Parkour practice

Training "box" (getting all four feet into something) started out well last night.  I put the box down and Gimme was in it with all four feet before I could pick up the clicker.  We did twenty repetitions.  Then I put down the next size and things didn't go as well.  I didn't have gradual enough changes in size, so Gimme got frustrated and I decided to quit.  Today at work I snagged a couple more different sizes of boxes, smaller than the biggest, but bigger than the second size I had from yesterday.  I brought them home and cut them down so they weren't as tall.

So today we did a refresher with the biggest box and Gimme had a great time with it.  Then I brought down the next size and for some reason she decided the job was to back into it.  This was one of the original "Project" behaviors.  We'd named it "apple" and the behavior was to back into a box.  The trouble with her backing in is, in the original behavior it was only a back feet behavior - so I found her getting stuck there.  So I lured her to walk into it front feet first a few times and then she understood it was a different thing.  After many reps with box size 2, I put the first one out again and had her going back and forth between them on cue.  I don't think its actually on cue in the strictest sense of the word, but she is getting it. 

Then we worked on her paw lifts some more.  I was hoping to have taken the edge off her excitement, and I had, but just a little bit.  I have her get up on the couch and face me in a sit, because then she'll stay put.  I really need to get out the sit platforms.  I mostly worked on extinguishing offering by not rewarding it, then when she was slowing down I was giving the cue followed by the hand signal.  She tends not to listen real well - listening skills have never been her forte.

I'm seeing some progress, but its slow.  I think its complicated because of an earlier snafu in my attempt to put it on cue.  My plan was to name all her paws, "one", "two", "three" and "four" and teach her to do a paw lift with each.  Because we needed the "two" paw lift for the last novice course (where we finished our title), I was focusing on it and it was clear she was really confused.  It was only later I realized the source of her confusion.  "Two" sounds identical to "thru".  Which explains why the "thru" behaviors on our course video seemed slow to me.  Since then I've decided to call them "uno", "dōs", "three" and "four".  In the meantime, I think she's become more dependent on the hand signal.  In the next session, I will stretch the time between the verbal and hand signal.

Meanwhile I've been deciding what to call the various Parkour behaviors.  Some are the same as agility cues she already knows, so I believe she will make the connection very quickly.  They are going to be:

box               4-in
hands           2-on
table             4-on
pivot             pivot with 2-on
cane/orbit    send around an object
over              jump over
tunnel           dog crawls under an obstacle
g’won          dog walks between two objects
back            backing up
walkies        balance beams