Indoor Training

Yesterday, on our trip to get Toby some more food we stopped at the Toys R Us up there for my brother. Unknown to me, Toys R Us apparently sells some dog agility stuff (from the AKC Juniors stuff)... so I came home with a bar jump and a set of weave poles. The poles aren't the best... they're completely out of PVC and the base doesn't feel all that sturdy (especially not for the way Toby goes through stuff once he's learned them) but they'll do for now. Last night I took both dogs out in the backyard to play. With one of my neighbor's dogs running loose the entire neighborhood was in an uproar with dogs barking all over the place... so Toby was insistent about running around the fence line and checking everything over.

Oh well. I took Reba, some good treats and worked on the weave poles with her... just luring her in and out. It's not the way I plan to teach it to Toby, but what I really wanted was to making playing with me sound SO much better than running the fence line. So Reba and I made a huge fuss, cheering and happily dancing around the weave poles and a few minutes later (in one of the quiet spells) Toby came trotting up. I gave him a few treats for joining us and told him he could "Take a Break" (it's a temporary release, and he's free to demand to keep working). He did and so I alternated dogs, every now and then cueing Toby to go for a break. Sometimes he took the offer and charged back to the fence line (most of the time when other dogs were barking) and other times he chose to stay. Slowly he stayed a little longer between times and I packed everything up before the dogs could get too bored.

However, I brought the jump inside and set it up in my room last night. I wanted to shape him to walk through the jump standards. He figured it out in record speed and was just trotting through them for a c/t. Perfect!

Today, it's rained all day. I took him out for a brief walk around the neighborhood in the rain but for the most part... I've had to exercise the dogs inside. Works fine for us. Mom and Dad left to go to the hardware store (our basement stairs broke...) and so I set the jump up in the living room and had the dogs work on running through the standards and hopping low jumps. They both thought that was really, really fun. Along with the jumps and weaves I bought a new toy for Tobbers, a soft Frisbee and we've been using that as a reward as well. (I've given up buying toys for Reba... if there is one Toby likes, she's free to it... but she's SO picky about her toys. It's easier to just buy a double of whatever one she turns out to like, instead of buying two and her not liking anything you get...).

We took a short break after that and I was trying to come up with some more stuff to do. I remembered dad had the small step ladder on the front porch so I dragged that in and had the dogs practice trotting through it. Or well, Toby trotted through it. Reba had to hop and that was more tiresome than stepping over the jumps so she only had to do it a few times before resting. It's amazing how well Toby figures out what he's supposed to do. Even when I had to go refill on the treats... I came back into the living room and he was trotting back and forth through it, watching me. Such a smart boy.

After that we did some work with getting him to climb on weird objects. I had Toby hop on to dad's tool box and then stand in the 2 on/2 off position and then get on and off, each time getting in that position. Then I saw the mini-trampoline mom had gotten the other night (I can't even find the springs on the side with my fingers... so it was safe) and I had him practice hopping on that and doing some tricks on something that gave beneath his weight. He did great! After a short power outage, I was trying to decide what to do next... But one thing was clear after our little group session this morning... working two dogs is hard. It'd be easy if Reba was as well versed as Toby is... but even he's not perfect. I can put him in a wait and work Reba... but I have to be careful on how long I'm leaving hi there or how high the distraction of working Reba is for him. Reba... she's never even been trained to wait. Whoops.

So I decided to give them both a place to stay and just work on getting some sort of routine going for when I work both dogs. I grabbed Toby's mat and Reba's bed, some new treats and headed down for the living room. Because of Toby's issues we've been doing the Relaxation Protocol by Dr. Karen Overall on his mat, as well as training him to go to his mat any time he's sees it. I knew he'd be pretty good at staying there no matter what I'm doing. I set Toby's mat up first and he instantly climbed down from the chair and flopped onto it. Perfect! He got a treat and I called Reba out and lured her to her bed asked for a down. Then I just started waiting. Every few seconds both dogs got a treat. Then a little longer. We actually were able to move faster than I thought because Toby knew this game very well and Reba really loved the idea of laying in her bed and getting 'free' food. By the end of the session I was walking around both dogs in a figure eight, waiting ten seconds, or even tapping the door (even hitting it's handle once!) and both dogs were fine. I had a feeling Toby would be... we've done similar stuff in my room. Reba I was expecting more of a problem because she gets so excited about food. But nope. They were awesome!

I'm gonna have them earn their breakfast this way for a few weeks. Building distractions and then slowly calling one dog off their mat and then back on for treats for both dogs. That way sooner or later I'll be able to work one while the other rests and then switch. I've been meaning to do this for awhile... but a lot of my dog training goes on in my room (where I'm not getting snapped at for being in the way of the TV :p) and since we're so cramped for space up there I only ever work one dog at a time. But I might as well work on this now... especially since mornings are such a nice time to do this.

Reba is resting happily now a bit zonked from all the training. Toby was... but it's been an hour or two now, so he's up and getting into trouble while they're fixing the basement stairs (licking dad's head while he tries to put in the new steps) so I'm off to occupy him again.