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Just looking for a little encouragement as I’ve been sick and have fallen behind. Just got my covid test results back – negative yay! (Yes, I’m vaccinated, but my symptoms were pretty iffy). I hope we can catch up. He graduates from his irl puppy class today, so at least I won’t feel like I’m splitting my time with him anymore.
Yes, that is pretty normal (difficulty tracking treats). I taught the skill separately to my BC-types by saying get it, chucking a piece of white cheese, then when they got it – saying get it and chucking a piece of white cheese the other direction. First it was on mats or concrete, then I moved it to grass and more difficult surfaces to help them learn to track in all sorts of environments.
Yes. Something like white cheese is probably the only thing that would show up on that particular carpet. Unfortunately it seems that cheese does not work well with his digestive system, so I have stopped using it. My other carpets are lighter, so he *should* be able to track other treats there.
BTW – after his regular puppy class today, I spent a couple minutes tugging with him on the wobble board. I moved around the board while he tugged. No problem shifting his weight back.. When we were done, he grabbed the toy and jumped back on wanting more.
I also did a couple of blind cross foundation with restrained recall in the bigger space. He did fine.
Great! And that also means the pivot is easy for him? I’d say the only difference to consider here is that you will want to get the cookie down to just below his nose level, so he does not look up at you.
Yes on the pivot being easy for him (we worked a little with pivot platforms when he was younger). I believe I am rewarding in the correct place, but I will pay more attention to it the next time. He grew rather fast and is tall and leggy for his age. As my first non-little in many years, my back is thankful.
It is possible that the stationary-ish food was not all that exciting to him, so you can try tossing the treats a little rather tha plopping them into bowls and see how it goes! It might take a session or two but then I am sure it will lock into place.
I may have to try that somewhere other than my training room. He seems to have some trouble tracking food thrown on the ground. If he even notices that it’s been thrown in the first place (sometimes he’s kind of oblivious) he gives up almost immediately if he can’t see where it is. The carpet in my training area adds an extra layer of challenge as it is not easy to see treats. Someday I will finally get around to tearing that carpet out and laying down matting, but that’s not going to happen soon.
Directions apparently confuse me…he’s a righty. I hold the higher value toy in my left hand but he’s also going to the left…his weaker.
A check in, mostly for myself to keep track of where we are and to be accountable since I am auditing. Other than the pre-exercises, I have only worked these games on two days at this point…playing along during the live and then again today.
Griffin will be 17 weeks tomorrow.
While he has seemed to switch back and forth between food and toys effortlessly in his training before these games, they are bringing out that he does seem to have a slight preference for toys.
The games have also showed me that he is a lefty.
Prop game. It’s going fine. I stole the dustpan idea and switched my prop. This seems to work better. His drive to the object could improve a bit and probably will with time. I have not added much distance yet.
Targeting. No problem. We’d already done hand targeting, so using an object for a target was not a big leap.
Drive to toy. WE HAVE THIS DOWN 1000%! 😆Immediately. My moton has zero effect on distracting so far.
Decel foundation. No issues. We’ve done a lot of heel work already, so this is just that with the other side added.
Blind cross foundation…no real issues, I just need to take it to a little bit bigger space than my training area.
Goat game. He’s been climbing on all sorts of surfaces since he first started moving around and has already been doing wobble boards and tippy boards before we started this class, Plus getting up on all sorts of things while out “hiking”. I haven’t found a surface that bothers him to get on. Yet.
Wrap foundation. This is the one we’ve struggled with a little. Now, I CAN send him out around an object, like a laundry basket, already (before this class). But I still started from scratch with this. I ended up switching from food to toys. And then (this is when I discovered he’s a lefty) I ended up using a slightly higher value toy in my left hand for him to turn to the right around the object to. I can tell the game hasn’t 100% clicked yet, but his understanding has improved.
Check in complete.
