Steps to Success

Lazy Leash is deteriorating. And why? Because I get what I reward. Bleargh. If he pulls to sniff, I far too often let him get to whatever he wants to sniff. Great for his nose and brain – not so much for his leash manners. He responded pretty well to a request for calm down a hill today though, so as long as his nose isn’t deep in the heather, he has some understanding of my desires.

Come 2 He has a tendency to run further and further into the bushes to do number two, which I need to adress at some point. So far he’s returned every time, though, and I reward him heavily.

Zen 3 Door Zen. If I ask for him to stay by the front door, he will stay until I say go. But of course distractions aren’t even in the picture. Same for the car, which is a tad more touch-and-go, because there’s typically a lot more going on at the end of a car ride. But he does well.

Handling 2 Bought a new metal-tooth brush (not the same as a metal tooth brush). Should have had that from the start – might have saved me some vacuuming. We have to pay Fenris well for it, though – it’s pretty hefty. Back is fine, down his leg fronds and tail and bottom; not so much. In addition to the brush, we’ve worked foot pickups, and balance. I might have tested him too long, because he wasn’t overly pleased by the time we were done.

Awesome Obedience

Position Changes Down-Stands. Started adding some extra repetitions to reward both positions randomly. Mostly good. Falls a bit apart at the end, could be sheer tiredness.

Heeling Started a ‘trick’ of chin on my thigh. I suspect it will help the nose-up thing.

Other stuff

Worked Spins and Twists. Sometimes he can do Spins (clockwise turn) on pure verbal, sometimes his Twists (anticlockwise) still fail. So improvement, I guess, but I’d have to do an actual x/10 count on each, with videos and all. They are absolutely better at my side – so that means we’ve almost managed a Rally level 2 skill! (Also, it’s forcing me to pick a hand to do the cue with. Left for the Twist, Right for the Spin.)

Attempting to teach him a new trick Snort, which basically means lift your snoot up!

Strength training. He successfully understood a request for backup up two steps of the stairs, after a few confused attempts at just turning around and walking up. Admittedly turning IS a more energy efficient way of getting up stairs…

Project Buttons. He has a clear understanding of the first 5 buttons, and uses them correctly 90% of the time, understands the vocabulary of Sleep and Brush when we use it – although he’s not all that keen on Sleeping…, working on learning Finish, and has not shown any interest in our names.

There are still mis-clicks, some of which I’ll attribute to not quite having memorised them yet, and some which are basically sleepy toddler tantrums button-mashing to get some kind of fun, instead of just settling down. With the inflatable collar around his neck, he’s too large for the kennel doorway, which means we can’t do the usual night time routine of putting him in there with some cheese and locking the door. He has always had trouble settling at night, but the kennel always did the trick. Now we get button-mashing instead, until he keels over around 10-11 pm.