12/05/2025
Darla has Full Sent her Friday!
Our requirement for "place" is all 4 paws on the cot...ish 🤷♂️ and she was close! 🤣
Then we have (IMO) a good clip showing some specific things while working the "down" command.
1) spatial pressure... with slight shift in our body movement to communicate "too close, back up". By shifting slightly and pushing just ever so softly into her, she learns to back up or change tactics. Stop being pushy.
2) timing...when using a dedicated marker system be sure the dog is doing EXACTLY what you want when you mark. It keeps things nice and clear.
3) impulse and decision making...she wants the reward as fast as possible, but only gets it when she THINKS about how to get it. We have moved off luring her cuz shes past that. You can see the gears turning as shes sorting out what body position gets her paid. Thinking dogs have to slow down!
Last clip is from some place duration, adding noisy distraction. Many dogs struggle with human or environmental sounds and it causes a variety of responses from runing away, to urination, to barking and or biting. Why? Because often it becomes a conditioned response to stress. Bark enough at the people, they go away, dog thinks they've solved their problem and they "feel" better. It gets practiced over and over again, thus reinforced.
This is a simple banging 2 bowls together to make stupid noise video. But, its helping Darla focus on the task of place and showing her when she sticks with it, the weird guy stops banging around and she gets paid. Just like with a marker, the timing is important. When the dog handles it correctly (stay on place, known command), the stress of noise stops, reward.
Oh and one last thing...this dumb noise is stress. The vaccum is stress. You yelling at the dog for whatever is stress. The dog having to wait for food is stress. Life is stressful! If we can teach humans, who are capable of rational and cognitive thought how to handle stress, then why can't we teach more dogs too?! 🤔
Full Sent that Friday a little...🔥
🌊🏖🐶🐕🦺💪👨🏫
