Hi Seatrainer,
I think we are on the same page, but I've never trained a dolphin. Personally, I like to use a lot of opposition reflex and competitive play in my training. I'm thinking restraint and wrestling doesn't work with dolphins, eh? The slippery little devils :lol-sign:
But, it may well work with a cattle dog. So, I'll give you the basic idea and you can decide if you want to play with this sort of thing. I do agree with the others, though- you don't need to use the jackpot to reward a super fast response. I think you will probably still get what you are looking for after a few instances through an improved attitude and "drive level". But, I also do not like to reward a dog for reluctant performance. I liked Rebecca's suggestion about adding a little leash pressure to encourage compliance so that you could follow through with some leash pressure on slow responses. But some of you do not want to use the leash in that way, so here is another option.
So, you are familiar with "opposition reflex", right? Meaning when you apply pressure the dog has a tendency to resist the pressure, going in the opposite direction from it? Leash trainers tend to hate opposition reflex. They train dogs to follow the leash pressure. But, I think opposition reflex lets you do some cool things to increase drive and concentration by convincing your dog you are trying to compete with him in the training game. You do have to be careful and thoughtful about how you do this, bc it can interfere with later training geared more towards compliance.
You might start away from the crate, since that is the issue. Use a target of some kind that she is familiar with and hold her away from it when you start the exercise. You can hold her by the chest from behind or rest a hand against her chest from in front. Make sure the target is there and she knows that it is the exercise she is working on. Apply steady even pressure against her chest until she shows that she is thinking about the target and leaning towards it into your hand. At that point, move your hand, let her hit her target and reward. Work on this until she pushes through more and more resistance to get to her target. Then try it with the crate. If she hesitates, you just keep the pressure on until she decides to go for it. (Kind of like Rebecca's method, but with her pushing through the pressure instead of moving with it). Initially, the pressure always comes before any command or signal. When she really pushes hard, it's time to move on.
Now you can use the pressure as a "correction" when she is slow or lazy in her exercises. If you tell her "crate" and she looks at you instead of moving, quickly grab her around the chest (this can't scare her) and start pulling her away from the crate. She should resist and then you let her go to the crate and reward. When you are doing this, it has to feel like a game to the dog and you or you will not get what you are looking for. This is a competitive game and she has to feel that. When she is doing really well with it, I would occasionally pull her off and put her away when you need to restrain her for hesitation. You want her to see that there is some chance she will lose the competition and then she won't get to play again for a while. Put her in a different crate (physically) or in the yard or on a short tie-out in the house. A few minutes later get her out and do this exercise again, trying to make sure she succeeds.
This type of competitive training will not work with all dogs. I would not even try this on a cavalier, for example. But it works great on my mals and I think it would work great on most cattle dogs. They are tough, drivey little things and should enjoy thinking they are out-powering their handlers. Of course, you need to make sure this only works within the proper context or you will have a pushy little monster on your hands.
Let me know what you think and if you try it.
I think we are on the same page, but I've never trained a dolphin. Personally, I like to use a lot of opposition reflex and competitive play in my training. I'm thinking restraint and wrestling doesn't work with dolphins, eh? The slippery little devils :lol-sign:
But, it may well work with a cattle dog. So, I'll give you the basic idea and you can decide if you want to play with this sort of thing. I do agree with the others, though- you don't need to use the jackpot to reward a super fast response. I think you will probably still get what you are looking for after a few instances through an improved attitude and "drive level". But, I also do not like to reward a dog for reluctant performance. I liked Rebecca's suggestion about adding a little leash pressure to encourage compliance so that you could follow through with some leash pressure on slow responses. But some of you do not want to use the leash in that way, so here is another option.
So, you are familiar with "opposition reflex", right? Meaning when you apply pressure the dog has a tendency to resist the pressure, going in the opposite direction from it? Leash trainers tend to hate opposition reflex. They train dogs to follow the leash pressure. But, I think opposition reflex lets you do some cool things to increase drive and concentration by convincing your dog you are trying to compete with him in the training game. You do have to be careful and thoughtful about how you do this, bc it can interfere with later training geared more towards compliance.
You might start away from the crate, since that is the issue. Use a target of some kind that she is familiar with and hold her away from it when you start the exercise. You can hold her by the chest from behind or rest a hand against her chest from in front. Make sure the target is there and she knows that it is the exercise she is working on. Apply steady even pressure against her chest until she shows that she is thinking about the target and leaning towards it into your hand. At that point, move your hand, let her hit her target and reward. Work on this until she pushes through more and more resistance to get to her target. Then try it with the crate. If she hesitates, you just keep the pressure on until she decides to go for it. (Kind of like Rebecca's method, but with her pushing through the pressure instead of moving with it). Initially, the pressure always comes before any command or signal. When she really pushes hard, it's time to move on.
Now you can use the pressure as a "correction" when she is slow or lazy in her exercises. If you tell her "crate" and she looks at you instead of moving, quickly grab her around the chest (this can't scare her) and start pulling her away from the crate. She should resist and then you let her go to the crate and reward. When you are doing this, it has to feel like a game to the dog and you or you will not get what you are looking for. This is a competitive game and she has to feel that. When she is doing really well with it, I would occasionally pull her off and put her away when you need to restrain her for hesitation. You want her to see that there is some chance she will lose the competition and then she won't get to play again for a while. Put her in a different crate (physically) or in the yard or on a short tie-out in the house. A few minutes later get her out and do this exercise again, trying to make sure she succeeds.
This type of competitive training will not work with all dogs. I would not even try this on a cavalier, for example. But it works great on my mals and I think it would work great on most cattle dogs. They are tough, drivey little things and should enjoy thinking they are out-powering their handlers. Of course, you need to make sure this only works within the proper context or you will have a pushy little monster on your hands.
Let me know what you think and if you try it.
I'll stick with this for awhile and if it doesn't continue to progress, I may give your method a try... 
