Another fantastic day bikejoring with Honey!!
I have more videos to share but I’ll try and keep it to a minimum.
Honey used to panic. Flip out, bark like mad, unresponsive to me over new objects and was so afraid of things she didn’t even know how to like step up onto a dog cot or even do stairs. As few as 5 stairs and she’d jump all of them to get onto our deck.
Today is the first day that she’s seeing these brand new dog balance objects. We’ve done so much work over the last four months to generalize getting onto or in random objects, that she took right to it. We’ve gone really slowly and only recently have been engaging with unsteady objects. Of course, I still support the objects so they can’t get away from us and truly scare or hurt her.
It really goes to show how far R+, differential reinforcement, and counter conditioning can go! They can change your dog (almost) completely.
Honey is/was an extremely fearful dog that foster failed with me. She was, probably 100%, guaranteed to be BE. She is under the care of a VB; I am also a dog trainer of 13 years (I used to think it was 11 but looked back and I started in 2011. 😨 Time flies.)
Management of these guys is a lot of knowing what makes each one of them tick and also managing arousal.
Part of how I do that is keeping everyone chill as they go in/out of the house and in/out of vehicles.
They all know their names and name+cue so I know guide them while I’m a group and know I’m not talking to all of them.
It is not mass chaos.
Okay, I lied before about what my favorite dinner enrichment was for dogs.
These I just got in. These are my new favorite. 😆
Theyve taken a long time for the dogs to do and they’re not even frozen!
Lick towers from Amazon. Like $20. Can disassemble to throw in dishwasher.
Silly Facebook. Won’t let me upload but one video at a time.
I had a few short clips showing the progression over two days to get Honey comfortable with jumping into the truck bed.
Anything I can do to help boost her confidence and generate positive exposure to the world is going to help her immensely.
She’s recently starting to drop the “tough dog” act and showing me her fears more. Which is great, because now that she feels secure and safe enough to talk to me, I can help her that much more.
Honey is probably the smartest dog I’ve ever met.
I sat down to teach her how to use this toy.
I marked her nosing the button top once.
She immediately switched to pawing with her foot. I marked and treated that twice.
And now awaaayyyy she goes.
Doing it all on her own.
What’s dealing with a few quirks when you’re this wicked smart?
👀😳😱
Yet another favorite enrichment toy!
This took me a couple sessions to teach Kona how to use.
Essentially, they press down on the top to release kibble into the cubby holes. Then, they go and check the cubby holes for food.
This is a great one to keep them engaged and preoccupied for a little bit!!
Not all of our dogs have high enough food drive and patience for this one. 😆