"All-Positive Monday" VIII Plans

Tomorrow will be the 8th All-Positive Monday and the plans I have for this one is to work more on his rear-end awareness and eye/mouth/paw coordination.

For the rear-end awareness, I will work more on backing up and movement while standing on just his back paws. This will continue helping him get used to controlling himself with just those legs and help his balance and stability in that situation. He already loves standing up "like a person" so why not use this to both our advantages?

I'll also work on walking backwards, something he's got the basic idea of and we have a cue for it ("back up" - oh, I know, so very creative). I can tell he has some problem with it when he has to keep doing it when his backside starts curving instead of maintaining a straight line. A few steps and he'll keep going straight back, but after that, he'll start to curve.

Hopefully, as a side-effect of sorts, he'll get better at doing the pop-up stand as well. We need to work on "stand" in general since he doesn't quite get that it's just to stand up. Not get up and come towards me. That can be something we'll do later in the week.

I'll probably also do the "front paws on book" exercise where he has to turn himself using just his back paws. This is HARD for him, especially going to his left. Perfect.

The coordination is going to be more fun for him since that's mostly going to seem like a game, especially for eye-mouth coordination since that's just catching. The question is: What to use? Should I use food tidbits to heighten his interest, but he gets them only when he catches? That seems to have an advantage in that the catch is self-rewarding (he eats whatever it is). Should I use a toy or other object? The advantage there is that most of the time, he won't be catching food, but something else. Hmm...something to experiment with.

For eye-paw coordination, I have an idea for a new game for him. I'll hold some food in my fist (closed up so he can't get it) and move my fist around on the floor. I'll encourage him to get my fist, and to do so, he has to put his paw on my fist. I'll stop and then let him get the food. (If I can find a blue marker, I'll draw a square on the back of my hand as a target)

He'll love this for sure, and it should help him with tracking objects, timing, and reaction time.

That will be the plan for tomorrow.


P.S. Sorry for the recent infrequency of posting. I'm newer to blogging than I am dog training (4 months vs 3 years) so I'm still getting the hang of how to do it "right". Hence the experiments with the ads or no, posting frequency, layout, colors, etc.