On Saturday I went to Linda's for a few minutes to help her cut some border fabric. Since she was confused by my instructions for how to sew on the border... I ended up staying for 5 hours to help her. She fed me lunch partway through and then afterward we went walking on the fort. Gimme enjoyed that, since its been a long time since Linda has walked with us. She also enjoyed meeting the range control officers that we ran into.
After we got home I did our first attempt at introducing food as a distraction. We had minimal success, mostly because my setup wasn't right. I used big boxes, the kind that Costco gives you to carry your groceries in. I put a plastic dish with holes in the lid and kitty kibble inside under one as the distraction. I had both Birch and Anise odor under another. Also two boxes with nothing.
The first time Gimme got the odor box right away and I was thinking - "damn we're good." That was followed by three times of her getting stuck on the kitty kibble box and me having to put my foot on that box to get her to leave it and find odor. Part of the problem was that she could knock the Costco box away and get to the plastic container, which she then proceeded to batt around the floor. I think she was finding that self-rewarding just because there was the possibility of getting to it. Besides, we all know how much she loves to use her paws to play with things. So I made a plan to improve my setup for next time.
Sunday we met Mary and Grafton for a 4 mile walk and then followed that with a visit to their house so the kids could have a much needed play date. Afterward, Mary and I watched a dog training video together. I'd planned to do nosework when I got home, but was inundated with phone calls all evening.
Tonight I also had a couple really long phone calls and a big computer project. After that, I was determined to do another nosework food distraction session. My plan is to do this 3 times a week.
I set the boxes up again, but made sure I tucked the food distraction container in one of the inner flaps, so there was no way to access and play with it. I set another box with both odors and paired it. Two times she got it right very quickly (with pairing). The third time I didn't pair and she was distracted by the food distraction, but then realized on her on her own that she should find odor. Her reward was HUGE... a big handful of marshmallows!
BTW I did email Joyce about my idea of having a separate class for those students who are ready to or already competing. Her response was, to say the least, interesting. Every other instructor I've ever known places a premium on helping their students to be a success... if for no other reason than to make themselves look good. Too too strange.
We are scheduled for a NW2 match on April 7th. I hope we will soon get the info for the master containers seminar, which is supposed to be the weekend after that.
No comments:
Post a Comment