So far, Abby has done great with the training. I found the perfect object for her, and spent some time getting her touching the object. We spent so much time training it, that Abby will touch her "naughty bone" any where, any time. She LOVES it. This part of the training was very easy as she already has a basic "target", but it was still fun and easy to work on.
Teaching her to open her mouth and put it around the bone was going to be a very messy endeavor. I had a few ideas, but my instructor had the best one when she said to put peanut butter on the bone and "hand it" to her as if you would hand a cookie. When I heard that, I wanted to slap my head and say "doh!" Of course Abby opens her mouth for treats!
Today, we spent out time clicking and treating for any tooth on the bone itself. It took a few minutes to get her started as she tried to lick all the peanut butter off the bone, but once most of it was gone, she started to put her teeth on it. At first she seemed confused to be getting clicked and treated just for eating peanut butter, but I think that she was getting the idea towards the end of session. Well, at least, as soon as I offered the bone to her, she immediately put her teeth on it and let go the second I clicked knowing she was going to get a cookie. I think it is going to take a few more sessions of this before she is ready to have the bone on the ground. But Abby is smart and I think that she will eventually get it. But until she completely "gets it" and we can wash the bone, we are going to have to manage it like this:
No comments:
Post a Comment