After two days off, we picked up again today. I worked Basil and Teagan in the basement, although I should have worked them outside--it's almost fifty and sunny, although windy.
Basil did very well on everything except articles, and even then, there were only a couple momentary bobbles. For the first time, we made it up to 20 feet away! We're still doing six articles; he retrieved the wrong leather article once, once we reached 20 feet, and he also got confused once and didn't go out to the pile. But considering that distance is his hardest element, and that I added a lot of distance quickly today (I started at about 7 feet, and moved to twenty over the course of several reps), he did pretty well.
Today with gloves we progressed to me walking the glove out, placing it, and sending him to fetch. Up until this point, I'd been bending low, tossing it with a mark built into the toss, and then sending him without a wait as soon as I toss. Today, we started out with a few of those, but then I added in other elements: I walked the glove out after leaving Basil in a wait, then returned to him, bent down, gave him the mark and sent him. So far, so good! Of course, our max distance was only about 7-8 feet, so it wasn't too difficult. But a good start, nevertheless.
I also practiced dragging the broad jump chute all over the basement and setting it up against different walls and pieces of furniture...I still need to work him on "go out straight ahead." On our very first one, he ran out to the chute and dithered around....argh. But after that, NO mistakes! Even if I moved the chute 6 feet to one side, he went straight ahead every time.
I worked with Teagan on open stuff, and she did GREAT! She's doing full-length retrieves now (still a little bit of growling, but it dissipates as she gets comfortable with each new increase in criteria). I haven't yet reintroduced the high jump, but I think I'll do that soon, once I know her retrieves are solid. Today was the first day I added in the wait; instead of sending her as soon as I threw the db, I had her wait, then cued her to take it. She did great! I really thought she'd have a problem with this step, and that she'd need multiple commands to take it, but no problems at all. I think the intermediate step of throwing it out while saying "take it" as she ran out after it helped a LOT. She's even bringing the db back with beautiful fronts.
We worked on the drop on recall, and she always starts out anticipating drops when I call her; I think this is a good sign, because now she knows the game. She's such a strange little dog; she learns so very quickly, and she likes patterns and routines. I can't ever treat her for holding a wait (for something like a recall) because then she won't get up when I call her...but I can leave her in a wait and repeatedly call her out of it, and she never anticipates it! So go figure.
We had some motivation issues with the broad jump today. I can tell she's getting to the point where it seems like a really dumb exercise...she was refusing the jump, or just walking right up to it. So I got her ball out, and bam! She was on fire, sailing over the jump and eager to get her ball. Treats are so much lower on the reinforcement totem pole for her than a squeaky tennis ball. I also added another guide for her with the broad jump today...her fronts were crooked (mostly because she's not a confident jumper, so doesn't range far enough out in front of the jump when she lands to give her room to come in straight). I laid down a bar jump pole along my left side, so when she jumps, she has to move around it to get into front correctly. It worked really well! And she was just LOVING the ball as a reward for jumping.
Last, we worked on a bit of heeling and we also did some out of sight downs. She's doing very well and I'm moving quickly (I hope not too quickly). She did a 3 min 45 sec down, with treats interspersed at random moments; she's up to 50 seconds without a treat as the max interval without reinforcement. After the first down, we did a slightly shorter one that lasted only 3 minutes. She's such a smart little dog.
I didn't work with Peach at all today, since I have an appointment with a client in an hour and I have to go to class after that. Gotta run....
