Mighty Middle Game: Safety, Confidence, Control!
Protecting our dogs from the world and the world from our dogs can sometimes feel like a full-time operation. Not with middle! It’s the portable safe place that you can take anywhere and it’s the mainstay of our Leash Off, Game On off-leash reliability games that we show in our free DVD: https://game.absolute-dogs.com/leashoffgameon
The benefits of middle are huge:
- It acts as a portable boundary so that your dog can stay focused and confident no matter the exciting or scary environment
- It is a calming exercise
- It gets your dog into a safe place QUICK
- It allows you to position dogs that don’t like being handled for vet exams, in dog sports, for claw clipping, you name it!
Here’s how to play Mighty Middle!
Step 1: We like to shape this trick, which means rewarding successive approximations of the final behavior - or rewarding things your dog does that are closer and closer to the final behavior in mind!
Step 2: To do this, we mark and reward turns and steps towards behind us to start with, rewarding by placing the treat or toy behind us and eventually between legs.
Step 3: Do this until your dog is consistently heading around your leg and then between your legs. At this point, placement of the reward should always be in the final position - between your legs.
Step 4: Build duration into maintaining position between your legs by providing a rapid rate of reinforcement in this position. Then work on reducing the rate of reinforcement while your dog stays in one place.
Step 5: Now we can work on the final behavior we want - a sit! You can:
1)Shape the sit by marking and rewarding weight shifts backwards until your dog sits.
2)Cue a sit, repeat a few times and then wait your dog out for him/her to offer it.
3) Cue a hand target with your hand above your dog’s head such that he/she sits when targeting.
TOP TIPS! If you want a high energy, tucked sit, then using a hand target is a really good way to get this! Tucked sits are more accurate to maintain the final position and you can shape these also, or, if your dog has a specific cue for a tucked sit, then use method two with that cue!
Step 6: Build duration into maintaining the sit position between your legs by manipulating rate of reinforcement again. Here is where you can add your release cue too!
Step 7: Work on proofing the sit for you moving away now by rewarding for sit maintenance as you change position!
Step 8: When you are happy with the final behavior, introduce your cue (“middle”, “centre”, “position”) just before your dog performs the full behavior and rewards lots!!!!
We run through this with a practical demonstration in the FREE Leash Off, Game On DVD you can grab a copy of here (if there are any left): https://game.absolute-dogs.com/leashoffgameon
In the meantime, get playing Mighty Middle!
Go have fun!
Tom
Positively Dog Training Episode 610
Season 6 ends with a bang as Holly and Victoria reveal two brand new releases that listeners will be able to enjoy.
Positively Dog Training Episode 608
Victoria and Holly chat about the Victoria Stilwell Academy and the latest news from the program. They also answer your most...
