Things got kind of interesting...

Today was a pretty good day. Dempsey got to have 2 weave pole sessions, and Peepers got one session of 101 things. Both of them made some pretty good progress in their training.

Dempsey just is really getting the idea. Today he went right down the line of 12 poles over and over again, and now he's growling as he enters. i think he's getting the idea that he has to do all 12 poles, and he also thinks it's hard, so he growls as he goes to enter them. I also tried to move some of the poles more upright (#2,3,4,and 5 in stages), and each time, he would try and skip the pole that had changed and reenter at the point where they were the same as before. He worked through it, but I think that I need to be careful how I close the poles, cuz I think that the behavior is a little fragile right now. But I feel a real need to close the poles as quickly as I can. So we'll see how that goes, and how well I balance the 2.

Peepers has session #4 of 101 things today. Since I messed yesterday up, I worked really hard at just letting behavior happen, and clicking something new. Within a very short time Peepers had come up with picking the block up with one foot, taking it with his beak, and putting it in the other foot. That seemed super-clickable to me, so that was the behavior of the day. It was a fairly slow session, in that he didn't do a ton of clickable behaviors, but he was engaged and active. The session was cut a little short when Joe walked in and started talking to me. Peepers got a little offended by the interruption, and we also needed to go, so I didn't try and work through it. I have this video, and you can see at the end one of the day to day behaviors I've trained with him, which is to give things to me. It's a trade, so when he lets me have whatever it is he's playing with I give him something in return, which is usually an almond or a nutriberry. It's a handy behavior, since he's always getting into things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=128YsCZ_Pho

I didn't work with anyone else today, cuz I had to run out. Sparky was only mildly interested in training anyway, so I don't think I really missed a big opportunity there. I do need to add Bungee back into the training mix, he thinks he's just going to DIE if he doesn't get a turn :). Maybe tomorrow...

K, so i am looking at the video of today's session, and really it is a lot of fun. First, Peepers goes thru each of the behaviors that he was reinforced for in each of the previous sessions. Then a quick pause, and then he comes up with his new behavior. This is only 30 seconds or so in. I just love to see that!