From 7-11-16
Voodoo had a busy day today! First we stopped by QC to visit the agility trial, but they had been without power since the morning and it was getting rather hot in the building without A/C. He seemed to enjoy watching the dogs running the course in the dim light from the windows, but was panting and fussy because he was hot, so we moved on.
From there, we went to Dayton to a “Rat n’ Go” Barn Hunt practice at Gem City Dog Training. A place he’s never been before yet he walked into the ring and started searching right away! His ability to search independently is great! Still need work on his indication, but I think he will understand very soon. We’ve only had 3 or 4 training sessions with the rats (in my basement), so my goal today was just to get him to a new place where he could have fun. But his behavior here wasn’t any different from what we do at home, so I’m THRILLED with that! With encouragement, he’s able to stay with the tube and will scratch and bite at it to get a treat, so it’s only a matter of practice to get that behavior linked with his initial find of the rat. He likes when I move the tube and he can chase it, so that can be used as a reward during training as well. Here is a short video clip: https://vimeo.com/174142305/a49839f5a7
On the way home from Dayton, we stopped off at a big indoor “flea market” off I-75. Lots of people in the isles as well as lots of dropped crumbs and other interesting items on the floor. At first, he wanted to clean the floor, but I would stop and wait for him to realize he couldn’t reach the item and then reward him for looking at me. By the second half of our visit, he was ignoring the stuff on the floor, but had started to pull on leash, so we worked on that for the second half. 🙂 We only stayed about 30 min. but got in a LOT of training! Biggest distraction was a person squeaking a toy. He was totally focused on that and finding out where the sound was coming from. But once the guy moved away, I was able to get his attention back. So I know something we’ll need to work on.
Before I headed home we stopped by a friend’s house where he played with her Lab and her fun toys. He worked on her Tug-a-Jug for a bit and got it to give up some of it’s food contents. Then he “stole” a pig toy from her and had us both laughing at his antics with it. He was rolling on it more often before I started the camera, but I still caught a bit of that. The funniest part was the sounds the toy was making 🙂 Funny video: https://vimeo.com/174143449/bb4e2aabfe
You would think he would be tired once we got home, but he’s been playing/wrestling with Dazzle for the past hour and a half in between trying to get me to play tug with various toys he brings me. 🙂
Raising a Genius Puppy 