Midweek report week 31

Review:

Come level 1: Come-game with his puppy-sitter. A bit unfocused; partly due to training new human, partly because Fenris actually had some outdoors needs that I had to attend to first.

Pivot: Unfocused session. Working each side and front. Some nice new treats though. Wednesday – unfocused, until I realised he was beginning to find the slipping bucket genuinely aversive. Used the cork pot-holder instead, and his Left pivot, and rubberband pivots and moving around the pivot, were all perfect.

Introduced rubberband pivot with a cone in front. First session he got really confused at the two context cues, and sat down; “do I Pivot on platform or Wrap around cone???” So I removed the cone, reinforced heel position on pivot, and asked someone else to put down the cone in front of him while there. That worked a lot better. Let’s see if we can get a video for next post.

Down level 1: Keeping that signal on focus still.

Zen level 2: 30 seconds done! I took two good steps back, turned around a little, looked to the sides and up and away from him. Fenris sat down to watch me (and the treat) until given the go-ahead! Awesome boy! Also started working step 4, which is having the reward come from elsewhere, including changing the picture with two treats on the ground, etc.

Focus level 2: “Watch”. Getting a head start on this. The zen-work is paying off; 5 sec of staring at me. Some eye-movement, but keeping it towards me.

Other stuff: His loose-leash walking sucks. His side-settle is getting a little better; putting his head all the way down. One harness session, but he is so sceptical of it.

“Snip, snip”: Set up an appointment with the vet next Tuesday. She said we’d be doing chemical castration first (duration 6-12 months) to see if it had desired results, before doing permanent surgery. Warning to guests; he is likely to be ‘hypersexual’ (i.e. getting worse!) for (normally) 2 weeks (but could be up to 4 weeks), before getting better!