let the games begin

 I’m trapped in some sort of time anomaly that is hurtling me into the future faster than can be imagined… It seems that it was just yesterday that I last wrote but no, it was last Tuesday! Over a week has passed without me even noticing…

It’s been slightly busy but not really… last Wednesday night Trudie & Leo came for supper for some caramelised onion & mushroom beef stew and then Pat came Friday night for leftover beef stew. One night I used Costco’s butter chicken sauce on some chickpeas and at the last minute decided to make naan. Well, there was no time for a yeast bread so I found a recipe without yeast. It was okay (we rated it a ⅗) but fast and last minute… yesterday I made naan with yeast. It was excellent (at least the ones that I didn’t roll too thinly) and was an easy 5/5 - a definite make again recipe.

Thursday was a beautiful day for a drive and since we’ve been procrastinating on looking at new mattresses we made the trip into the city for a looky loo. It didn’t take too long to decide on a hybrid mattress and I ordered a $$ pillow… It all arrived this morning (Wed)! Fingers crossed for a good night’s sleep!

Spring has been teasing us with bright sunshine and warm temps some days but then nature slaps us in the face with a cold wind to remind us that it’s still the beginning of March. One day we were out on the snowshoes with just a long-sleeve t-shirt, leggings, and a down vest - it wasn’t long before my vest was fully unzipped and my mittens were in my pocket :-) It was glorious! The last few days were more typical March days - cold in the shade with glimpses of warm sunshine to lift our spirits.

Tuesday I made the commitment to a 4 month online dog training course by Susan Garrett (dogsthat.com). The materials are well laid out and seem to progress step by step with an overwhelming amount of supporting information in the form of youtube videos, podcasts, blog entries, and numerous pdf downloads. There are over 200 podcasts full of information. It’s not just a ‘do this then do that’ course, but spends a lot of time on the theory. 

The course is built on ‘games’ that use both classic conditioning and operant conditioning to help the dog learn. They are designed to build confidence and joy in both the dog and the trainer. I’ve been putting some of what I’ve learned into practice during the past week and it’s been going very well.

A well laid out plan should get us to point ‘b’ a lot faster than going hither and thither.

For fun (before I signed up for the proper course) we played with ‘perch’ on a brick with front feet… we muddled around for a day or two - today she was pretty consistently putting her front feet up… if I was standing exactly in front of the brick… if I moved to the side it all fell apart. So I inched my way around till she was beside me… it’s still a work in progress but every day I see progress. What is the point you ask? Well, it will eventually build value for being at my side which will help with loose-leash walking.

Three years ago I taught Adia to put her front feet onto an overturned dish using free-shaping but it was so long ago, and we hadn’t perfected it, but gosh! She remembered almost right away about putting her feet up even though I’d switched out the dish for a brick! I’ve always found that shaping a behaviour helps the animal to really learn and understand what is being asked.

It’s fun to see the learning process. Both dogs quickly understood that putting their feet on the brick got the reward but then since we were training in an area that I often ask for ‘down’ they’d sometimes lie down with feet on the brick… both dogs did the same thing… it was pretty obvious that they’d been rewarded for a down often. I had to get really quick with the clicker to mark when they were still standing up. 

I may just drag out the ancient carpet that used to be under the sofas to make another non-slip ‘island’ to play on. It will be ugly but what the heck ;-)

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Well, that was all yesterday so you’ll have to bear with me… I went back and changed it up a bit but some things might still be in the wrong tense! Last night I watched a FB Live event with the trainer I’ve signed up for and it turned out to be THREE hours long so by the time it was finished my brain was fried!

To keep track of our progress in the course I’m updating the database that I wrote last year for training records but can’t settle on a good design - there are a few features missing in the database program that I use that makes it impossible to do a proper relational database design… frustrating!

Awesome!

“getting something off the procrastination list”

“a glorious spring day”

“Adia stepping onto the brick right away”

“my new pillow”

“keen dog eyes on me hoping for more games”