Indigo and I have been learning a new trick. It's one I've been wanting to train but thought it might be pretty difficult so have put it off til now. I call it "reverse", where your dog walks backward around you in a circle. Once we started it went pretty fast!
The first video shows how we trained it. I have seen this trick trained using an ex pen around behind you in a circle or the method I used. If you have a narrow hallway with a wall at one end it works very well for a large dog. I started with her body in front of me, so her rib cage is touching my knees, facing my right hand. I rewarded that position a few times to keep her close to my body. Then I had her move into heel position and rewarded that. From there I had her back up behind me and clicked and treated any movement backward without her turning around, which is what she wanted to do in the beginning. Then backward some more until she appeared in front of me again. At that time I wanted her to keep going in the circle so I used my right hand with a treat in it to lure her head away from me, making her body turn into my knees again, click, treat, and done!
And here is the finished product away from the help of the walls. Now we need to learn the other direction!
Yup, that's Indi, ALWAYS up for a game!
This is my contribution to a site called "dog faming" on facebook. The anti dog shaming!
Last weekend we took the dogs to the Bruneau Sand Dunes and oh how much fun they had!
They ran and ran and RAN! Bunnies! Sand! BUNNIES!!!
We only actually saw one rabbit and it lost both dogs within 10 seconds but that just made them more excited.
Watching Rye it was hard to believe that he will be 13 next month! He doesn't always have this much enthusiasm but.....SAND and BUNNIES!
I recently decided to start working with Indigo on a few things that cause her minor stress in life (I say minor because they are things that don't happen very often. She may feel a larger amount of stress about them than I imagine!). I thought I would blog about it, as simple as it seems.
Ever since we got her at 6 months she has disliked having a harness put over her head. I noticed with the harness first but anything that goes over her head is the same for her. At first she would let me put it on but every time it touched her on the way over her skin would crawl. Then she started watching to see if I was getting the harness or just a leash and if it was the harness she would back away and not want to go anymore. I stopped using it. Instead I wrapped her leash under her body and over a shoulder so she wasn't putting so much pressure on her neck. She doesn't mind that.
I had worked with her a small amount in the past but it never went very far and I wasn't very good about continuing the training. This time I was committed to doing it every day for a few weeks.
So every night after work I got my clicker and a handful of treats (I usually use her dinner kibble because she will work for it happily) and we started with the pretty purple leopard print slip lead I got for agility. In the past she would allow me to put it on but then not want to walk in it. She would freeze.
I started out just running my hand over the top of her head to give her the feeling of something going over her head. Before doing this each time I used a predictor word, "over". Each "over" got a click and a treat.
Next I held the lead and click/treat for her touching it with her nose. Then opened the loop and click/treat for touching it again, giving her the treat through the loop. Then I waited for her to put her nose or muzzle into the loop which she did. After that I felt good about putting the lead over her head. I continued saying "over" before putting the slip lead over her head to help her know what was coming and hopefully feel more in control of her situation. If she backed away from the lead at any time I backed up and when she came toward me I would click and treat that. If she were to back up and not come toward me again I would put everything away and do something else for a while.
I also clicked and treated her walking toward me while wearing the lead.
Here is our video, everything we've done over about two weeks, complete with Smokey the cow cat help!
I have moved on to the harness and she is doing very well. I had to switch from kibble to something more special since the kibble just wasn't worth it. Chicken or beef heart makes it worth it!
I put the harness on slowly so nothing flaps against her since that seems to be what she hates and her skin still crawls when it touches her but she doesn't back away from it anymore. She still won't reach down to eat a treat off the floor with the harness on but can walk in it now. Such a good baby girl!
It is somewhat startling how much I love this being.
This weekend we went to visit our family in the mountains. When we arrived there was only a small amount of snow on the ground.
On Friday the guys went ice fishing while I took the dogs around the property to play.
Frisbee!!!
Later in the day I discovered the PERFECT wall for photos. Something about the lighting was just right. So I had a little fun (and used some Christmas doggy treats) dressing up Indigo. She is so patient and good!
That night it started to snow....
and we woke up Saturday to a winter wonderland! Well, just six or seven inches but it sure sparkled beautifully in the morning sun!
We took Indi snowshoeing with us but left Rye home since we didn't want him to get sore jumping through the snow.
This is a hill that Indi has hiked with me before where she was very nervous and stayed right near me the whole time. That was last fall and what a difference a year made! She is a much more confident hiker now. She ran her heart out following trails, sticking her face in the snow and just having so much fun. We really enjoyed watching her explore.
Me and my dog (thanks for taking the photo, Jason!).
When we came back I let Rye out to play a little. Each dog got their turns with the frisbee but Rye just cannot wait til it's his turn. He chases Indi barking at her the whole time. She thinks it's awesome.
My brother is playing with me! My brother loves me!
Rye just says GIVE me that frisbee!
Back inside where Indi climbed up in the "dog chair" and went instantly to sleep and then the weekend was over and we had to drive home. We never like to leave!
Indigo turned two years old on Wednesday. For her gift we did an extra agility lesson mid week. We worked weaves, contacts and start lines. For the contacts our teacher had me click for Indi's front feet hitting the ground while I moved ahead of her and she stayed on "target". Then the release word and I tossed her ball back to her to reward for position. We tempted her with a tunnel right after the A-frame and she held position perfectly. Such a good girl!
We worked a few challenging weave entries and she got them all.
She still has a tendancy to knock bars but I don't obsess over it. The fact that she'd rather do agility
than almost anything else is more important to me than keeping every bar up. Her enthusiasm is definitely contagious.
Then we went home for a second gift. A cardboard box.
Joy
Who needs new toys when there's cardboard?
JOY!
To finish the day, a piece of salmon with birthday candles in it!
Rye waits patiently on the couch for the theatrics to be over so he can have some salmon.
To top it all off I got news that a photo I had entered in a calendar contest had won! We received the calendar today and Indi is "Miss April" for the Idaho Humane Society's friends for life calendar!
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