July Day Two -- Hey You!

Zoltie has a lot of friends here which can be a lot of fun but they can also prove to be quite distracting.

Even though we cleared dogs out of our immediately area, it quickly became clear that they needed to be out of sight and ear shot in order for Zoltie to focus. Downs were really hard when friends were in the same area but not close to us. When he's not complying, I'm going to avoid reaching into my treat bag to get a treat. This just teaches him to wait me out ("I know if I wait long enough she'll finally get a treat out for me."). So now he's working you for those treats and will be very difficult to wean off of those treats later on (I'm sure that's all part of Zoltie's master plan).

In fact, at this point in his training, I am going to frequently take the treats off of me and set them aside. Then when I reward him, I can walk over and get the treats so he's not learning to only do things when he knows I have treats on me.

That also ensures that I am rewarding him, not bribing him...

So, if he's not complying, it's on me to look around and figure out why he's having a hard time complying. Does he not know the command? Maybe he doesn't know it in this context? Or is there too much activity around him? When he's struggling so much, I quickly looked around and thought it might be the distractions. I took him inside to a quiet room and he preformed his downs beautifully. That gives me the information I need to go forward. I could easily work on his stays in the quiet room but now I see I also need to work with him on downs in distracting environments.

But I am definitely not going to start out in a high distraction environment and expect success. We'll start out a little slower and work our way up.

We're going to do the same with his recalls. We'll start out easy and work our way up.

And now that he is a little more happy about his treats, it will be much easier to get that really happy response from him.

In the meantime, I'll continue to rewards random check ins so he remembers to keep an eye on me when exciting things are happening.

And we'll play a lot to keep it fun and exciting. Nice stress reliever too...

And we will certainly try to keep cute girls like Thistle out of sight while he's practicing. He's got a bit of a crush on her. If only he knew she was retired a few months ago and had her baby maker removed. Besides, that's a bit like Mrs. Robinson...she's Rosario's mom after all.