First the big news - we won in the draw and got in the nosework trial in Enumclaw on August 12th. There were only 47 slots and 90 entries. The sport is growing so fast in this area that there is a lot of competition for events - they are all filling right now. I ask that you all start crossing body parts now...
In class tonight we worked on several different things. We made good progress on Gimme's nose push to shut a door. I had already taught her to do it with her foot, so that has presented a challenge, since paw work is her preference anyway.
We revisited walking on stairs and she only needed one reminder going each way to get it right. The reminder consists of me simply stopping and waiting for her to come back into position. By the second time up and back down, she had it down pat and was able to go an entire flight right beside me on just one click/treat.
We worked on some calm sitting behaviors - sometimes she has a hard time accepting that stillness is a payable behavior. So from time to time we do a short session of clicking just sitting still. We also spent a bit of time with the door closed on her soft crate. She's great with crates and has spent a lot of time laying in there, but I realized I'd never actually closed the flap, much less zippered her in. That was no problem.
I also free shaped her to get on her red rubber Treibball mat. The other night I thought Tor's yodeling was the reason she couldn't do it, but maybe that wasn't it since she couldn't do it tonight and he wasn't even there. So I shaped it and she quickly remembered how to get to the mat and lay down with her elbows on it. I specifically require the elbows because when I first taught this she was creeping further and further forward.
Our last session with Ursula was in the big pen area and I had her help us with our fronts. Gimme has developed a variation that is not what I want. The fronts used to be nice, but not as close as I wanted. Then I got them close and very quickly Gimme started coming in, sitting and then pivoting about ten degrees clockwise. I've been trying several things to get them straight again with some success, but thought Ursula might have a different insight.
As it turned out, she noticed that my clicks are late. Gimme is actually starting the pivot before I can see it and that's getting clicked - evident from where Ursula stood. So clicking a lot earlier helped quite a bit. Then we tried another idea that also made it clearer. I'd back up a step or two and if Gimme sat straight, she got clicked/treated. If she sat crooked or sat and twisted before I could click, then I would side-step one step to my left and encourage her to come into front again. All of this was without using the "front" cue.
We started the session with about 90% of them crooked. Quickly got to about 50% straight. By the end of the session, they were about 80% straight. Nice progress for just a couple of minutes work.
Gimme is really very self aware, so I know when there is a problem just exactly who is causing it.
No comments:
Post a Comment