Tag: dog toy play

TAKING SHADE’S TOY CLASS WITH CHAI – PART 3

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Shade Whitesel runs a great toy play class over at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. I’ve taken it twice at Gold now simply because it’s SO good and highly motivating for me, too! This is the third part of Chai and my class journey! Click here for part 1 and here for part 2 (each containing 10 videos).

June 27, 2023: tugging at the park and dog interruptions

Here’s the text I shared in class along with today’s video:

I left a little of our dog interruption in because it‘ it‘s hilarious: they just keep coming! (Disclaimer: explicit language!)

The second short session at the same park was interruption free! My 50% estimate (half the time, we don’t get interrupted) seems pretty accurate!

I liked the last rep of tugging I did. What do you [Shade] think about that one? More or keep it this short and gentle for now? Should I name tug already? Should I let her have the ball I’m getting out for tugging without having her chase it around my body first? Or maybe keep doing a few more reps like the (better) ones in this clip?

June 29, 2023: nice tugging reinforced by fetch!

My proud-of-Chai comments to go with this video:

Look at that tug despite the interruption! Definitely getting stronger! To be fair, that dog wasn’t body blocking her – but still, how cool! Have I mentioned that I love this puppy?

July 1, 2023: trying to get a better strike

Shade’s comments on my last video:

“So, let’s start concentrating on her strike. […] When you are about to let her strike, make sure the ball is still. So, good “misses” look like: ball is still, dog locks on to target, ball is whisked away, repeat. Try that in your misses, so we can start teaching her to have a good strike. When she gets a good successful strike, she’ll like it more!“

Me:

I know exactly what you mean about “good misses” and then getting a decent strike after. It’s easy with tug toys and a dog who is into them! Turns out it is VERY hard for me to do the same thing with balls on a rope! Help please! Which one of the ones below – if any – resembles our goal? Watching the video I feel like I never really got the kind of still-ball-and-then-miss that I’ve gotten quite easily with other dogs and tug toys. We’re having fun though! And no interruptions today!

July 2, 2023: trying out different ways to get that decent strike

Shade’s comments on my last video:

“[Y]ou are moving the toy in slow motion when you make her miss so that you don’t have enough time when she is far away to set the target.“

Me:

“The tricky part is that when I move it faster, the ball starts swining and I don’t have a still target anymore. Hmm. I need to experiment some more with this!“

The video below is me experimenting. I don’t think I submitted this particular video to class, but here are my thoughts on it:

I had the idea to hold the ball as if it was a tug toy! This may be our ticket to good strikes!

July 3, 2023: Shade’s advice

Below is the next video I submitted to Shade after reading their response to my comment about experimenting:

“Whisk it away quickly diagonal to a spot about 18 inches from your hip (if facing the still ball). Dog goes flying by you, which allows you time to turn and set the target again 2 feet from your belly button. You’ve got the good still target, but faster on the misses and away from her and diagonal to her path, not up.”

My response, going with the video submission below:

This is really helpful! Thank you! I was planning on this after reading your response this morning but ended up moving it to the side (or up again) rather than forwards for some reason.

July 4, 2023: more tug reinforced with “Chase” and some misses

Shade:

“[S]he’s going to get the string […], but I don’t know that it matters? […] Ask her if she needs the misses before the actual tugging.“

Me:

Okay, let’s decide it doesn’t matter! […] I’ve still got an upwards tendency on the misses, but am staying more parallel to the ground than before. The video shows the first of 3 tugging reps in this session. The first one sans misses, right as we started the session. Her tugging on that first one felt less energetic/weaker than usual (even though I’m not sure you can tell from the video).

After the session, I realized that I changed two variables on her at once: I’ve started these sessions with “Chase” rather than “Tug” up until now, and today I started with “Tug.” So there’s no way of knowing whether the tugging in the first rep felt less enthusiastic because I didn’t make her miss or because she didn’t get a chase before. I’m thinking I should do a chase first and see if her non-miss tugging looks any different tomorrow. What do you think?

Otherwise, I really like her tugging here. She’s MUCH more into it then when we first started! Still dropping her toy right away after because she knows that every tug rep will be reinforced with at least one “Chase,” and Chase is still her favorite toy game. But it feels like she’s having a good time tugging as well!

July 5, 2023: Cueiung “Chase!” while tugging

Shade:

“A couple chases, then ask for the tugging immediately after the drop of the ball and see if you can get the strike and the carry over of the chasing. Maybe alternate? One with misses, one just strike, that sort of thing.“

Me:

I experimented with this today and got stronger tugging without misses! I like the plan of alternating between tug with and without misses and will keep starting the session with “chase” for now.

Shade:

“It’s also worth noting that the dropping is getting reinforced by the chase, not necessarily the tugging itself. What you could start to do is cue chase when she is tugging the best she can tug. Then, when she lets go, throw the toy that she was tugging with. That way the tugging is directly reinforced.”

Me:

Did you mean cue chase while tugging and then I let go of the toy we are tugging with and wait for her to let go too? Or did you mean cue chase while tugging and I hold on to the toy we are tugging with until she lets go first and then I throw it?

I tried the latter version today; she didn’t let go on “chase” when I held on to the toy so I waited a second and then threw the second toy for her. I wonder whether throwing the second toy while she’s still tugging is even better than waiting for her to drop her toy anyways because this way, I really am directly reinforcing the tugging (rather than a drop)? Let me know what you think. Below is what I tried today!

Otherwise, I bet if I cue “chase” and let go of the toy I am tugging with, she will let go as well. She is used to letting go right after I let her win.

July 6, 2023: More tug reinforced by “Chase,” cued while tugging

Shade:

“Keep holding onto the toy you are tugging with while cuing chase. If she doesn’t let go, still hold on to it. Show her the other toy you have, wait until she lets go then, and then throw that second toy. The second toy in sight should prompt her to let go, but the marker cue happens when she is tugging. She’ll get faster and faster!”

C:

Let me make sure this is what you had in mind before I keep practicing! Hold the toy Chai is tugging on still after the “chase” cue and make the other one interesting?

July 8, 2023: … and even more tug reinforced by cueing “Chase!” while tugging!

Shade:

“Remember how we held the ball out to the side to get the drop? Do that immediately after cuing chase. That way she’ll remember the signal and likely think more dropping thoughts. Try to hold the one you are tugging with as still as possible-not an easy feat with the balls on ropes I know.”

C:

Is this what you had in mind? I put a “Chase” subtitle starting right when I say the cue in case you can’t hear it over the background noise.

I find it interesting that in this video, it looks like the game Chai would have chosen as I was holding out the second toy after marking “chase” was switching to a second tug toy rather than chasing!

July 9, 2023: the second chase/tug session of the day

I’ve been keeping sessions short and only doing one a day – I want it to be special, and Chai is not as pushy as my Mals (yet?). Today, I did two brief sessions before and after coffee-shop relax practice. Both were chases interspersed with 2 tug sessions. In the first session (not on video), she needed the visual cue of the second toy to let go for the first post-tug chase. In the second tug-to-chase rep, she let go on the verbal “chase” and predicted a chase, not a tug!

The second session (see video) also was chases with 2 short tug sessions in between – that’s in the video below. Both times, she let go on the verbal alone without seeing the second toy, and did not confuse it with “switch” (which is not yet a game she knows)! This is making me so happy! She’s also needing less misses in order to be exicted to tug!

July 10, 2023: adding behaviors to toy play

Shade suggested I start adding behaviors to Chai’s toy play to introduce this concept early. I only have one behavior that is relatively reliable on a verbal cue outdoors, and it’s a hand touch. Here is me giving it a try:

Our conversation preceding the video and my thoughts as I handed it in:

Shade:

“We don’t have bring to hand for more tugging-but… we don’t actually need it.”

C:

Help me see the big picture, please! If I eventually want to use tugging as a reinforcer for obedience … would I just not let go of the toy/always combine tug with chase? I’m used to having the dog push back into me for more tugging when I let go of the toy we are tugging with – and then we continue.

Is this something you believe Chai will offer with time, or do you assume this just isn’t a behavior she is going to go with? In the latter case, how would you (in the future, way down the line) use tug as a reinforcer for other behaviors? Or would you stick to chase or a chase/tug hybrid game for good? Paint me a session picture, say, one year down the line, please!

Shade:

“So, our next step would be adding some simple behaviors in there after an offered drop, and reinforcing with chase or tug. I’d like to try that!”

C:

Sounds good! I just tried this. I only have one behavior I believe is fluent and generalized enough on a verbal to work under toy play arousal (I have positions on cue, but only reinforced with food and so far, I’ve only worked on them in the house – I don’t think they’re ready for toy reinforcers quite yet). So my one behavior, and the one I went with, is a hand touch.

I started with chase-es as usual – you see the last one in the beginning of the clip. Then at 00:04/05, my touch cue (I cue without my hand present, then bring out the hand). Chai does it but with her mouth open and a jump – I suspect that she expected me to whip out a tug toy from behind my back. That catches me off guard so my first “Chase” marker is super late. Ooops.

00:13-00:17, she is being goofier with the ball she just fetched than she usually is. I wonder if that’s a tell that the touch just before was HARD. What do you think?

00:30 The second time she returns the chase toy, she is back to normal: bring it back, drop, offer eye contact right away.

So I try another touch cue. She does not actually touch my hand at 00:32 but stops half an inch short of it, so I don’t reinforce that one.

00:36, I get the touch that I’ve trained: mouth closed, strong touch.

00:37 I marked a little late, but better than before. Trying to reinforce with tug this time and not presenting the toy as a good target to strike – I’ve got some practicing to do myself here! I’ll do some of this with Game to get my mechanics figured out and then go back to Chai. (So convenient to have an adult dog who knows all the toy games and will let me focus on my own mechanics!)

00:47 I cue “Chase” to reinforce good tugging, but I don’t get the immediate out on the “chase” cue. Again, I wonder if that’s a tell that this is difficult!

After the video ends, I did two chase-es, then a tug, then another chase. For that one, she was able to let go on the verbal alone again: I went back to just tug and chase and things got easier; she could do it again (is my interpretation).

I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts!

I suspect that the touch is a harder behavior here than a sit would be because my hand motion will remind Chai of the toy being whipped out from behind my back. On the other hand – it’s a great verbal discrimination exercise! Maybe just one touch per session to keep it fun? She’s good at verbal discrimination; I do think she’d figure out when I want a touch and when I want a tug within a few sessions. (Oh! Writing this down, I just realized “touch” sounds an awful lot like “tug”! Argh! Is that too much verbal discrimination to expect under toy arousal conditions? Should I try for it anyways? So many questions! Happy questions, of course. I love a good challenge! I apologize for today’s novel-length post!)

I didn’t save Shade’s response but remember the jist of it. Shade recommended I get positions on solid verbals out in the world and then use them in toy play, and suggested changing my hand touch cue to make it more different from my tug cue. (I’ve since done the latter – it used to be “touch” but is now “bump.”) I’ll practice and if/when I get stuck reach out for a 1-on-1 to keep going.

We haven’t practiced as much as I’d like since the class ended – but we do and are slowly but certainly progressing!

This video concludes the toy class series. Hope you had fun!

If you enjoy the series, take the class at the Gold level yourself! Shade does a truly fantastic job of tailering advice to the dog/student team in front of them – whether you have a drivey dog or a reluctant player!

Urban art clue #8: this is your last clue. Our art piece is 66 steps from A (the corner of the building), walking down b. If you are taller than me, you’ll probably need less steps. If you are shorter, you might need more. Found it and want tacos? Mail me a picture of the art piece you took and I’ll pay!

TAKING SHADE’S TOY CLASS WITH CHAI – PART 2

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Shade Whitesel runs a great toy play class over at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. I’ve taken it twice at Gold now simply because it’s SO good and highly motivating for me, too! This is the second part of Chai and my class journey! Here’s part 1 and here’s part 3, each containing 10 videos.

June 16, 2023: TWO targets and ZERO targets on the roof!

It turned out that one target was better than the other! Oh well! The litte Border Collie knows what she wants!

June 17, 2023: hands near toys

Shade then asked to see me work on their “hands near tug toys” lecture indoors. This is a great exercise: when I say “toy,” it means I’ll hand the toy to Chai (this is not a cue she is familiar with but one I made up on the fly). Her eye contact is a start button for my hands moving closer to the toy. If she moves closer to it in return, I retreat my hand. The click communicates either that a treat is coming or marks Chai dropping the toy. I love this conversation because not only does it teach the dog you are not interested in stealing their toy – it’s also great for practicing going back and forth between food and toys!

June 18, 2023: two balls in the real world

Shade suggested we pivot away from teaching tug with the fleece toy as an independent game, but use “chase” (the 2-ball game Chai already knows) to reinforce tugging. That’s what I would have tried at this point as well if I worked on this independently. It’s fun to see how what different dog trainers will do and when is like criss-crossing paths: sometimes overlapping, sometimes briefly moving away from each other and then merging again …!

I always watch my video before submitting and think about what I would suggest next if the person and dog in the video wasn’t me, but a student team of mine. Sometimes it’s the same thing Shade suggests and sometimes it’s different. It’s a fun exercise – give it a go yourself if you’re taking online classes!

I believe I first showed Shade a 2-ball video baseline inside and then one in the real world – they wanted to see how Chai did in a place I was better able to throw and bounce balls (no risk of throwing them off the roof and having my dog leap after them!)

Below is the first video I showed Shade of our two-ball game in the real world. I say an “out” cue in this video right before Chai lets go – that’s how I teach an out cue if the dog would let go of the toy anyways: I just name the behavior, and voilà, I’ve got it on cue (German “Aus!” in my video).

The reason I’ve been playing on the roof rather than outdoors is that Mexico City parks are VERY distracting environments and I don’t have access to a calmer large space … except for days like the one in the video. (Which is a bit of a drive away, so not an everyday place.)

This is what I added with the video I submitted to class:

“Here is a 2-ball play snippet in a calmer space. My balls don’t squeak – the squeaking you hear in the video is my friend’s toy (the owner of the chocolate BC puppy who makes a brief appearance.) I’ve named the “out” once I knew she was about to spit the ball out reliably; this is how we currently play 2 balls. So far, tennis balls are the only toy that I’ve used “chase” with and the 2 ball game is the only context I’ve used “Aus” (out) in.”

Just for your entertainment – below is Chai playing with 2 balls in a busier environment that comes closer to what we have access to on a daily basis! She’s being a rockstar even though a lot is going on around her! I don’t think I submitted the video below to class, only the above one. The one below is from June 23; just Chai and I having fun with 2 balls and me throwing in my “out” cue:

Shade (I am writing this from memory so don’t quote me on my exact words!) suggested I drop my out cue for the purpose of this class. This isn’t what I would have done, but that’s okay – when I take someone’s class, one of the best parts is doing things a little bit different than you would without their input!

June 19, 2023: dropping the “out” cue

Here is Chai – back on the roof – without the “out” cue (showing that she’ll still drop the ball reliably):

June 20, 2023: holding the ball in 3 different positions and always getting a lovely return

Shade has a lecture on the 2-ball game where the toy the handler has is held in three different positions and the dog learns to return their ball seamlessly either way. Chai already knows this game, so here we’re showing off! The three positions are ball behind the handler’s back, ball next to the handler, e.g. on a shelf, and ball in handler’s pocket.

Brief notes I submitted with this video:

“3 hand positions, no “Aus” cue!
We’ve also kept practicing the hands near toy exercise both on the couch and on the floor.“

June 22, 2023: eye contact and an attempt at the two-ball game with rope toys

Next, Shade suggested playing the two-ball game with toys we could also tug with. I used two rope toys, hoping they would be less fun to chew than the softer fleece tugs. Here’s what I wrote with my video submission:

“I shaped up to (a little) longer eye contact for food! Aaaaaand we had a non-ball fail on the roof: I used 2 rope toys and they were fun to chew on. (I got eye contact, but no returns …) I suspect if I used my fleece tugs, it would be even harder for her to return them because they’d be even more fun to chew … Hrm …”

(The eye contact part is because we are using eye contact as a start button.)

Shade suggested that things might be easier for Chai if we played in the real world where I didn’t have to worry about the toys falling off the roof – despite the distractions. This is what we do in our next session, and it turned out Shade was right!

June 23, 2023: 3 sets of two toys in the real world

My comments with the video below:

“I started out with easy balls (plastic – not fun to chew on), progressed to more difficult ones (tennis ball – one might want to lie down and chew off the fuzz) and progressed to rope toys (definitely something to chew on!) I lowered my eye contact criterion to just a single quick look when I saw her struggle with more than this in a more distracting environment.“

I’m proud of how well Chai is able to deal with dog distractions!

Shade suggested to stick to balls on strings – they would be both bouncy and could be used for tugging. In the afternoon of the same day, we played with them in a different park and I waited for a tiny little bit of eye contact between throws.

June 26, 2023: 3 seconds of eye contact duration, and Mexico City park life for everyone’s amusement

“We worked on 3 seconds of duration for her eye contact (no problem for Chai) yesterday for a simple 2-ball chase game. We got lucky and had no interruptions (and no video) of our session at the park!1

Today, I tried adding tugging. This time, we did NOT get lucky in terms of avoiding dog distractions. This is what our normal looks like about 50% of the time (and the reason I’ve been playing on the roof!) The first half of this video is just for everyone’s amusement: enjoy some Mexico City park life! And no, this is not a dog park. It is just a park (any park will be like this).

I am impressed how well Chai did – the reason I even started the game was that all the other dogs were off again and Chai was giving me beautiful engagement when I got started. If the dogs had still been around, I wouldn’t have started because that is clearly not a fair level of distraction for a dog who is only just learning a game. The tugging I get (when the whippety dog comes back) is weak, but I am impressed that I get it at all, and I really do want to reward it with chase, so we get 2 messy whippet-disrupted chases there as well. (And then I am smart enough to end. Barking whippety dogs? Chai’s body language tells me that she can work through whippets who body-block her when she tries to return a toy to me, but being barked at does not feel good.)

00:38-00:42 In the first rep of returning the ball she drops it off camera: right at the tripod and my bag where I’ve been standing for a few minutes when setting up and waiting out the other dogs, and when Chai asked me to work. I suspect my history of standing there is what makes her gravitate to this spot. I don’t think she’s purposefully running past me/dropping the ball far from me.”

Keep reading here for part 3 of the toy class series (our next 10 toy videos)!

(1) If you take online classes with video submissions, I suggest you do this as well: take the occasional day or two to just practice rather than submitting videos. Also, only move to the next step after you have gotten feedback on the previous one. In order to get the most out of a video-submission class, quality beats quantity. It’s not about using every last one of your weekly video minutes, but about working at your dog’s pace, taking your time and not skipping steps. This looks a little different for every team – but the most important take-home message for you, the handler, is: don’t worry about submitting videos every single day or using up every single second of your time. That’s secondary – you and your dog training is what comes first!

In yesterday’s post, I promised CDMX readers who happen to be into scavenger hunts a daily clue that may get you closer to finding this piece of street art:

Here’s your first clue: it is right next to the abandoned building we climbed in yesterday’s post.

Taking Shade’s Toy Class with Chai – part 1

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This is the first of several special-topics posts I am going to link to in future Chaiary posts rather than inserting all video links directly into Chai’s diary!

Shade Whitesel runs a fantastic toy play class over at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. I’ve taken it twice at Gold now simply because it’s SO good and highly motivating for me, too.

If you need help with toy play or know how to teach toy play but are looking for fun, community and accountability, hop into that class! Here’s a link where you should be able to find whenever it runs next (as well as Shade’s other classes – 10/10 would recommend anything she teaches!)

So this post is about Chai’s tug toy journey with Shade. We took the class in June 2023 so I’d keep up my own motivation and have accountability.

Since Chai already knows fetch games, I decided to focus on tugging – something I haven’t done with her at all. I’ll share all of my class videos, but if you want to know more details about how they came to be, what lecture they are based on or why Shade recommended what, you’ll have to check out the class yourself!

How to make sense of this post:

When there is text to go with my videos, it’s part of my class posts from June and partly thoughts I’m adding now. I sometimes copy/pasted my class posts into my video description which I can now (now being September 11, several months after the class) go back to and copy/paste into this blog post! When I ask questions or use the word “you”1 in the text that goes with a particular video, I’m addressing Shade. When I use the name “Shade,” I either added this thought today or changed the “you” from the original post to “Shade” because the name sounded better to me in a particular sentence or context.

June 1, 2023: tug baseline

Note: I have never played tug with Chai before (it didn’t seem a priority behavior for a foster dog who might go to a companion home). In this video, I’m just seeing what she thinks about various tug toy options, most of which are new to her.

I’ll have to bring down my own arousal for her next time! I can tell that Chai is not used to my Malinois toy play state of mind! It is fun how different she is from Phoebe, Grit and Game who all latched on to anything they were presented with and didn’t let go from the start!

June 3, 2023: a flirt pole and a fleece tug for Chai!

I am writing this post 3 months after the fact, so I hope to get things right – I believe this was my second class video. I made a flirt pole to engage Chai with a fleece tug. Unfortunately, Game’s mat was harmed in the making of this fleece tug: I braided two identical onces and cut up Game’s fleece mat for it.

In any case, we’re getting some lovely chasing and tentative tugging on this toy! It’s soft (perfect for teething puppies), it runs away, and the distance between me and the fleece tug that is created by the flirt pole (a broom stick and a strong – I usually make my own flirt poles) reduces pressure from my side. I’m happy with this first flirt pole session!

June 5, 2023: playing with the fleece tug on my bed and with the flirt pole on the roof

Clips from 2 short sessions. My Observations:

+ Chai will occasionally target my hands rather than the toy (that only happened when playing on the bed).
+ It is very easy to (accidentally) pull the toy out of her mouth. Is that okay because it will teach her to clamp down more should I be more careful so it doesn’t happen?

I have my own answers to questions like this last one, but enjoy very much following an experienced trainer’s advice. I do not remember Shade’s response but I’m pretty sure what I ended up doing is starting gently so Chai is unlikely to constantly loose the toy, but making it run away immediately and harder to catch anytime she did let go or I accidentally pulled it out of her mouth: critters don’t sit around waiting to be eaten by predators but will use any opportunity to escape!

June 6, 2023: Chai’s second time playing with the flirt pole and tugging on the roof!

I aimed for gentle, steady pulling (not jerky). What should I do when I have let her win and she’s shaking it dead, like at 00:12-00:18 in the video below? I kept the flirt pole string loose and just admired her strength this time.

At 00:20 she was holding it and lying down on it, so I got the second identical fleece tug out to get her off the one on the flirt pole without conflict. Then I reactivated the flirt pole.

At 00:34/35 I was about to let her win after steady pressure for 2 seconds, and right then I accidentally pulled it out of her mouth again. Ooops! Sorry, Chai!

01:28 in the very end: “Treats” is my scatter cue and how I end the session and get the toys back.

June 7, 2023: playing with the fleece tugs on the bed (my non-slip indoors surface) for the second time

A compilation of this morning’s best bed tug moments. It’s fun to work with someone so different from the Mals and GSDs I’ve mostly played with over the last few years! (I’ve also played with a ferociously tugging Border Collie, Mick, whose personality is quite different from Chai’s, and a ferociously tugging pug!) There must have been plenty of others, but these are the ones I actively and personally worked with a lot and had the most fun with!

Even in personal play, Chai is being really gentle. I’m used to blood, bruises, torn clothes, dog-head-hooks to the chin and battle scars from social play! (I love roughhousing – it’s only partly the dogs. And yes, I exaggerate!) It is only toys and humans Chai is gentle with though. When she plays with Game or crunches down on a plastic bottle, she crushes those sharky teeth right in!

June 8, 2023: playing with fleece tugs on the roof without a flirt pole!

Chai is pulling back VERY gently (I am saying that from a crazy Phoebe-Poodle/Mal baseline) – I just make it look as if she was pulling strongly. In the second rep, she caught the tug too fast for me to get a chance to present a good striking target. Otherwise, we’re having a great time!

June 11, 2023: tug attempts on the roof as well as on the bed – a comparison

Roof play:

Our tug attempt on the roof did not go as well this morning. Chai lay down and never brought the toy back, so I ended quickly. (It’s warmer than usual and she has had play time with Game before – tomorrow morning, I’ll try roof play before any of this and play earlier in the day.)

Or did I overdo it this time and tugged too long rather than making it too easy? (Shade has suggested I make things a little more difficult for Chai.)

Indoors play:

We took a second stab at tugging in the apartment. My floor is not an ideal tugging surface because it is slippery, but I know Chai gravitates to the bed – so I wanted to see what would happen if I tugged her off the bed and then ran away back TO the bed. She brought the toy back all the way every time. It’s about the bed I suspect, not me, because the bed is the best place to chew on something … Hrmmm …

June 12, 2023: another roof tug session

This session was right after getting up with a puppy full of energy and okay temperatures (it’s been really hot during the day but mornings are okay).

In this session, Chai brought the toy part of the way back once, about two thirds into the session.

What do you think about bringing out toy #2 when I can’t convince her to bring back toy #1 (like 00:20/21)? I can’t ask her, but I get the impression that she prefers tugging with me over chewing a toy on the floor – but she has not figured out that bringing back the tug is a part of that game …

What happens most of the time is that I try to encourage her after running away, and she then comes running but forgets the toy (see 00:41-00:43). I then ask her where her toy is, and she goes back to the toy and looks at me expectantly or lies down again to chew (00:47-00:49).

The last part of the clip (00:50-00:59) is the one time in this session she brought the toy partially with her when I encouraged her to come. I can’t tell if I did something differently in this rep than in the other ones or if it was a coincidence.

We’ve also had a session on the bed, and Chai continues predictably gravitating back to it when I’m on it. I’m flashing my hands in target-them-with-the-toy position. She does not target yet but runs towards me/my hands (because I’m on the bed).

Should I keep practicing in both locations or modify something?

June 13, 2023: a blanket target on the roof!

Shade had the great idea to use a blanket as a “target” to run towards on the roof – a stand-in for the bed. It worked like a charm every single time I ran to the blanket. (It’s clearly the blanket, not me. When I tried running somewhere else, she’d still go to the blanket.)

I have a second identical blanket – should I stick to one or try with two?

June 14, 2023: our second session with a blanket target on the roof.

Shade’s input:

“In order to transfer off the mat, we need to have physical signals (hands to target and frontal body position) that happen before she sees the mat.”

My response:

Good point, that makes a lot of sense! In today’s session, I only got the head thrashing movement once. In general, she is letting me lead her more with the toy now that I’m pulling more strongly – rather than pulling back, she’ll often walk with me with her mouth on the toy. I’ve been grabbing the toy to continue tugging as soon as she reaches the mat. I wonder if that’s not the best strategy. Should I only put my hands on the toy when she lets go of it – even if I’ve flashed my target hands at her before? The reason I wonder is that in the last rep of today’s session, she lay down off the mat (right next to it) with the toy rather than coming all the way back to me and the mat. I ended there with a scatter to get Shade’s opinion before I continue.

This was part 1 of our work in Shade’s class (our first 10 videos)! Here is part 2 and here’s part 3.

(1) In this particular post, “you” never refers to “you, the reader.”

Day 41 – May 17, 2023: Chapultepec, toy play, puppy socializing and big birds

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We’re back to our usually (un)scheduled activities! No more diarrhea, Border Collie puppy energy up!

Mornig play with the first toy Chai dissected! Proud of you, puppy – that’s how things are done when you grow up with a Mal! (Thank you for the toys, Chris! Shark and octopus are still intact and well loved!)

Husbandry

I announced (“Claws!”) and clipped the nails on both front paws today – good puppy, no problem!

Chapultepec

After some morning play at home, Scarlett, Game, Chai and I went to Chapultepec. It’s Chai’s first time and I wanted it to be during the week when there were not as many other dogs around as on the weekend. We ended up staying for several hours and had a lovely time.

Chai played with another puppy – Archie!

In the video above, you can sie Archie’s human call him twice: first at 02:17 (he comes all the way back) and then again at 03:09 (Archie doesn’t come all the way back). What are they doing well? What could they do differently to up their success rate? What advice would you give them if they were your client and showing you this recall baseline of a 5-months old puppy? Let me know in the comments!

… and Chai saw her first heron! She did not think much of it – I was way more enchanted by it than the dogs today. (And that includes Game who usually loves chasing birds!)

Toy and food play

Chai and I also played with food and toys outside. Look at the little superstar in her single-ball play session!