RFE practice (101)

Did you notice the title?  This practice is number 101 - appropriate for a spotty-dottie girl.  My main goal for this practice was to get the remaining video segments I need to submit for a novice skills title with RallyFrEe.

Tug for reward video - I brought some toys to use for rewards and it made a big difference. It works well for Gimme - it's a lot more work for me. I started by rewarding with treats as we warmed up, then would do a couple without treats. When I got one or two good enough to use in the skills test video, I rewarded them with a play session.

Interesting, related note: In nosework class later, there were toys in the search area, which Gimme found very distracting. Basically I put my foot on the edge of the toy, so she can't make it play. For her second search I brought in one of Gimme's toys. I threw it for her after she found all the hides and her response was complete disgust. The same toy she loved in the morning was now old-hat and couldn't possible measure up to the allure of someone else's toys. Everyone got a good laugh at her response and my feeble efforts to encourage her to want it.

Warm-up video - This is the same as we've done before. Gimme is getting better about getting to work. I've started putting the go-sniff on the cue "explore". I want her to know when we are approaching the ring perimeter as a reward to sniff vs. when we approach it as a distraction to resist. I like how this is working out.

Eye contact game video - When we came back in for the second session, the class in the ring next to us had started and was very distracting. So I moved closer to them and we played eye contact game until she was able to be done with them. It only took 33 seconds before she was able to focus. Nice job Gimme...

Prop weaves video - I included this because I thought Gimme was so funny. She remembered which toy had a squeaker in it. It took two tries for her to remember to ignore them while we weave through them. I thought her response to my exploding-toys reward was cute.

This session was definitely the best we've had since early June. It feels good to know Gimme was having fun again. Toys are definitely a big plus for this girl.