I left home at 4:15, just fifteen minutes later than last week. Last week the drive was 1:10, which left us 45 minutes to wait for class to start. Starting 15 minutes later made it an 1:55 drive, so we were late, not to mention how tired I was from spending nearly 2 hours in rush hour traffic. Clearly I'll have to find something to do for 45 minutes each week.
Gimme did well in class despite being so close to being in full false pregnancy. We worked on various things and I was able to get some videos.
I have two short clips of Gimme working on a narrow balance board (a 2x4) over a short distance. This is the narrowest she's done and the best she's done. I think it made a difference having such a short distance. She did better going toward Jo, we think because Jo's foot steadying the board was a little bit in the way and made her slow down, so Gimme didn't try putting two feet on and then hopping to the end. Balance board 1 video I thought she did better overall during the first session, but she never stops trying. She was definitely cheating to hop to the end during the second session. We chose to end her on a pass where she was going toward Jo and not cheating. Balance board 2 video
We did a session on the ladder, where Jo turned it over and the dogs only had the narrow side of a 2x4 to step on. The other side is the wide edge of a 2x6. Going from right-to-left, the dogs could only see the narrow side of the 2x4. Going from left-to-right they could see the underside of the wide edge of the 2x6 and the 2x4 and Jo thinks they may not fully comprehend the visual. Ladder video You'll notice a distinct difference in how well Gimme did it based on which way she is going.
Then we had some course work to do. I was able to set the tripod and camera up on a bar stool and get a pretty good view of the entire course. Sequence 1 video Gimme was ignoring the box at the corner after the ladder, so I had to work to get her in there and she normally loves "box" as her favorite parkour behavior. I had her show off a partial "Dumbo" on the corner bucket. Its a bit small, so hard for her to keep all her feet on it.
For the second sequence, it was the same course. Sequence 2 video Gimme did better about getting into the "box". The delay for the reward was because she had her foot up on the side and I wanted to make sure I only rewarded a proper box behavior (all feet in). Gimme didn't think I had any business asking her to go "below" the board, but handled it very well when she bumped it and it moved. She was very distracted by noises coming from the other side of the wall (a private agility lesson), so it took her a few moments to focus and do "hands" on the chair.
For the last five minutes of class, we were able to work on whatever we wanted. I focused on "hands", where she has the most stimulus control difficulty. Many things I ask her to do "hands" on are also props she could do "table" with and she just assumes if she can she should get on with all four. So for our little session, we started doing "hands" to things she couldn't/wouldn't do "table". Then when she was in "hands" mode, we did it on a couple props where she could do table. Then when she was successfully just doing "hands", I had her do "table". Then back to "hands" again. This worked well and I need to make sure I do it more often until she understands to listen and do the behavior I'm actually cuing.
She was tired after ending with this brain work and slept all the way home.
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