Great morning. Ron had let the dogs out when he got up, and when I got up to let them out of the dog room and into the house, he only put his paws up, and that gently, once on the Dutch door, then he got down and stayed standing while I talked to him and then let them in.
I thought I had a drawer full of dumbbells, but when I went to it the other day it was empty (a Chuck-It and an little dog dish), so I bought one at the fun match the other night.
Today we started working on it. Excellent session. We don’t have more than 1 second of duration on the hold yet, but he certainly knows his face has to wrapped around the dumbbell.
We worked on that. First in hand – holding it with me. I discovered that his mouth is quieter if I hold it up above him and he has to reach for it and pull it down to level. Got some nice work there.
Then I put it on the floor and did a little shaping to get him to approach it, put his mouth over it, and finally lift it. Looking good.
Next we worked on where to hold it in his mouth. I let him throw it back onto his molars without paying for it, and he seemed to have figured out that only on premolars was going to get paid (at least for today).
Put it on the floor again and let him experiment with picking it up by the ends and chewing on them. In a few minutes he was giving very consistent pickups on the bar only. I can’t reach for it yet without him dropping it, but that’ll come. This was a very productive session.