Set aside ten to fifteen minutes every day (or twice, or three times each day is even better) to train your dog. Set a goal, keep the rate of reinforcement high, and get to work.
Today Bailey worked on sit stays and heeling. She's been having issues with left turns on and off. A lot of it is my body cue to turn isn't always predictable, so I am working on that part, and together we are working on them being a smooth transition. If my cue isn't timed correctly, she bumps into my leg and stops. My goal for today was two-fold, cue correctly and help her keep working if she bumps me. If she bumped me, I didn't click, but I did throw food for her. The reasoning behind this is the same reason I give "screw up cookies" in agility. If you give the wrong cue and the dog responds correctly, they are STILL right, so in the words of my agility instructor "reward that!" We had about fifteen repetitions of left turns. She hit me 4 times and by the fourth one she was bouncing at me, it wasn't such a big deal! This is to help us in a trial, because if I don't cue it correctly, I still want her to keep working. Her sits were VERY good today. Not a single break and this is while I was working Buzz too!
Buzz worked on sit stays and learning the difference between "down" and "mark" cues. He wants to lie down SO BADLY when I move my left arm any way in the downward direction. This is a good thing, that he's so amped about performing, but a bad thing in that I need to teach him to mark things (like the jumps in rally since I can't cue jump verbally, or his dumbell on the blind retrieve, or anything else I'd like to send him to). The session started with me doing limited movements with my left arm. I was almost able to bring it to level with his head by the end of the session, but we didn't get to the actual marking exercise today. Tomorrow we will work on the actual cue for down, instead of any left hand motion while in heel position!
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