Able and I are continuing to make the most of lockdown with some of our inside games. This week I decided to revisit something that’s been a struggle for us – pivoting – and see if we could get to the next level.
I like my agility dogs to be able to sit straight next to me, and to be able to pivot round in front of me from one side to the other. This is how we start every single agility run – I ask Rik to sit next to me, stroke her head while we wait for the previous dog to finish, and then I start my lead-out. The pivoting is how my dog learns to reliably set herself up straight, and is useful if I walk into the ring with my dog on the wrong side of me (I’m not the only one who does this, right?).
Dusting Off the Pivot
In our last episode of pivoting, a younger Able had just learned that he could in fact pivot independently of my motion, and mastered the exercise of pivoting himself onto a pair of boxes. This seemingly simple skill had taken us weeks to learn, so I took a break from it for a while … besides, I was hoping that Able would grow a bit taller so it would be easier on my back.
Well, Able is indeed taller now, and it’s beginning to annoy me that he doesn’t know how to set himself up straight for some of our training. This week I plucked up my courage, pulled the perfectly-shaped salad bowl out of the pantry (who I am kidding, it was still on the coffee table from my last pivotwork session), and got to work on teaching him how to pivot into “heel position”.
Note that this doesn’t necessarily have to have the same precision as an obedience heel position, and it’s something you need to train on both sides. Even if you’re planning to compete in obedience, it’s worth the effort to train it on both sides to keep your puppy balanced and moving well in both directions. I promise you can teach your puppy to work on the right, and also enjoy top-level success in obedience later if you want.
This exercise is a bit of a mind shift for my puppy. I’d taught him how to pivot by getting him to move away from my leg, but now I wanted him to pivot towards my leg … how confusing!
I started by trying to build a lot of value for Able being in heel position with his front paws on the target. I had to start by making a channel between me and the couch and placing the pivot there, as Able was very keen to demonstrate his talents at pivoting away from me. I fed him in place several times, then threw a cookie forward and did a 180 degree turn so that he’d be coming back into heel position from behind me.
Able ate over half of his dinner (and this is the puppy who eats five cups of food a day) just for standing there between me and the couch, with his front feet up on the pivot. Then I shifted the pivot to the other side of me, so that he now had a big open space next to him. I kept throwing the reset cookies and turning so that he would be coming in from behind me, but I had to fairly quick to get the first cookie in before the back feet started moving away from me.
Success in Three Sessions
I started the second session with half a dozen repetitions next to the couch, then I moved the pivot away from the couch again. After we’d finished our review there, I threw my reset cookie a little more out to the side, so that if Able took a straight path back to the pivot and stood there he wouldn’t quite be straight.
And then I waited. Of course Able immediately began to offer pivoting behaviour once he didn’t get his treat. And naturally he was mostly pivoting away from me, until he’d gone a bit over 180 degrees and his bum hit the couch. The only direction for a pivoting addict to go was towards me, so that is what he did – and I clicked and rewarded for it.
I was very surprised at how quickly Able put together these two pieces of pivoting towards me, and standing parallel with me. After three or four repetitions, he offered the correct behaviour of pivoting towards me into heel position as soon as he got onto the pivot – and I paid him very handsomely for it. By the end of this session I could throw the reset cookies so that he would be approaching from in front of me, and he could pivot into position beautifully.
After a quick refresher at the start of the third session, I replaced the salad bowl with something smaller – Able’s ice cream lid target. He didn’t make any mistakes, so I took it away altogether and he was still perfect every time.
I’m very proud of my clever puppy, as I thought this would be more challenging for him. I think I have earned a gold star too, for learning from my previous pivot headaches – I started with something so easy my puppy almost couldn’t fail at it, and built up lots of value for that before I increased the level of difficulty.