Robin discusses Retrieve

Every person needing a service dog has uniquely personal needs.  Obviously Robin needs Dilly to be her arms and legs and one of Dilly's primary mitigating behaviors is the Retrieve.

But "The Retrieve" has many meanings and many variations.  For Dilly.  And for Robin.

TYPES OF RETRIEVES

by Robin Jackson

We've added a new type of Retrieve, so Dilly now has a total of 8. I'll put the new one at the top of the list, so you can skip the rest of the note if you're only interested in what's new.

Regards,

Robin J.

8. Out of sight Retrieve into a named basket in a known location. His previous Basket cue involved my placing a basket near me (a context cue), or pointing to one he knows like a trash can, then pointing to the items to be put into the Basket, then saying "Basket."

With the new cue, the basket is always the big brass tub I mentioned, always in the family room. I hand him an item, he takes it into that room and puts it in that basket. I don't have to be in line of sight of the room or the basket. Cue is "Delivery."

1. Default Retrieve. Used for only one thing, his leash. If I drop it, he picks it up and gives it to me. No cue required, just the leash hitting the ground. This gives him a default behaviour in case we're out and I ever dropped it. We hardly every use it, but we do train it as a refresher.

2. Generic Retrieve. Used all the time. I point to something, say "Get it," and he brings it to hand. It can be up to about 15 feet away. Any type of object, from credit card to cane.

3. Out of Sight Retrieve of a Named Object in an Unknown Location. Used all the time for my purse (Purse) and his bowl (Bowl). He will locate the object anywhere in the house and bring it to me.

4. Out of Sight Retrieve of an Unknown Object in a Named Location. Used daily for the mail. The mail comes through a slot in the garage and falls into a box on the floor. The garage is down a step so I can't get there in the wheelchair. Cue is "Mail Call." He goes to the box and brings me whatever is there, even though he's obviously never seen the items before.

5. Retrieve into a Basket. Used frequently, for everything from picking up crab apples on the sidewalk and putting them in a pail to putting laundry in a basket. He gets items I point to and puts them in the available basket. Cue is "Basket."

Dilly generalizes perfectly to new items, but needs a little practice with each new "basket" to be sure the cue applies. But other dogs I know don't have any issue with this, it just seems to be one of his quirks. It only takes 3 or 4 times with a new "Basket" before he's confident with it.

6. Area Search. Used frequently. When there are several objects in an area and I want him to bring me just one of them, I start the search. He nose touches each object. If it's not the one I want, I give him a Keep Going cue. If it is the one I want, I say That's It! and he brings it to me. I use Ding! as the cue to start the search.

This keeps me from ending up with a lapful of things I don't want on the way to the one I do.

7. Match to Sample. I hold up one shoe, he gets the matching one out of a line of shoes when I say Ding! to start the search. We're not using any special cue for this, just the regular area search. It speeds things up when we're getting, say, the pair of black shoes out of a line of 4 pairs. Once he brings the first one using Ding!, I can show it to him, repeat the Ding!, and he'll go straight to the matching one.

So:

leash dropping - default Retrieve

"Get it" and point - generic Retrieve

"Purse" - out of sight Retrieve of a named object from an unknown location

"Mail Call" - out of right Retrieve of an unknown object from a named location

"Basket" - Retrieve into a nearby container

"Delivery" -- Retrieve into a known container in a known out of sight location

"Ding!" - area search

match to sample

p.s. Kathy Sdao talks about a dog she once saw who could be shown a photo of an item, then go in the next room, find the item, and retrieve it. Wow! (her reaction, also) Because dogs are nonverbal, we often underestimate their capabilities, and I think Retrieves often demonstrate that clearly. So I try to be very precise in thinking about how I am going to communicate to the dog what is needed, that is, what is different about this behaviour from another one. 

p.p.s. I've also mentioned this before, but my new favourite clicker protocol for training a working assistance dog type retrieve is the one in Sue Ailsby's new Training Levels books, available from her website. I also like THE CLICKED RETRIEVER, but Ailsby's works with household items in household settings, and THE CLICKED RETRIEVER is focused on hunting dogs and dog sports, so that one's mostly dumbbell work. Shirley Chong has a good one page protocol that seems especially good for dogs that are reluctant to take the item to begin with, but it's not as detailed as the other two. And the How of Bow Wow DVD has a great short visual demonstration for those who need to see it and not just read it. Barbara Handelman also has a protocol in her DVD set, but that's considerably more expensive than the others. I'm sure there are other good resources as well. 

The main point is just that once you have a basic Retrieve, you can modify it in many different ways to get new practical behaviours.

One of Lily's Seizure Alert mitigating behaviors is to retrieve the dedicated phone from under the desk in my bedroom and bring it to me by the attached handle.  To Lily "Phone" means that single phone and we review the behavior often.  As long as there is one exterior door ajar, Lily will retrieve the phone from as far away as the yard.

Recently I have been challenging her to open closed doors in order to get to the dedicated phone.  Thanks to suggestions by Eileen and Marge, she will jump obstacles, go under beds or chairs to get to and return with the phone.  Thanks to Mike Stewarts premise "Own the eyes" associated with saying her name and waiting 3 seconds to deliver the cue, she is able to process the cue more readily.

Other Retrieves that Lily does on a regular basis: pick up her toys and put them in her toybox, find and retrieve the keys ("keys"), default pick up of a dropped leash (and cued as well), pick up objects that I point to ("get it").  She regularly brings her food dish after meals, cued or not, and holds until the release cue, "Thank You".  She is not trustworthy with fragile items - credit cards, raw eggs - but I trust her to pick up a knife.

Yet to learn:  match to sample.  That would be helpful.  And Robin's "Ding" concept would be as well.  There are always new challenges to enhance the usefulness of a service dog.