Training Last Night

We practiced in the living room last night. We had such a good time. Charlie was a bit confused by the new criteria on the matt. Now he has to sit and look down (or at least bend his front legs) or lie down on the matt (goal to to lie down on the matt every time). It took some time (about 3 minutes), but he got all but one trial right. The rest of the tasks just flew by. We've added airplane to our down/stay. He has to stay while I hold a treat and zoom it around then deliver it to him. He did a good job, and only broke the stay once. 90% counts! We've also added difficulty to sit/stay which he's really good at. At this time, I can put him in a sit/stay, walk a few feet, put a treat on the floor, walk back to him, go back to the treat, pick it up, and take it back to him. We're going to try this in several locations before we increase the difficulty.

The next step is to walk a few steps, drop a treat, walk back, go get the treat, and hand it to the dog. Next is to do the same, but instead of picking up the treat, you walk a bit further, and put a second treat on the floor, walk back to the dog, then go to the first treat, pick it up, take it to the dog, then go to the second treat, pick it up and take it to the dog.

We've also officially added "give it" to the list every night. We split up the 10 trials into two of 5 (for the sake of my arms). The first trial took almost two minutes, until he got it into his thick skull that he had to release the tug toy to get the treat. Second round took only 45 seconds.

The last new item is our emergency recall. I chose the word VOOSH. John held Charlie (yes, he asked for the iodine - I've called him Lucy in the past) while I shook the tug toy to get Charlie really work up. Then, I started backing up still wiggling the toy. Then, I ran shaking the toy behind me. While running, I yelled VOOSH, and John let go of Charlie. The little guy EXPLODED out of the hold, grabbed that toy for all he was worth, and we played a rough game of tug for about 45 seconds. He then had to "give it", and I took him back to John. We did this all again. John wanted to do more, but I was TIRED. At this point, we'd played tug for almost 4 minutes, and I'm not used to it. Charlie's a 45 pound dog for heaven's sake. John even asked if we were going to play again this morning. I said we'll practice again tonight.

Materials:
TOTs
towel
tug toy (the homemade one)