Enjoying the smells

23/9/08

It was overcast this afternoon. No one was at our spot at 5.30pm, or close by. Amika seemed to respond to my “enough!” about whining, and I was able to do the arm-behind-the-back treat delivery on the way in. She did pretty good staying calm on the way in with a bit of a whine “flare-up” just as we turned into the carpark.

I “dressed” Amika in the crate with petting and occasional treat for downs. She wanted to get excited, but looks like she has figured out there is a wait involved, so why not leave excitement until later? At home we have been getting better response on reorienting on the other side of doors, and the car is no exception. The nose goes straight to the grass but rebounds and I get a sit.

I wasn’t very sharp today in general, and very busy. Thus I wasn’t particularly clear on what I was doing! But Amika did fantastic. Today there was a lot of sniffing to be done, but it was less tense, and there was a LOT LESS rushing involved. It is as if she is now calm enough to take the scents in in detail, rather than trying to get all of them as quickly as possible.

I was slow on the clicker (forgot to bring it yesterday) but we did a combo of GMAB with orients, sits and downs and go to mat. Towards the end of the session I was saying “c’mon” and she was moving off with me to sniff before going to the end of the lead. Some of the time when she gets to the end of the lead, the pressure seems to cue her to orient. Looks like it acts as a reminder. Of course, some of the time she just wants to pull to get to a smell.

The great thing about this session was her level of calmness and the amount of reorienting she was doing. I still need to work on my rate of reinforcement and observation / clicking skills.