Chance is learning the pedestal is a really good place to be.
So I have to apologize for being absent for so long. It seems that winter has finally ended and I can put the hip waders used to make my way through the mud to do chores away for a little bit I hope.
I’ve been working on some special training for a client and it too has been taking a lot of time, but has also been a lot of fun.
I thought I’d share with you a short video from one of the teaching sessions. This video shows you what happens when you go through all the necessary small steps to ensure a behaviour is understood.
I started out with mat work, one of our clicker foundation lessons. I gave it a high value, so lots of clicks and rewards any time Chance would stand on it or I took him to it. Chance was rewarded whenever he stood on the mat so he thought it was a great place to be. Pretty soon he would seek out anything that looked like a mat to stand on.
I then added in some height to the ‘mat’ so that I could work up to standing on a pedestal. We had worked on a pedestal the height and size of a pallet, then moved to a smaller pedestal but the same height. So not really very high and we had only done the smaller one for about three five minute sessions but he caught on quickly.
On this particular day, we were working in the other arena and I had set up the BIG pedestal that a friend had just given me. I had no plans of asking Chance to try this one as it was a LOT higher and smaller than his previous ones but as I was setting up the video camera he marched himself over to it and got up on it!
This video is the second time he did it. I couldn’t resist asking him to do it and getting it on tape…not as cool as if I’d gotten it the first self directed successful attempt but cool none the less. The power of positive reinforcement!
Look for the upcoming article on fly spray and accompanying blog with videos. The mosquitoes are out in full force here so I know it will come in handy very soon!
