Once again, I am behind recording Perrin’s and my weekend work.
Friday and Saturday were light on training and heavy on packing and organization. We went for some trail runs instead, which Perrin really enjoys.
On Sunday we did some work on nose touches on a target on the floor. Perrin has struggled with this in the past, as he initially thought a foot target was the right answer to the question. So I picked up the target until he was consistantly nose touching it, then slowly moved it closer to the ground, which seemed to be working. I had stopped working on that for a while and came back to it on Sunday. I started with the target in my hand and moved it to the floor, then started going for a more sustained nose touch rather than a ‘drive-by’. Perrin had other ideas though, and started picking the target up. I tried clicking earlier to head that off, but I just couldn’t get my timing right so I cut my losses and decided to think it over a bit. I decided to try using a hand target on the floor. Perrin understands a hand target, but we had never tried moving it to the floor before. I think that worked really well, and I will continue with that track until Perrin understands that nose targeting something on the floor is a pay-able behaviour.
I needed to pick up some packing supplies and Perrin was getting restless after a couple of days with little mental simulation, so Perrin and I headed over to the local dog friendly Canadian Tire to kill two birds with one stone. Perrin absolutely rocked it! The store was pretty busy, with lots of people and a few other dogs, but he wasn’t fazed. His heeling was spot on (awesome pivots, side steps, straight lines and a bit of backing up), his focus was impeccable, his enthusiasm was high; he was just the picture of joy and teamwork. It was amazing! I wish I had a video of it. His happy face drew lots of looks, but his mind was all on the task at hand. What a sweet fluff!
Adventures in Dog Training 