Sdao Seminar

What a great day today. The seminar was just full of information... Much of which I knew, but presented in a new way or using new examples, so I am seeing different ways to apply it. Cool stuff.

The best part was the working slot I had with Gimme. Since today was basics (& more), and since there were a number of people who were less experienced, the structure of today's working sessions worked out just perfectly for us. The first session was all about the mechanics of clean clicker training. First we practiced without the dogs. Three one minute sets: how fast can you deliver treats, how fast can you click and deliver treats and then what affect do subtle changes in delivery have on your rate of delivery. Then we repeated the process with the dogs. So Gimme started by getting 26 treats for being cute. It is a system she really likes. Getting clicked and treated for really nothing suited her well too. Then the third set was clicked and treated for any head movement. Despite the distraction of all the other dogs, Gimme really was getting into this easy stuff.

Our second session was to shape a simple touch of our training partner's hand. Since Gimme already knows a hand touch, learning to do the same with someone else was very easy for her to figure out. So essentially two sessions early in the day -- easy, fun and with a very high rate of reward. During lunch we did a lot of CU look at that. That really set her up well, since I spent a lot of time on it and basically satisfied all her need to look.

By the time we started the afternoon sessions, Gimme was really primed to have fun. She had all the focus I could ever have wanted. She did really well and barely even noticed all the other dogs working on the floor at the same time (12 teams at a time). I was so proud of her. This was a huge jump in ability from last weekend. Her understanding and ability to focus despite distraction, is really just growing all the time.

BTW Gimme was a very popular photo subject. I think there are about 200 more pictures of her floating around the universe now. A man from Shanghai took at least half of them and has promised to email me copies. I got to hear how beautiful she is at least two dozen times. You know I really get tired of hearing that, not...

So, really looking forward to tomorrow with Michelle Pouliot. Gimme is clearly the cutest puppy on the planet -- I sure enjoy showing that this beauty comes with brains. Yah baby...