I had SO much fun at agility tonight! Billy was amazing! He is such a cool dog. The class is a contacts class and today we practiced our 2o2o behaviors which Billy really generalized from waht he have been doing with the stairs. Only issue is that when he is on my right side he will a lot of times only have one foot on the board. The new thing we did today was just running a lowered dog walk and a-frame with out any contact behavior just to get used to being on them and having fun. The first few times on the dog walk Billy jumped off in the middle but after he started to get it he was flying over it! I never thought he'd do anything fast in agility, even though he is a really fast dog. The a-frame was so cool to see him figure out. The first time over he was a little cautious because it was creaking loudly, but the second time he FLEW over it! I was so impressed. He is such a super confident dog, when it comes to things like that. No noise or surface or weird scary new thing ever gets to him.
He was a bit of a pain when we first got there, however. We played the "look at that game" with the other dogs, but a few times he couldn't contain himself and started barking. He was also tense and puffed up. He calmed down pretty quickly though and after a few minutes I was able to take off the leash and he totally ignored the other dogs. Only once he went away from me to say Hi to a Sheltie, who he totally freaked out. He did it very playfully though so it was okay. He wasn't being a jerk just saying Hi. He really is good with other dogs, but acts like a nut when he is on leash around unknown ones.
ANYWAY, so the big news of the night... Billy weaved twelve straight poles! I have worked with him a decent amount on 2x2 weaving, but we only got up to 4 straight poles. We did 6 like maybe 2 or 3 times. I always have such a hard time when I do weave training with him because I've always made my own weaves out of pvc and they are not sturdy enough for Billy. I had some success when I used about 20 garden stake things to hold them down, but he would still rip them up and sometimes break them. I bought stick in the ground ones that he just bent. This is all on top of the fact that he would only be in the mood to work on them every now and then. So anyway, tonight just for fun I told him to weave a line of twelve straight and he went though them all! I couldn't believe it! I asked him to do it a few times and he didn't always do it perfect but one or two times he did and the other times he just came out early or came out and and then went right back in. So clearly we still have a lot of work to do on them but it was cool that our work with 4 poles somewhat transferred onto 12. GO BILLY!
Goose is working on some new tricks... Cross paws, pray, be shy, holding stuff, and leg weaving. All going pretty well! He is so much faster with his behaviors for food. When I use a toy reward he is in slow motion. Until I trow the toy that is the he's speedy! I guess that comes with maturity? I don't know!
As for a resource guarding update... Goose is doing GREAT!! He looks up at me and drops whatever he is chewing anytime I come near him in anticipation of a treat. He eats kibble off the ground with Billy. He shares water bowls. He lets Billy lay next to him while he chews. I haven't seen or heard him tell any of our dogs off for coming near chews or toys in a long time. He takes food right next to Rook (his puppy friend) and doesn't get mad if Rook goes for treats that were meant for him. He shares toys with Rook too. So far so good!
I am amazed that a dog like Billy, who is a long distnce runner, can also weave. I am also amazed at how one can train dogs with a clicker. I wonder if you can stop bad habits with a clicker and how one might do that?
ReplyDeleteI was wondering where one can find the video of Billy fetching a can of beer out of the refrigerator? I was wondering if you rent out Billy for fraternity parties?
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