New Trick - Cross Paws

Well today we did a lot of mini-sessions again. Some old work with pairing his lip lick with the cue 'Yum,' but we also did a variety of new stuff. Both dogs had a lesson on getting on the skateboard/getting used to it's movement. Sadly I need a different skateboard, my brother won't be too happy if we continue to use his good, expensive skateboard for the dogs (it feels the same to Toby as his nail file board, so we get a combo of standing on it and scratching it).

I'm also trying some body awareness stuff. For him I discovered teaching him to work into a laundry basket and then working into smaller stuff works well. We tried a while back with a medium sized box but he didn't get it. Half the time he got a back foot in by chance, but he was consciously thinking about it. The laundry basket was big enough he would put a back foot in with some encouragement, but the sides were also high enough that he had to think about lifting them in. I'll have to get a picture of this as we work our way down into something smaller.

Last, but not least, he learned how to cross his paws today. We settled on 'girly boy' as the cue (which we're starting to add). Took it outside to get a good picture, the new environment meant he wasn't 100% sure on what I was asking, but he did do it. We'll work on making the behavior more solid and more prominent 'cross' of his paws as he gains confidence. But here it is:


And Reba saying good bye:

Gotta love the slurp face she has going on there!