Make it a game!

Trying to be true to the new year and my goal to lighten up a little while training.

The dogs and I went over to the park to run and stretch.  After that we did a bit of proofing contact behavior with the travel plank.

The dogs did surprisingly well.  I was surprised and please with Tip.  She is my queen that has lots of moments of brilliance which is sometimes peppered with no impulse control.  I love her to death and most of the time I don't mind that she is constantly testing the rules (I have put the frustrating days behind us).

Tangle did great.  Broke a couple of times, but that is ok.  Gives us an opportunity to clarify the behavior.  I am trying really hard to keep his dog walk contact solid.

Poor Split has been retrained one too many times and not by a person who knew how to retrain behaviors (it was me).  To compound his problem, he was initially taught a 4 on, which when I think about it now the criteria is next to impossible to communicate to the dog.  Then I tried to retrain the behavior to a 2o2o.  So, now I am thrilled when Split gives me either!

In this particular video I was only working with a medium value toy.  After this, I brought out the tennis ball (over the top value) to make the game even harder.  I didn't incorporate too much motion into this for 2 reasons.  1 - I have a strained muscle and was hoping to get it healed, 2 - that is the hardest for the dogs and I wanted to keep a high rate of reinforcement today and just renew their love for the end of the board.


Next session we will put in more motion, forward and lateral.  I will begin to reinforce the dog maintaining the forward line.