Clicker fun

Swing has been introduced to the clicker and we've been playing with some shaping for the last week or so.  To build confidence, as well as body awareness, I have her stepping on a exercise disc (balance disc).  She figured out what I wanted rather quickly (of course Dodge had to show her what to do and now they fight over who can get their feet on it first) and now I've added a board and my goal was to get her to put her front feet on the disc and her back feet on the board.  As you can see from the video, she has mastered this rather quickly.

I will eventually increase the distance between the disc and the board to challenge her even more.  We actually only spent about 3 sessions with the balance disc and 2 with the board and each session has lasted no more than 5 minutes.  The cool thing about playing this game is that she continues to offer behaviors to get the click and the reward (as a matter of fact, this evenings session was started by her, she knocked the disc to the floor in front of me and slapped her paw on it with a "I'm ready to play" look.  Of course I had to oblige and take her up on the offer).  I'm also hoping that it is teaching her to continue to try to figure out the puzzle and thus laying the foundation for a dog that wants to work and enjoys the game of training.  I think shaping is great and interesting, it definitely has a place in my training regimen, and since I would like to do some things differently with Swing I've chosen to try this for some of the beginning work.  We'll see how far I go with it and what we get in to next, so stay tuned.

This week we are going to participate in a puppy workshop that is geared a little towards agility.  Hank will be attending as well and Swing and Hank may be the youngest ones there.  I will be sure to report on what we did at the workshop since I really do not know what to expect.  What I do know is that the M&M siblings will have a wonderful time, meet some new people and their puppies, and sleep very well afterward.