Second Tin Day

Today is the first time I've introduced a second (unscented) tin for Gimme.  I really need to have several more to do it exactly how Denise showed it.  I'll have to empty several of them into some Tupperware and get them washed up. 

Denise dumps a bunch of unscented tins on the floor and then places a scented tin in among them.  If the dog brings the wrong one, she takes it and the dog gets no treat.  That tin is set aside, since it now has Denise's smell on it.  She only rewards the retrieves of the correct tin. 

Since I only had the one unscented tin, I just ignored her attempts to bring it to me and heavily rewarded her bringing the right one.  Since she has gotten so good about bringing it to my hands, I think not giving her hands to put it in, serves to non-reward that attempt and tell her try something else.

I started out with just the one tin and you'll note she very neatly brought it to my hands.  After that we worked with two tins and you can see how it went.  I didn't think she's realized yet that there is a difference between them.  A couple of times, I think she saw me moving the unscented tin as I was trying to mix it up... so I made a special effort to work faster and get them out while she was still turned away.  She really likes to ski on the tin before she picks it up - that's a silly behavior that started with the Melon cube.  It will be interesting to see how this progresses.  She has a damn fine nose, so I'm sure she'll get it figured out.

A pleasant side affect from this showed up yesterday.  While I was doing some yard winterizing, I gave Gimme a good stick to chase (so she'd stop trying to steal and/or play tug with the ones I was putting in the yardwaste bin).  Always in the past she's brought them back and dropped them about two feet from me.  In all fairness, my attention is usually divided between what she is doing and what I'm trying to accomplish, so it isn't like I've really worked on a retrieve to hand.  Anyway, yesterday, she brought the stick back and dropped it and when I was ready to throw it again, I just stopped and pointed at it.  It took her a couple of tries and then she picked it up and handed it to me.  Before long she was bringing it to me every time.  If I was ready and paid attention to her quickly, she'd hold it until I offered my hands.  Otherwise if it took too long she would drop it and wait for me to turn my attention to her - then she'd pick it up and hand it to me. 

I'm sure she is thrilled that the training she is doing with me with the tins is paying off for the important stuff of throwing sticks.  She's a pretty smart cookie.