Day 13

Hops had another handling lesson this morning and he is doing better each time. He held still for his teeth, ears, eyes and paws to be examined. Next we did pushups, I worked some with staying in the standing position because he is not good at that yet and it makes more difficult to practice the down from a stand because he tends to plop himself into a sit. He did great with downing from a sit on a verbal cue, with no hand signal. I am not sure if he knows it yet or if he is just guessing that down will get him a cookie at that moment. I think in this lessen he was still guessing.

Hops heard the vacuum for the first time today. He had no problem when it was 20 feet away and I fed him the entire time it was on at that distance. When it moved closer however it did spook him. I picked him up and he settled and quietly watched Jeremiah vacuum. We will have to work on this.
 

Hops had two heeling sessions today. The first was during the day, off leash in the backyard. He was wonderful, following right along, push, pull, front cross or rear cross, excel, decel, he could do it all! The second was at twilight, on leash in the driveway doing the same things. He did very well there too, though a little bit more distracted. I know I will have to work on him not chasing everything that moves so next I picked him up and walked over to the road and held and fed him while traffic went by. He watched it calmly and ate all the cookies I offered.

Hops did not go to work with me but stayed home with Jeremiah who gave him a good report. He says they played a little fetch and did some pushups and it’s your choice and that Hops was a good puppy. He even whined at the door when he had to go potty!
 
For dinner, Hops started with more pushups.He is offering to down from a sit on a verbal cue most of the time now, even in different places around the house and when not in a training session. Another advancement is he has offered the sit from the down several times now. We then did some hand targeting. He had no problem getting up and moving toward my hand so I tried something else. I put my hand close to him and when he touched I treated, then kept my hand near his nose. As soon as he was done eating he touched again and did that about ten times in a row! Then I tried raising criteria by waiting for a second touch before treating and he readily offered another touch, often more insistent than the first which is just what I want. Good puppy! We then did some it’s your choice. I am still working on moving my open hand away from him, closing it if he gets up and releasing or rewarding if he stays. He makes some mistakes but get’s it right most of the time and he stays in the game when he does make a mistake, very important. We ended the session with some ready go games. I held his collar, put some cookies on the ground in front of him, gently pulled back and said ready, go! On the go I let go of his collar so he could go get the cookies. He seemed to enjoy the game. The game is good prep agility training, being able to get more drive to go forward by holding him back and creates a positive association with collar grabs.