We Have Us a Plan
We had our first real snow yesterday, and Indie had a blast. We joke that he's part Malamute because the cold doesn't phase him, and he's happy laying right in the snow, too. This is the first snow we've shared with Ebony, and she's not as much of a fan as Indie. It's so windy and bitter cold that it's hard to be sure, but I think she could take it or leave it.
Indie and Katie got to go for a trip in the woods today and we took lots of pictures. Indie has been able to be off-leash for all woods excursions and so far he's shown model behavior. I cross my fingers that it will help condition him to be as responsive off-leash when he hits adolescence.
No formal training today, but yesterday I updated my training chart and made it web publishable. I picked a couple or four behaviors for each dog that I want to work on, and I think this will help me focus on specific items with each dog so I can keep nightly training sessions to a total of 20-30 minutes. When I don't have a clear idea what to work on with each dog, it's easy to let it slide or to jump around too much.
These "tricks" represent tasks that the dogs don't yet have on cue. Once the dogs know an activity by cue, it's mixed into training sessions as review or practiced informally while we're doing normal "life" stuff.
Katie: Speak -- not a hardship for her. She enjoys barking and we've just never put it on cue. "Step" is her favorite trick where she paws at a plastic lid that I throw on the floor. I'm going to work on making her wait for me to put it down and going over to it only after I release her. Stay is tough for the old girl these days, but I think this will be a fun exercise for her.
Ebby: She knows Touch, but she needs direction on what it is she's supposed to touch. I want to teach her to differentiate between Touch Hand and Touch Spoon (a wooden spoon I use for targeting). Speak and Play Dead are also on the list, but I don't plan to focus on them as much. So far I can only get her to speak by ringing the doorbell and our only session on this seems to help desensitize her to the doorbell. Eh, that's not a bad thing either.
Indie: Keeping it simple. Stand, which he's starting to understand but is not on cue. Crawl, which I haven't started but should be a nice easy one to prepare for class homework. Take It, using a tug toy, which I've started very informally during our play sessions. My focus with Indie is still socialization, manners (like Waiting for Okay before going out the door) and having fun.
Group: It's not on the chart, but I like to end each session with some simple group work. For now, I take turns giving each dog commands, often in unpredictable order. The goal is to teach them to differentiate which dog I'm cuing and to not anticipate the next cue. Doing the group last also helps everyone participate in the end of the session instead of listening to other dogs training for ten minutes and having it stop cold.
Indie and Katie got to go for a trip in the woods today and we took lots of pictures. Indie has been able to be off-leash for all woods excursions and so far he's shown model behavior. I cross my fingers that it will help condition him to be as responsive off-leash when he hits adolescence.
No formal training today, but yesterday I updated my training chart and made it web publishable. I picked a couple or four behaviors for each dog that I want to work on, and I think this will help me focus on specific items with each dog so I can keep nightly training sessions to a total of 20-30 minutes. When I don't have a clear idea what to work on with each dog, it's easy to let it slide or to jump around too much.
These "tricks" represent tasks that the dogs don't yet have on cue. Once the dogs know an activity by cue, it's mixed into training sessions as review or practiced informally while we're doing normal "life" stuff.
Katie: Speak -- not a hardship for her. She enjoys barking and we've just never put it on cue. "Step" is her favorite trick where she paws at a plastic lid that I throw on the floor. I'm going to work on making her wait for me to put it down and going over to it only after I release her. Stay is tough for the old girl these days, but I think this will be a fun exercise for her.
Ebby: She knows Touch, but she needs direction on what it is she's supposed to touch. I want to teach her to differentiate between Touch Hand and Touch Spoon (a wooden spoon I use for targeting). Speak and Play Dead are also on the list, but I don't plan to focus on them as much. So far I can only get her to speak by ringing the doorbell and our only session on this seems to help desensitize her to the doorbell. Eh, that's not a bad thing either.
Indie: Keeping it simple. Stand, which he's starting to understand but is not on cue. Crawl, which I haven't started but should be a nice easy one to prepare for class homework. Take It, using a tug toy, which I've started very informally during our play sessions. My focus with Indie is still socialization, manners (like Waiting for Okay before going out the door) and having fun.
Group: It's not on the chart, but I like to end each session with some simple group work. For now, I take turns giving each dog commands, often in unpredictable order. The goal is to teach them to differentiate which dog I'm cuing and to not anticipate the next cue. Doing the group last also helps everyone participate in the end of the session instead of listening to other dogs training for ten minutes and having it stop cold.
posted by Erica at
6:56 PM
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