Sei and I worked at desensitizing the brush for a few sessions again today. His wooly puppy fur mats up pretty quickly, so this will be a necessity for the next few days so I can get him brushed out. We did some foot targeting, name games and lots of play today. Sei’s love of the flirt pole continues to grow. He runs over to the shed where it is held ahead of me and waits for me to get it out. We worked on some tug with a fluffy bungee toy, rolled some floppy frisbees, and tossed some balls around. I started asking him for focus every now and again before throwing a ball for him, or letting the flirt pole move. We tried some personal play, but he is still too bitey with his little needle puppy teeth for that to be fun for me.
Perrin’s love of toys is definitely building. Apparently all he needed was a little brother! I got some decent work from him today for a tuggy and a ball. He went absolutely nuts for the frisbee, which is unlike him.
We also worked on some more free stacking, rewarding for anything that is not sitting when I take my hand full of food away from his face. I think we are making some slow progress. Here is one of today’s sessions:
He did some of the best he has done so far here. Reviewing the video, it is clear that he does better when I move my hand away more slowly. He moved forwards more often when I moved my hand away quickly. Good to know!
We did some mat work:
Perrin worked on more drum shaping. He is totally getting it!
On the ‘life’ front, we are having some issues with Sei climbing all over us when we try to eat. I usually handle this by waiting for him to back off and rewarding for it, but even that leaves him too close for my husband’s comfort (I joke he resource gaurds his food, he gets quite upset about the dogs being near his food). So we have decided a solution that works for everyone is to work on building value for Sei’s bed by the table. For today we just threw cookies over every 5 seconds or so while he was on it, but I am excited to get my manners minder next weekend so I don’t have to handle kibble while I eat.
Adventures in Dog Training 