The classes last night and today really focused on the "generosity" of treats! There are some things that we train and clicking and delivering one treat is great. However, when we are working on something that is a little difficult, frustrated or we are trying to build a lot of value to a particular behavior, one treat is not enough! In our Family Dog Class last night, the dogs worked on stays. We are a few weeks into the class and I felt like the stays should have been stronger at this point, so I changed the game. The class was now going to get 10 SMALL treats ready to work with. Ask their dog to stay and move to the point the dogs were comfortable and not breaking. This was approximately 2-3 feet away from their dog. Upon returning to their dogs they were to mark with the clicker and deliver10 treats to their dog. Delivering each treat one at a time with a nice soft "good dog" with each delivery. They repeated this THREE times! Yes that would be 30 treats in a matter of approximately 2-3 minutes! By the end of class we not only could move everyone 7-8 feet away from their dogs but we played a game of Frogger! That means we allowed one person with their dog to practice walking between the dog in the stay position and their partner/handler while other dogs walked behind the partner/handler in a different direction. We were successful with all dogs 100%! We will video the class next week!
Posted on: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 01:13:52 +0000