Mom Gets In On The Action

My mom was making Wally do some of the stuff I had him do, and caught a video of her getting Wally to walk/hop on his back legs. Hope you enjoy them!

PE for Wally 3: Wally The Outfielder?

Today, we did more with catching, and this time I used a new object. For this session, we played with a black and white baseball.

Immediately, I noticed a more keen reaction to the ball. Perhaps the different colors on the ball made it easy for him to track the baseball's movements. With the disc, sometimes it seemed he couldn't pick it up very well.

It may be a height issue as well. With the ball, I throw it underhand, so it may enter and stay within his vision for longer time, helping him track it in the air. Whatever the reason, he was going after it aggressively in the air.

He has a harder time grabbing it, sometimes it pops out of his mouth, or he misjudges it, and it bounces off his nose. Sometimes, I swear he's trying to catch it with his paws! He seems to be coming up with a way to catch it more reliably, by moving towards it a bit. Perhaps he's trying to understand how to catch the ball at it's highest point.

His enthusiasm is still strong when I do shorter tosses (short as in: about a foot from him, if that). He jumps up high, sometimes making a twisting landing. He hangs on to the ball, though, and I started doing some of those tosses in more rapid succession. He liked doing these, so I'll definitely do more with him. These shorter tosses are easy to do indoors as well, making for more chances to practice.

I've considered using a smaller ball (like his tiny soccer ball) so it's easier to catch, but then again he can catch this ball. He just has to learn to judge it and adjust to the throws.

PE for Wally 1: Hopping and Jumping

For the first attempt at bringing in physical aspects for him, I decided to try his hopping and jumping, and trying to get him to get better at both.

Hopping is just a matter of trying to capture it, but he needs to do it more consistently to make that more likely. For now, he still needs something to motivate him to try reaching. I didn't want to use food as the lure as this is a good chance to make an object more rewarding and desirable.

I used one of his rabbit skin strips, and he was certainly attracted! After a bit of teasing, he stood up on his back legs, but didn't make any hops.

I encouraged him to "get it" and he did start hopping. I lifted the object up more and moved it around to get him really tracking it. Once he hopped up to get it, I let go and let him shake it. Then I gave him a click and a treat and started again. Now, he was twice as into it, and started getting higher off the ground and hopping more steadily. Still need some work, but this was a good effort, and I didn't want to wear him out for the jumping.

Now the jumping, that's a different story. He wasn't certain of it, and I think part of this is because he's lost judging the distance past the jump. I think he was as much uncertain of that as he was of the hoop again.

He tried to go around the hoop, like he did way back in the beginning. After much urging, he started jumping through the hoop. I clicked while he was in the air going through the hoop, and rewarded him when he landed.

He got more motivated, but still, he was hesitant. Looks like this is something that will really need to work on to get him back where he used to be comfortable with the hoop.

He also used to jump "in" the hoop and then back "out" the hoop if I held it a little above the floor and flat. This time, though, he totally refused.

That's good, though, because it shows me where he needs work and what we need to keep working on, and that means more chances for the both of us to grow.

Some Physical Activity Today

Today, I worked mostly on physical sort of things. Can't forget about his body, especially since I'm not taking him walking as much because of the weather and time constraints.

Of course, we did all this stuff indoors. It's way too hot to be outside doing any of this stuff!

First, I had him do some balancing. Started with his standing all the way up on his back paws. I wanted him to stand still for a little time before I praised him and gave him a reward. He had to be perfectly still, no wobbling around or taking steps to balance during that time. He had to do all that to get balanced, then hold it for at first a couple seconds and then about five before he got the prize.

Since he loves to walk while he's on his back paws, I worked that in the next round. I got him going and then stopped and he had to stop moving and get his balance and hold it. This was harder, but he was able to do the same.

After about a minute break, I asked for the "sit pretty" pose where he's sitting on his back legs but the front ones are up. He used to barely be able to get into this position, but now he's able to hold it for quite some time and be perfectly still with it. He's even raising his paws up higher.  This one is no challenge for him any more, but I still go through it anyway. Practice never hurt anything.

Next up was one he did one day trying to get food from me when I was playing with him. He had to do those two poses above, but on my lap. This is different since my lap isn't as stable as the floor. My legs are round, they aren't hard like the floor (ha!) so it's harder for him to stabilize.

He's clearly uncertain about it as he's slower in getting into the pose, especially standing up on his back paws, but with enough encouragement (read: egging him on and teasing him!) he'll get up there...and then start climbing on me like a tree!

One thing I've thought about is maybe actually trying to get him to balance on a ball or something. Never tried it, but it might be interesting to try and see.

The last thing we did was getting his jumping on. Not only coming up to and jumping laterally through the hoop, but holding the hoop close to him and higher up to get him to try jumping vertically more. I'll also put the hoop low, and have him jump "into" it so that's he's standing within the hoop's area. Then he has to jump out from a standstill. This is hard for him! He's still quite uncertain about it (understandably!) but he will make the effort and do it pretty well. Eventually, I'd like him to hop in and then back out on his own and quickly. One day, one day!

All in all, he had lots of fun and was eager for more, but I had him rest and let him call it a day for any "real" training. It's Friday after all, and maybe even dogs need an easy day once in a while.