Today I really got started on my program to rehab my relationship with Peepers. I had put out foraging stuff for him last night, so he woke up with things to do. He had a great time, I could hear when he dropped the nut shells, and sometimes when he tore open a dixie cup. He never came into the bedroom to pick on the dogs, although Sparky still must've caught it from Peepers, as there was an episode of lots of flapping and a little squawking. Still, a vast improvement in behavior from previous days.

Late in the afternoon, I finally set up a training session. I moved from the bird room to the kitchen, and I am hoping that the set up will film better. Plus it's a smaller table, and so I hope to have a little more success with Sparky and the retrieve when she gets used to the area.

I started with Peepers, and I was kind of lucky. Since I am not handling him yet, I had to rely on him to come with me to train (and it's a new area, which could have confused him). He followed me over, and when I pointed to the table he hopped right down. I decided to work with the die on his retrieve. I wanted to see where he is at with this after such a long break, and I also wanted to get my hand close to him at a time that he had something in his mouth. He started a little slow, so I backed up to clicking when he picked up the die. I only had to do that once, and suddenly he was back on track. He even got to the point where he turned his head to put the die in my hand. Nice job! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO_A-ppAkqU

I tried to do Sparky next, and unfortunately not only was she nervous, Peepers came back and interfered with her session right away. I had given him an almond over by the couches, and thought he would do what he had done in the past, which was sit nearby and watch Sparky's session. Instead he flew right into hers, and I mishandled it. I had the target spoon in my hand, and as he got on the table, I shoved the spoon between the 2 of them , and kind of pushed it in his direction. My goal was just to turn him away from Sparky, but you could see by his body language that this was a real mistake. Sparky flew off, and then I decided to work with Peepers again. I wanted to repair what I had just done, and since this is what he seemed to want, it seemed right to give it to him. We were still a little dicey, and I was jumpy thinking he was going to bite me, but Peepers did do well overall with working the retrieve thing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfpjOhu5zkk

After we got done with this impromptu session, I asked Peepers to follow me into the bird room, where I gave him an almond and then closed the door so he couldn't come back and interfere again with Sparky. All I did with Sparky was a little bit of targeting. She really was uncomfortable, so it was a short session that hopefully was a positive experience overall for her. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSZZSW5CaQc

So far, so good. Time to set up the foraging stuff and see what tomorrow brings :)

Steady and slow

Today we worked on wing lifting and a little bit of sticking his head through the harness. Peepers got super excited during this session, and I changed my plan slighty as the session went on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7pI6j3QDyg

Today Sparky was a little uncomfortable, but settled down when I brought her essnetially into a corner where she couldn't see Peepers. I think this session is interesting to watch her slowly relax a little and then just be done.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIHgTdHOx7k

Today I decided to start working on asking Peepers to lift his wings when I ask for the next step of harness training. I decided to do this first, and hopefully do some other stuff after we were done with this part. I thought this might be difficult for Peepers, since he doesn't like to be manipulated, and I wanted to be able to end on something else more fun for him. I also decided to keep the harness out of the picture for now, so that the presence of the harness wouldn't signal the wing-lifting exercise, just in case wing lifting didn't go as planned. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEmiYOqQI8A

After we took a short break from session 3 (Sparky had a short session in between), I decided to try and work on the harness directly with Peepers again. I suspect that he just needed to think on the wing thing from session 3, and wasn't prepared to do another session so soon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ucNDZ85uDw

Sparky had an ok session, it was short, but she went right into training, and I think she quit when she slid on the table a little bit. I wonder if this is the problem for her, that the table is too slick for her comfort. If it is, I am not sure that I want to fix it for her - I think it would be good for her to get used to a new and different surface.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH0aQWeeews

Wow! Wow! Wow!

What a day for Peepers! 2nd day of harness training, and he just seems to think this is easy as pie. I added in putting his head through the smaller loop, and he didn't mind in the least. He even decided to let it stay on while he munched on his almonds. It's just crazy how bold he gets as every new experience turns out well, and he finds that he can choose whether to go on or not. I now need to teach him to raise each wing so I can slip the big part of the harness over them. This should get interesting, as we have no background behaviors to deal with this, so I am basically starting from scratch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8j_7BkBAfU

Sparky had a rougher time. She's getting better on the table, and did some targeting, then Peepers flew in and just about landed on her. It didn't seem to ruin her entire day, but I don't think she wanted to train much more. Of course, this happened towards the end of her max 3 minute session, so it could have been a combination of the incident and her natural tendency anyway. But, certainly progress is progress, and I look forward to building on what I've got. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hPhAV_HD48

Bungee's hold is coming along really nicely. He now grabs the dumbell and typically tries to hold onto it, although sometimes he mouths it a little bit before he just holds it. But spitting it at me has almost disappeared. I ended up using Sophie to help fix this - when Bungee spit the dumbell at me, Sophie got a turn at holding it. He was horrified :).

Dempsey has learned to shake with either paw on cue. He's a little enthusiastic and therefore sloppy about it. He sure did pick up on it fast though, so I am sure he will be able to clean this up fairly quickly.