Hilda is very enthusiastic with the clicker. Almost too enthusiastic. She is super fast to offer a new behavior if not rewarded instantly for the previous one; she barks too much; she grabs treats out of my hand with such sharpness that I'm almost afraid of her; she drops the treats on the floor so frequently that she spends a good chunk of her training sessions vaccuuming the floor by my feet with her nose just in case she missed something. Nevertheless, we're making good progress on the right side finish. I still don't know where her perfect Front came from, but I'm enjoying it. My plan for the right side finish is this: I started with her in Front. Then I stepped up so that my right leg was parallel to her right shoulder. Then I turned just slightly to my left and gave her the hand signal with my right hand so that she had to come around behind me. At first I just clicked for her making the motion of coming around behind me, and didn't care whether she sat or not. But by the last few trials, I made her sit before getting the click. She's getting it. It needs to be cleaned up, but she understands now that she has to come around behind me and end up on my left side.
Sunny is wildly confused today. The last step in his retrieve was that he had to pick up the dumbbell and lift his head all the way so he was looking at me, still holding the dumbbell, before he got the click. He was doing great with that. The next step was supposed to be me moving my hand to catch the dumbbell as it fell. That didn't work well, not at all. I think he feels threatened by my hand moving toward him (silly over-sensitive Aussies), so he started doing all this other crap -- lifting the dumbbell like a quarter-inch off the floor and then dropping it, pawing it, laying down on top of it... I realized that whatever I was doing, I was doing it wrong. So I decided to just go back to the previous step of having him lift it knee-high and look up at me, and reinforce that. That also backfired since now he was really confused and didn't want to do anything with the dumbbell at all. So I put him away and let Hilda work instead. When I brought him back, he was ready to work. We ignored the dumbbell this time and I worked on finding Front from a Halt, and then finishing either left or right. I found out the key thing with that is that I have to pause a second after the Front and then be very clear about whether I want the left or right finish. If I go too fast, he short circuits.
For the retrieve, I will have to add an intermediate step with me reaching my hand in his direction but not close to him before I actually try to touch the dumbbell. I hate adding things to proven methods, but this time it is simply not going to work any other way because of Sunny's sensitivity. My apologies to Shirley Chong, but I'm sure she would understand that the mark of a great trainer is flexibility and willingness to adapt instructional methods to the student.
Zsiga does not Come when called. We're going to work on that. I have stashed treat cups all over the house -- on the bedroom shelf, on the bookcase in the living room, on the bar in the kitchen, on the shelf by the desk, and on the tool shelf in the Arizona room -- so that whenever either one of us feels like calling Zsiga, there will always be a food reward close at hand. (I KNEW there was a reason I saved that tower of Eegee's cups we got when we bought our bucket of Eegee way back in August! They are treat cups!) Tim doesn't have a Come word yet, so I'm just going to use Zsiga's name unless told otherwise. It is great, rare fun to work with a food-motivated shepherd. Once Zsiga figures out the game and that he stands a 100% chance of getting treats if he can just bring himself to come when called, I have no doubts that Tim and I and the word "Zsiga" will become the most salient things in the environment. Soon I will insist that Tim play the Come Game from Level One with me, but I am taking it easy on him since he has been under stress with his grandmother passing away and me being under the weather.
I have to mention that I love how our house is set up for puppy raising. The cats' litter boxes are in the laundry room, which is blocked by a baby gate with a cat hole cut in it that Zsiga will very soon be unable to fit through. The Arizona room is blocked off from the kitchen by a gate that has a little tiny cat gate in it. (Unbelievably, Hilda can make herself boneless and fit through that cat gate if sufficiently motivated.) Finally, we unfolded the ex-pen across the opening between the kitchen and the living room. So Zsiga can be safely contained in the Arizona room while I clean the litterboxes in the morning, and I can block him in the kitchen while I'm using the computer. I can easily block all dogs except the one being trained at the moment from any room I want. Zsiga has no access to carpeted rooms at all unless I know for a fact he is 100% empty as of no less than ten minutes ago. (He hasn't had an accident since I returned home from California, and will very soon be getting more of a chance to run around the full house. He is a very easy puppy to house train, thank God.)
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