I know, I know, I promised to write soon but you know me! I wouldn´t change a good run in a field for an update to my blog. I am more in the side of corpore sano rather than mente sana. :).
Anyway, coming back to business, you were wondering how and why we (Myself and Darwin) are so well behaved...I can tell you this, It didnt happen from day to night! :)
Our human Eva when she was a pup liked very much to watch in the Tv all the series like "Lassy" and "black beauty" so she grown up thinking that we animals are able to be behave like humans so she was a little bit frustrated when I came along and I was everything but obedient.
The next is history, she dragged me to a puppy class in a close by town where they were making do the most ridiculous things like walking along at the same pace that her, stay in the same spot while she was waking away, sit and lay at command etc...
If you know me by now, you would have thought that that´s not me at all so therefore, I was a very bad student and got very bad grades...we got expelled of the second course (agility).
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| Here with My mates |
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| Begging me to be good |
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| Can you see me pulling like mad? |
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| Our home made agility course |
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| I really enjoyed that day! |
The reason why I got expelled was because I like to do thing on my way, I hate waiting for hours for my turn (I get bored) and then think and look and obey at the same time...to many things what I really like is to run and play...Anyway, the teacher was not my cup of tea... ;)
So consequently, Eva gave up trying to teach me things till Ben arrived home (you have already seen his trick videos) He was great and then I became more interested in that sort of things...
To be hones with you now, nearly two years later I am great, I am very well behaved (because I want to be, not because I am told to be) and I know many many tricks and I learn faster and faster every session thanks to Eva coming across with Silvia Trkman web site and clicker training.
Talking about this, my post today was to tell you that Darwin is doing the long distance puppy lessons by Silvia.
It means that Eva and Darwin are working in daily bases in a list of tricks that Silvia provided with and they have to be taped and uploaded to her website.
The first lesson is:
1. call your dog at least 10 times a day to do something fun together: to play, to go out, to get a treat, something to chew on or a new exciting toy
2. put a plate (or another object, but I like to start with a plate as puppies can’t chew on those too easily) on a floor and shape a puppy to touch it with a front paw: you can first click for head movement in the right direction, then one/two/three steps, then stepping over it or close to it and finally for stepping on it
3. sit on a floor and put a fist full of treats or dog’s favourite toy right in front of their nose, wait till they stop sniffing and click for anything they try other than getting directly to the food/toy or staring at it. It’s very important the dog understands staring at food/toy doesn’t get him anywhere as it will later on allow you to work with food/toys in your hand without distracting the dog’s focus from the job at hand.
4. find a box or a drawer that is as long as your dog and not too high and shape a dog to put 1-2-3-4 legs into it. Then try with smaller&smaller objects, final goal is the dog can stand is a small bowl.
5. observe your puppy and see if he sometimes stretches his legs out when in down position, puppies often do that when relaxed or playing. Name it (I call it “frog”:) and reward. It’s a nice stretching exercises and very easy to get it on cue if the dog does it naturally (some dogs do it as adults too, but mine didn’t and it was much harder to train it as with puppy Le who was doing that naturally). If not, put a dog in a down position and reward from the floor and so far ahead that the dog needs to stretch out to get it – but not so far that he would crawl ahead. Watch the hind legs and click for moving them back OR out, but NOT for crawling step forward.
So here are the first videos, they are terrible but Eva and Myself are working to find some kind of program in Internet to customize them....
I hope you like them, I will have you posted about Darwin improvements (the poor thing he doesnt even know that he is being taped.....)
