E.Bursting Away

Peach - head under a chair
I started with a session of peach.  Gimme did well enough for the first couple of cues, but then went into doing her own thing, which got a big fat nothing from me.  So then we had another extinction burst.  The first time was 8 minutes, then 5, then 1.  That's a huge improvement over what she did Saturday evening where it was a solid 24 minutes.

At one point she was headed toward the chair when I said "sit" and just a moment before getting there, registered what I said and turned to sit instead.  I thought that showed she is developing some understanding of this new criteria.  Good girl Gimme...

She's lessened the insistent tone of her burst, while adding two new features:

• She apparently wondered if opening a crate door and going in to lay down might restore me to my prior functionality.  She pulls the door open with her paw and walks in - never saw her do that before.  She did it once each with the two different crates in the living room.
• She also tried more barking, but not at me.  She'd sit or stand in front of me, turn her face about 60-90 degrees away from me and bark several times really loudly.  Meanwhile she has her eyes cranked toward me, so she was watching for my response, but not facing me.  Another thing she's never done before.  Apparently she thought I might be offended by her barking at me.  She does get funny ideas.  

I also decided that when she does a peach that is better quality, with her head (not just the nose) under the chair, that she'll get a jackpot of two pieces of peanut butter toast.  Decided that close to the end of the session, so it's too soon to see if I got results.  Also noticed that if I cue peach and she only gives me nose-under, if I wait she'll offer head under.  Tells me that the concept is in her brain.  She's a peach, eh...

Orange - sit on a small perch
Gimme continues to believe that backing on or side-stepping on is a better option... she does that about 75% of the time.  This went well, we got three short bursts, a 4 minute and two at 2 minutes. 

Her clarity in responding to "sit" and "down" dropped off a little during this session, but overall it was still an improvement over a few days ago.  I may have confused her by also working on the limited hold of her down during this session. 

Her new offering for the burst this time was, naturally, very clever:

• She discovered that when you jump on and immediately off the perch while kicking it with your back feet, it'll tip over.  The first two times I righted the perch.  Then decided that she might be getting some reinforcement from me fixing the perch.  So then I didn't and she still jumped on it, actually from the other side and when she kicked off, that kick pushed the perch right side up.  Given how unstable the perch is when she does this, I'm amazed she'd do it more than once... no one ever said she lacked confidence.

Her eyes are bright and she clearly wants to train-train-train.  She'd do it much of the day if she could.  Even this mentally challenging stuff, she's eager to get to it.  She'd like to train a LOT more, but I am trying to stop before she gets confused or mentally fatigued. 

Later, just to keep her happy, I may do a short session on some simple behavior.  She is the Empress of the Cosmos, doncha know.  Its my duty as her human to accede to her wishes...