Saturday, October 14, 2017

Day 34 (10/14/17): visitors, peeing in crate, nose work

Terra didn't get out of the house today, but two pairs of clients came by. The first couple came into the kitchen as I let her in from the yard. I had to immediately put her into the bedroom because their dog guards them and might have laid into her. I had to push and pull on her to get her away from the people. I got her behind the baby gate between the kitchen and bedroom, and she manded (sat) and pawed at the gate repeatedly because she wanted so badly to greet them. YAY!

Later in the day, another couple whom she knows well came by, and she ran right up to them with her tail wagging wide, alternating who she approached and leaned into for petting.

The one low point in the day was that she peed in her crate while I was out for 3 hours. The urine didn't have any smell to it, so she must have loaded up on water shortly before I left and I didn't notice. And because there was a lot of it and the puddle spread across her bed, she then lay in it. I rubbed her down thoroughly with a wet towel but I sense another bath in her near future.


Switched a few things up for today's nose work session and she did beautifully. Here's what I wrote on the forum:
1. I recorded with my webcam, which is mounted about 5' up. You can see that I live in a tiny apartment! Recording from higher up allowed me to move around more. The downside is that it's hard to see where her nose is when she's not facing the camera, and I didn't want to obsess over that and ruin the fun. You'll just have to trust me that I was rewarding as soon as her nose hovered over the tin, and she was dead on every time that she chose to move toward it.
2. I used fresh cooked chicken as the reward, and right before dinner. On the first few hides she was distracted by the chicken hand, but on the last two she went straight to the tin!
3. Started with IYC in the hand, then on the box, floor, box, floor, box. I don't think she has any trouble with the concept of doing the game on the floor; only the same initial distraction by the chicken hand. (I'm looking forward to RLGL helping with this later on.)
4. I rewarded only one target to each hide, then removed the tin, and physically moved to a different spot. So we got 6 reps in in exactly 1 minute, and she stayed interested the entire time!!

Let me know how we should proceed. More of the same? Add duration? More floor work? Put tin in container?

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