Journey #3

Third day of training with Journey! This video is unedited, so there may be a few pauses while dealing with real-world distractions... like mosquitoes! Journey needs to be introduced to "It's Your Choice," a game that teaches impulse control and helps her learn to hold herself back rather than immediately acting on excitement. Right now, when she gets overly excited, she might burst into a hug or mindlessly lick at my closed fist, trying to get the reward. Today, she did pretty well with Vito's Thinking Game, even though my training technique could have been better! This is a foundation game that encourages her to think independently and builds confidence in offering behaviors. I suspect a lot of Journey's inappropriate behavior happens when she loses confidence in what is being asked of her. When she's unsure, she falls back on what she knows—jumping on a person and asking for petting. I think this may be her way of trying to diffuse uncertainty or conflict. Working on the Pedestal At this point, I'm simply trying to get her two front feet onto the pedestal so we can build from that behavior. Interestingly, Journey seems to understand putting her front feet on the pedestal, but she immediately adds a sit, almost as if she's saying, "There! That's my answer!" My guess is that sitting has been heavily reinforced in the past as an alternative to jumping on people. She has such a strong tendency to jump that I suspect she's been rewarded frequently for sitting instead. Most dogs don't sit quite so automatically when they put their front feet on a pedestal. I experimented with adding a second object to physically separate her front feet from her back feet, hoping to help her relax into a standing position instead of immediately sitting. I also varied where I delivered her food rewards to encourage standing. She's enthusiastic and pretty set in her ways! But I can already see signs that with patience and consistency, she can learn to stand comfortably for reinforcement. Eventually, I'd like to develop a nice, balanced standing position for training. Platform Work and Rear-End Awareness Next, I tried getting her onto the platform for a sit. She didn't yet understand that I wanted both back feet to remain on the platform. Over time, as she develops more awareness of her rear end and learns that she can move it independently of her front end, we can work toward a nice, square sit with her back legs properly underneath her. A Little Heeling We finished with some heeling at my side. This was improved over the first time we did this with leash and collar. I thought she did pretty well! Knowing When to Stop I was actually ready to keep going, but Journey was giving me some pretty clear information. She kept heading toward the house, and I could tell she was ready to be done. She worked hard and made some nice progress today. Pushing her to continue when she's mentally finished would likely introduce behaviors I'd just have to work through later. Better to end a session a little early on a positive note than create more problems to fix later. Overall, I was really pleased with her effort today. We're still learning how to communicate with each other, and these little foundation exercises are giving me a much better understanding of how she thinks, what she finds difficult, and how I can help her succeed.