8 months 16 days
2011/10/08
Now that Thomas has completed the filming part of his documentary and is heading home to begin the REAL work, the "post" part - editing, fixing, arranging, etc, I thought I would show you a couple of neat photos he took of my squirrel.
This is Syn relaxing in her chair after an exhausting session of earning her Junior Water Dog title.
And this is a still cut out of the film which pretty much captures her entire attitude to life: I'mgonnagetit, I'mgonnagetit, I'mgonna EEEEEHAAAAHHH!!!! I GOT IT! Photos, I proudly add, by Thomas Brezinski.
Over the last couple of days, Syn and I have been working on her understanding of the idea that sit and down are two different things, each with its own specific cue. She's better now than she was when we stopped working Levels a couple of months ago.
This evening we worked on her stays again. Trying to short-circuit her tap-dancing, I started by putting a big cushy dog bed on the floor about 8 feet away from me and telling her to go to mat. She did and I started clicking her for lying down on it, then gradually working on clicking her for staying down without flipping around, getting up, swinging her head wildly back and forth, or kicking her back legs. It took a while to get past 3 seconds, but once we got it, she went fairly quickly up to 25 seconds with only a few restarts.
Then I tried sit with her on the floor. It didn't work. I took the cushion out of the dog bed and got her to sit inside the ring. That worked MUCH better. It's fun to see her desperately trying to control her urge to dance. We got up to 15 seconds a couple of times, which is a vast improvement on a few days ago.
Then I got an exercise ball and clicked her for pushing it with her nose. I'm not sure I can get her to bring it to me in the small space I have to work with, but once I get the point across that I'm talking about her nose rather than her teeth or her paw, we can try it in the hallway.
We finished the session with a bit of free shaping. She's not as confident as Stitch is in the process, but she's eager to figure it out.
This is Syn relaxing in her chair after an exhausting session of earning her Junior Water Dog title.
And this is a still cut out of the film which pretty much captures her entire attitude to life: I'mgonnagetit, I'mgonnagetit, I'mgonna EEEEEHAAAAHHH!!!! I GOT IT! Photos, I proudly add, by Thomas Brezinski.
Over the last couple of days, Syn and I have been working on her understanding of the idea that sit and down are two different things, each with its own specific cue. She's better now than she was when we stopped working Levels a couple of months ago.
This evening we worked on her stays again. Trying to short-circuit her tap-dancing, I started by putting a big cushy dog bed on the floor about 8 feet away from me and telling her to go to mat. She did and I started clicking her for lying down on it, then gradually working on clicking her for staying down without flipping around, getting up, swinging her head wildly back and forth, or kicking her back legs. It took a while to get past 3 seconds, but once we got it, she went fairly quickly up to 25 seconds with only a few restarts.
Then I tried sit with her on the floor. It didn't work. I took the cushion out of the dog bed and got her to sit inside the ring. That worked MUCH better. It's fun to see her desperately trying to control her urge to dance. We got up to 15 seconds a couple of times, which is a vast improvement on a few days ago.
Then I got an exercise ball and clicked her for pushing it with her nose. I'm not sure I can get her to bring it to me in the small space I have to work with, but once I get the point across that I'm talking about her nose rather than her teeth or her paw, we can try it in the hallway.
We finished the session with a bit of free shaping. She's not as confident as Stitch is in the process, but she's eager to figure it out.