A little leash work
Back to basics for Gator before he goes to big boy school! 😁
I always look for fun and creative ways for clients to practice what they’re learning. This morning, I took a page from my old horse show days and set up an egg and spoon race. Teams had to hold their leash in one hand, using it to communicate with their dog and keep them at a nice walk while holding an egg on a spoon in the other hand. While there was no food luring in this exercise, the dogs weren’t clueless about the eggs. 😆 All 3 teams killed it. They did SO WELL!! I would call this a successful exercise that allowed us to evaluate each team’s handling skills and relaxed walking. Everyone even got to take home prizes.
I even play with my own dogs. Sometimes. 🤣
After a long recovery and still being a bit on the mend from his neuter surgery, Max is finally out of the donut and getting back to learning and playing. Here he is starting on a pivot bowl. All I’m looking for is that he places and holds his front paws on the bowl. This is hard for him since it means he has to stand still for a second or two. It took 3 repetitions to see improvement. He’s very smart and loves to do things. 😁
Max the Mini Mutt’s early morning training session. I started with “charging the marker”; he learns that “good” means something good (receiving a food reinforcer). I would’ve started building engagement but that’s never been an issue with him. Then, he had to learn that mugging me for food wouldn’t get him anything (still working on that one 😂). We worked on “free” as a release word. Then, he started to learn how to move his body into a sit position and now, he’s up to the place where I’m adding a cue word and the release. He’s 12 weeks old and very, very smart. ♥️
Today’s session with Team Karl was all about Karl and his kids. We worked on confidence and building a fun relationship between Karl and the girls as well as different ways to reward Karl while protecting small fingers. 😉 I’m fairly certain there’s at least one future dog trainer in the home. 😊
Week 3 of 4 of Beginner’s Nosework. Teams are doing great! Small search area with a variety of containers and rearranging the hide. It was fun to see the dogs have different ways of working it out and also watching them pick up odor. Next week will be even more interesting. 😃
Additional videos and pictures in comments.
Raven’s video from this morning’s practice on spatial presence.
(That’s what I’m calling it. Lol)
I recently watched a video posted by one of my favorite trainers where she was moving her dog from side to side around a cone and I wondered if that could be an effective way of teaching a dog to be aware of their own size and how to navigate their size in the space they live. An example would be a dog living with toddlers, small children, and/or senior folks. If the dog is aware of their size and their space, could they better manage their movement within that space to avoid accidents with the little people and/or older folks? Seems to me that should work. So here is a video for reference of an exercise I did this morning with both Zane and Raven.
PS
Shoutout to Crystal Wing for posting her video that gave me this idea.
