Question On Pivoting

tx_cowgirl

Honored Member
Staff member
So, Mud had a breakthrough with pivoting a while back, and we have gotten to a point where she will pivot a half-circle one way and not quite a half-circle the other way, without any cues of any kind. Basically I've just been shaping up to a full circle. I stopped working on it for a bit because I can't get her to make more than a half-circle without me directing her in some way, and I don't want to reward the half-circles so much that she thinks that's what she's supposed to do.
She will pivot a full circle if I walk around the stool we are using for this. But if I don't, half circle only. I've tried sending her to the stool so that she has to turn a little more than a half-circle to face me, and I did try learning for one session, but didn't want to use luring too much.
I'm a bit confused as to how I want to continue with this. Kikopup's pivoting video uses mostly luring, because the video was made for someone whose dog was punished for offering behaviors, so they couldn't use shaping. Silvia Trkman's heeling DVD uses 100% shaping. With Kikopup, once the dog will pivot with a lure she will lure them into heel position and reward there. With Silvia, once the dog is 100% at pivoting both ways, she steps in the way so the dog comes into contact with her leg, and she rewards there. Silvia's dogs have a much "stickier" heel, probably because they actually do make contact with the leg with this method.
Anyway....so I'm not sure where to go from here. I really wanted to 100% free shape this, mostly following Silvia's DVD, but I'm stuck. By the way, my goal through teaching this trick is to get a backwards heel, backwards weave, and various other backwards tricks. I know I can accomplish this with either method. Not sure about Kikopup's, but I with Silvia's basically the dog just knows to stick to the leg, so without really teaching backwards heel, sidestepping, and a few others, they pretty much just do it because they are following the leg.

So I guess my questions are:
-What other things can I do with shaping to get a full circle both ways? Or, should I just go to luring?
I think I'm making this more complicated than it is, lol. I need to watch Silvia's DVD again and see if I can answer some of my own questions, but it's grown legs. O_o I'm about ready to call in a search party, lol! :ROFLMAO:
 

tx_cowgirl

Honored Member
Staff member
Honestly, partially just for a challenge--we've already shaped a half circle, why couldn't we shape a full circle? And partially because I like the end result of Silvia's methods better than Emily's, although both are certainly acceptable. Silvia's dogs seem to have a better understanding of targetting the leg better than Emily's. But, both methods have great end results.
We've shaped it so far, so I'd like to attempt to finish it with shaping. If I can't, I know Mud can get it with luring. Of course, I suppose I could go through it with luring so she gets the behavior, then go back to shaping and see how she responds.....O_o Hmm...
 

jayc

Well-Known Member
Hi! When Grace was a puppy, i taught her to pivot using kikopup's method. However, then i wanted to do Silvia's heeling but Grace's pivoting wasn't independant enough. I went back to the start and shaped it as part of Silvia Trkman's puppy class (which i can't recommend enough!! - the class and the shaping!) Ive actually got the process of shaping it on video so i'll post it here. The trick is the position of where you treat - turn their head away from you which is more likely to produce the pivot direction you want. They tend to not like the part of the pivot where they turn away from you so reward that bit VERY heavily
Hope this helps ...
I'll also post a vid of the final healing we got. I love the end product from Silvia's method :-)
 

jayc

Well-Known Member
Haha - whoops wrong 'healing' in the last post!
The final heeling is towards the end of this vid
:-) camilla
 

tx_cowgirl

Honored Member
Staff member
Thanks a bunch Jayc!! I'm incredibly envious of you taking Silvia's class. :eek::eek: LOL! :notworthy:

Tigerlily--
Silvia's method doesn't really produce physical contact as the end result, just a good understanding of targetting the leg(targetting as in a visual target, something to follow, not actually maintaining contact...sorry, poor description on my part there). That's what I'm going for. That and fun backwards tricks, which I think will require a collaboration of Silvia's and Emily's methods.
 

sara

Moderator
Staff member
I used Luring, and have never been able to stop the hand signals. I know it's my fault, and I haven't done alot of work to try to get him off the hand signals, I think it's alot to do with me working with the deafies... I am reliant on my hands, as are my dogs! LOL

I had it easy with Oliver... he much prefers backwards tricks to forwards tricks! LOL he always tries it in reverse first!
 
Top