Clickering

Today we had another lesson - Cirrus was working on standing with me moving to different positions around him and then with me moving away from him - he found me moving at 90 degrees ok, and I could stand by his tail with him maintaining his position. He found me moving off at 45 degrees a bit harder, but got the idea very quickly. We did this on both sides. This is an important part of our training so we concentrated on this - I got a few things wrong on occassion, as did he, but we both did it right more often. I'm getting better at making quick decisions on how to react if he moves or does something not what I want, and he is getting better at figuring out what I really want him to do. I'm very very pleased with him.

He seemed to feel much more like himself today, and coughed only twice despite being in, so fingers crossed its over now. He'll be in tomorrow as well as we have the dentist. My good friend Liz was here as usual and took a few pictures - they are a bit in the shade as I was sticking to the shade so the sun didn't trigger my TN.

Very attentive - me working with him - I've told him to stand here - very early on in the routine.





Doughnut had a good session as well - he's been a bit over attentive in the field so we are going to work on not doing stuff with him till WE want, not when he offers the behaviour! Today we started teaching him about moving into the lead rope pressure - tiny bit of pressure on the lead rope, and then a treat when he moved his head towards it - this was relatively easy for him. Then we did some backing up - here a combination of the word "back" followed by a small pull backwards on the rope with the hand into his chest and the treat in the hand, all leading to him taking a backwards step to get the treat - I have to be careful to stay in a neutral position until after I've said "back". Once he is starting to back up on the cue word I can start thinking about the quality and quantity of steps.

Then we did an emergency stop with him - he follows the target very nicely now, and we got him walking forward and then suddenly stop and step back slightly - thus the target disappears, and he then stops and turns to find it - reward. This means if he ran off in front due to a scare or something, he would then realise the target/person has disappeared and will know that they are likely to be behind him - and turn to look!

It was very funny this morning when I brought them into the yard - the target I use is a yellow reflective boot for legs - when we walked into the yard there was a round head of a stuffed toy giraffe (dog toy) and he stopped and touched it!! Later he did the same during the session - so is def the [i]colour [/i]he is seeing, not the shape etc.

Here are some pics of Jenni working with Doughnut:







Thanks Liz for the pics!

I have some news about the DBS, I'm going to copy the letters received here, but probably tomorrow as it is late now, and I'm pretty disappointed about it all. Not looking good. My Gran is still doing ok, hopefully we get a day off visiting her tomorrow (its a 45 min journey to the hospital) as my Uncle is back from ski-ing.

Niki xxx