Learning to look

30/9/08

There was a break due to the Royal Show stuff. Today was my day off, so we went out at 3.00 and the place was deserted, despite school holidays. There were clouds around and patches of rain. Before we went out, I started from scratch on LAT. I used her big tennis ball in the kitchen, bringing it out from behind my back, then setting it on the table and lastly adding “who’s that” as a cue. She kinda got it. Oh, and my Mom had stopped by earlier in the day, so there had been some barking crazies in the crate, so nice to see her brain was back to learning capacity.

Once at the park I did a fairly long session in the car, since she was whiny on the way in. At this point the cleaning crew showed up, and I was able to maintain LAT with a relatively calm dog (still in crate) until one of them walked over to ask if the ball and mat on the picnic table belonged to me. Amika then had a barking fest because she expected to meet this person. I said something about “yep it’s my stuff” while going “nononono” at the dog, and she moved off. The barking wasn’t as bad as it has been, and she wasn’t trying to climb or shove her way past me like she has. She seemed to calm down relatively quickly after that. She now knows the score: only when she is acting calm does she get to come out. There was still some whining and moaning about it though.

She is getting good about reorienting at doors, and the car today was no exception. We did GMAB / reorients and headed gradually over to the picnic table. The ball had fallen off and rolled behind a post, so quick game of “find it” for the ball. She still was in sniff mode, but I lowered my criteria on that one today as she has been cooped up and ignored a lot the past few days. She was straight onto the mat, but had to think about it before remembering the down. We then did the intro LAT lesson with the ball while she laid on the mat. I got in a few on “the view” on the other side as well (ducks or magpies, but I didn’t see them). Still needs heaps of work, but I am pleased we have made a start.

At this point we were out of treats so more walking and sniffing on the way back to the car before we left. She was a bit “high” during this session, but I figured she needed to blow some energy and sniffing around was a good way to do it out there.