Because Talent Knows No Bounds

Awhile back I talked about Gimme's forehand pivot behavior... don't recall if there was a video or not.  I don't have one on file, so probably not.  Here is a video composite of two short sessions.  I was trying to get her to both start and end with her front feet on the brick and I do think we are getting there.  I want this to be a true pivot on the forehand and especially don't want it to to devolve into a spin in place.  I started by withholding the click until she got her feet back on the brick after the pivot... very quickly she figured out to keep them on to get the click and treat faster.  I also talked before about holding off putting a cue on this behavior, since I'd planned to name it "get in" and realized there was a conflict with another cue, "get it".  I was going to rename the "get it" behavior to "yours".  However, in the meantime, I've discovered that that cue is too entrenched, so decided to go with "pivot" for this behavior.  In editing this I was doing some slow forward and noticed there are places where she is actually crossing her back feet.  I never expected to see that.  Enjoy my cutie...

As much training as I do with her, she's still bored.  I've just learned that hunting season goes through the end of the year.  Arrrrrgh.  So will have to use the local walkway until then.  We are having a really wet spell locally - landed over an inch of rain in last twelve hours.  It rains a lot here, but often it doesn't really get going until afternoon.  Of course, that doesn't apply to the last 48 hours where it hasn't let up.

I've also just started working on teaching her a rear pivot, which I'll call "twist".  It takes her a bit to drop the insistence on a forehand pivot.  That will probably go away once its on cue.   It may be a bit too soon to start this since I don't have the forehand on cue yet, but I figure she needs a bit of a challenge to puzzle through. 

She goes through several interesting concepts here - what she believes I may want vs. what I actually want.  First there was – pivot then walk your back feet onto the brick. Then the same behavior with a barking embellishment. We had a few times when she thought it was put the back feet on, then back up until the front feet are on the brick. You can’t always clearly see what I’m clicking – in addition to back feet on, any sideways movement from the front feet. Often there was a backward component to that – so I tried to click where the sideways was the more prominent movement. She moves so dang fast, its like clicking a chicken and unfortunately that means I miss good opportunities or am late. Gimme holds strong opinions (boy I totally get that, doncha know) and she gets frustrated when I don’t click when she thinks I should. Barking is her default expression for frustration during free-shaping only (for which I’m eternally thankful).

BTW have emptied and washed up 6 Altoid tins.  There have also been some interesting follow-up posts about the method.  I'm eager to get back to it.