he would come back on his own occasionally, but the entire time he was on edge and jittery and I could tell he was waiting for me say his release word. (That's how he is most of the time in the back yard if I try to play with him now; he just has a glazed over look and isn't enjoying himself. He so obsessed with those trees that he can't focus on anything else.)
Eventually he thought it wasn't worth it to come back at all, and this is where the sitting-in-the-yard-for-half-an-hour-until-I-lose-my-patience part came in. So I tried this for a week and almost every session ended with me freezing my ass off in the cold for a long time. No progress was being made. I'm sure if I had more patience it eventually would have worked, but I'm just not a patient person.
So the other day I had a lightbulb moment; I could try rewarding him for the behavior. So today I grabbed his dinner and a clicker and trudged out in my coat and hat to try again. This time, as soon as he even looked towards the tree, I clicked and fed him. Soon we had a game of LAT going on with the tree. After a while, he got bored of that so started offering other behavior, completely turning his back to the tree!! Eventually he offered heel position, so I started heeling him through the yard, then we would stop and look at the trees again for awhile and then started heeling again. He was totally attentive and really into the heeling. He wasn't antsy or on edge at all. I think we made a breakthrough!! Tomorrow, of course, he will forget it all and we'll have to start over, but now I know what direction I should go in.
I love border collies, not because of how easy to train they are or how much natural ability they have; just the opposite. They are so darn smart that they throw the strangest behaviors at you. Having Panic has really made me think hard about what and how I'm training him. Nothing in his training has been easy. I've said before that owning a BC has been the most frustrating, unnerving, challenging and certainly most rewarding thing I've ever experienced. The harder the challenge, the sweeter the victory, no?