RFE practice (106)

Gimme was still deep in her false pregnancy during this practice, so most of what I did centered around having fun and rewarding focus. The signs were set up for a course J'Anna and Ginger were entered under.

Heeling warm-up video - This started out well and when she did a nice bit, I threw a toy for her, unfortunately as I tried to grab it for tugging, I managed to poke her eye. I was able to get her to play briefly, but then she got really uncertain about it. It took a couple different rounds with different toys to get her to play enthusiastically. Then we did a couple quick warm-up sequences and ended.

Join-up video - My thought with this was to remove any pressure and reward her for choosing to come to/with me. It takes her 35 seconds to make the first choice. The next time was 9 seconds. In 1:30 she was choosing to stay with me.

Set-up and play video - While she understands "set-up", she's gotten fuzzy on the part about getting her heiney fully into a sit; she's hovering in a half-sit. I want to practice this at home. We just did 3 reps and then went to play some more with Terry Pterodactyl. She loves it when I make growly noises and come after her with monster hands. We also did a few click/treats for "release" of the toy. Mostly she gets the toy, but sometimes I want her to let me have it too.

Miscellaneous video - We did just over a minute of miscellaneous behaviors and heeling, then played for almost 2 minutes. Then back to work for a minute, followed by more play. Right now, while deep in a false pregnancy, play creates more energy and focus than food does. It probably always does, but we need more energy during the false pregnancy.

Session 3 warm-up video - Here's a 1½ minute warm-up. Gimme starts pretty loose, but then gets better.

We ended with some more play-work-play and then I let Gimme "win" the toy and take it to the car. I was really pleased to get this amount of play after the unfortunate eye-poke as we started training.

Since then she's pretty much gone out of her false pregnancy, so I expect her to be closer to normal at the next practice. It might take a couple practices before she becomes her usual self.