Outdoor Plans Ruined By Heat

I was planning on getting Wally outside and having another round of physical play and activities. However, the heat was just too much, even early in the day. Wally pretty much started panting about 5 minutes of being outside...let alone in the sun.

The black top was also out of the question with it being over 130 degrees (yes, I measured, and that's...over 50 degrees for those who use Celsius) and that's just out of the question. I don't want to fry Wally's paw pads.

So, we had to make do indoors, and it was still relatively okay, but not nearly as many options. Most of the physical play was around him running up and down the stairs while playing hide and seek, which is mostly mental anyway.

Having him try to catch some of his toys adding some physical play and did take a lot of him because I make it pretty challenging for him. He has to stand up on his back paws and try to trap the toy, and I make it "attack" him, which gets him dodging and getting even more into the game.

I also had him jump through the hoop again, and that's something he evidently got rusty with. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson about letting skills get rusty since this has happened before. Fortunately, I got him going through the hoop and raising it up to increase how high he needs to jump. That might have been the most physical part of the day.

Unfortunately, the heat is not going to let up at all...Another hot day is expected tomorrow, and maybe through next week. Ugh.

More Object Matching and Naming

Today, we worked more with matching objects.

I used two pairs - the white bears and the blue dogs. At first, I showed the blue dog and threw the other on the bed when he wasn't looking along with the bear. I still have to move the object around to get him to keep looking at it.

I whipped it away and had him go find the match. I made some changes as well in terms of rewarding him. I didn't use the clicker this time, but instead I used a "good boy!" which got him charging back to me with the object. Then I gave him a treat, and tossed the object while he was getting it.

I think using my voice sort of helped him out. Even if it didn't help him remember, it kept his spirits up, which is always a plus in training - especially for hard skills like this.

I also worked him on learning the names of objects. I used the ball ("pelota") and the bone ("hueso") this time.

At this point, I noticed he seemed reluctant to pick up the object. I don't know why, but this is something that I hope doesn't continue.

Just a little testing him on the objects this time, but basically just some review as it were. There wasn't much done with this as he was really worn out from the matching. Still, though, he got into it. When I did "test" it a bit, he was pretty good with getting the correct object, even when I switched.

And, after it all, he was tired and went to sleep - after sniffing out the crumbs from the treats of course!

"All-Positive Monday 17" - Another Twist to Object Discrimation

This video of a dog performing object discrimination is the inspiration of this week's All-Positive Monday. 

Yes, that's not something new, but this is a new way to approach it. Instead of trying to have Wally match by name (not that we are going to give up on that), but instead by appearance.

In the video, it goes through how she taught her dog this.

So, this week's All-Positive Monday had us working the beginnings of this, the foundations as it were.

First, I started with getting him interested in the objects in general. These were all new objects to him (I bought some small stuff animals from IKEA), so he wasn't familiar at all with them. I want him to have a good interest in these objects, which frees him up from worrying about them or being curious, and can focus on the training.

Next, I worked on him just looking at the object. For so long, we've been working on him going up to objects and trying to interact with them. Now, I just want him to look - and that's it. No grabbing, no trying to get it, just look at it.

And not looking at me. That's another thing. He's used to looking at me and not what he wants (derived from part of "leave it" training and self-control). Sometimes, that makes him turn from the object to look at me. I'm going to have to put a cue to it to have him look at the object. We did this today as well.

Believe it or not, this drained him pretty good. I didn't think this would be too much of a challenge for him, but it worked him mentally it seems. He was crashed out after this session.

After a nap, I started with some basics of matching. I used just one pair so I had one object and the match was some distance away from us. I cued him to look at the object (and worked on that) and then used our "Dónde está?" cue to have him go finding the match.

Now this, I can see being quite the challenge for him. He had no choice but to succeed, since the only object there was the match. He picked it up and brought it back, and earned a reward. After a few trails with that pair, I switched pairs. Still the same exercise and cue.

After being drained some more, he crashed out again and sleep a LONG time this time around. I had to wake him up to eat! I really taxed his brain and between that and dinner, he slept really well all night long.

I suppose there's no better ending to an all-positive training day than a good night of peaceful sleep!

Grooming Day For Wally

Not much training or such today as he spent today getting pampered and spruced up by the groomer.

As usual, he was great for the groomer and she loves working on Wally. He looks especially good today and he even got a nail trim for free - that was unexpected, but definitely appreciated. No more click-clack while walking on the tile floor.

Here's how he looked just before bedtime:

I know I look good. Make sure this photo is going to do me justice!!

Decided to get a photo just before putting him to bed for the night.

Phys Ed for Wally? Trying To Come Up With Ideas

I played with him with my foot today and while doing it, I thought about thinking of games that are more physical in nature to try teaching him.

The game with my foot was where he had to "slap" my foot with a paw or put his paw on my foot hard solidly. Every time he did, I gave him a treat. He got into after a few tries, but seemed to not be sure what he was supposed to "get" at other times. Still, it seemed like the start of some silly little game.

I would like to start adding this to Wally's "curriculum" to go along with his "Art", "Spanish", and "Shaping". (Too bad dogs can't count, or I'd put "Math" in there! Maybe learning shapes could go under "Math". Hmm!), but coming up with some fun and "educational" type games that are physically-oriented is hard for me. The few movement-type games are still mentally challenging.

Doing something like agility would be out of the question - no place to take an agility class or any way to even start him learning the idea. Seems like there should be something we can do, though, between the balls, cones, the hoop and other toys and objects.

If anyone has some ideas, feel free to leave comments with suggestions! I'm open to pretty much any idea at this point.