Friday, October 1, 2010

Day 9: Stay and Go, Go, Go

The day began with a series of training sessions that reviewed previous learning and took things further.Tintin seems to be enjoying these sessions, especially when he has something new to get stuck into. Today for fun we were working on Spin! as well as all the things we had done the day before. We also moved on to the third segment of the relaxation/deference protocol.

After that, it was time to put Stay into practice in real world situations. Here are three of the situations we tried today:
Tintin waits patiently while I have breakfast. Look Mamas, no tether!

The next Stay was especially challenging, in view of Tintin's exciting adventure with the wood rat yesterday.His task was to stay in place on a mat, while I fed my two pet rats, Rose and Ralph. Tintin had practiced this three times before (he likes to watch!), but he was always on a tether for everyone's safety. Rose is quite feisty and has been known to swipe at a too curious dog nose. Today, Tintin was untethered and free to move. But he didn't move an inch! 

Tintin and Rose
Next, Tintin worked on a puzzle, the Dog Casino. This puzzle has little sliding drawers and locking nobs, which make it more or less difficult to get treats out of the drawers. Tintin loves this kind of puzzle, so he is eager to begin. Asking him to stay in position and hold back from grabbing at the treat is good for teaching impulse control. He did great with staying still  AND getting the treats when given the go ahead.
Tintin holds a Down/Stay while waiting for a turn at the Dog Casino
Jackpot! Tintin opens a drawer and gets some treats

Tintin uses his paws as well as his nose to solve the puzzle and get more treats
After school was out for the morning, Tintin finally met a play partner who matched his energy and play style.

Jazz is a 22 month old Australian Shepherd/husky mix. Her owner, Forrest, came to work on logging firewood. Jazzy likes to ride on the tractor.
Jazz checking out her potential playmates
Greetings
And they're off!
Balanced play involves taking breaks
Play bows signal that  it's all in fun
Ranger looks on - happy to be out of the action for once

An hour later they were still going strong

One last chase 

But eventually it was time for Jazz to go home. After all that playing, Tintin was thirsty. Sometimes he likes to multi-task: bathing and drinking at the same time.
Tintin often stands in this bowl when he drinks from it.

After a big rest and some more skills practice, Tintin had one more hike  - a mushroom hunt through the forest, with Sy and Ranger. He did  some fantastic out of sight recalls. Awesome, fun dog!

1 comment:

Noma Hanlon said...

Hmmm how can Tintin distinguish between an outside woodrat and a 'pet' ? Answer: he can't
and then there was a tiny mouse in Bend -he kept chasing
the flashlight...