Fronts

Our fronts need work.  Lots of work.  The biggest problem is being straight.  The Princess ends up pretty close to me, but off center.

I thought this might be a good thing to train during my bedtime ‘two biscuits’ routine.  So for the last week this has been our focus.  I take two small biscuits, and put one in each hand.  The dog is about 3 or 4 feet away. I say “come” and as she approaches, I put my two hands out a bit (similar to what a lot of folks do with dowels, but I just use my hands) to help guide her into being straight.  Once she sits, I wait until she looks up at me, and then reward her with one of the treats – from the hand she is furthest from.  I give the other treat to The Palace Guard who is waiting patiently on the bed.  We do one repetition and then…to bed!

I’ve seen a huge improvement in the last week.  She’s coming closer, which wasn’t a huge problem, but I like it.  She also does seem to be straighter.   I think the biggest test will be when we move this to a different environment and start asking for more distance on the recall portion.  We’ll see.

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2 biscuit heel position

The Princess has a CD.  But The Princess is not good at finding heel position.  I decided we needed to work on this every day and the way to do that is to work on it when she gets her bedtime cookies.  She gets two of these – well, really one broken in half.  So that’s two reps a day.

I started having her target my left hand as it faced palm down, right next to my hip – given her average size this is a good focal point for her during heeling.  We did that for a couple of days.  As soon as she did target, I asked her to sit, then used YES (my marker word when I don’t have a clicker) and gave her the treat, being  V E R Y careful to reward while she was in heel position.

Gradually I made it harder by leaving her in a sit, stepping away (and at odd angles) and then releasing her to find heel position.  She got better and better.

We’ve been doing two a day for several weeks now.  Time to test…so today she actually did it (nicely and enthusiastically!) at a hectic agility class!  YEA PRINCESS!

now, what shall we do next for our 2 biscuits a day?

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