Scent Discrimination
We got out the Scent Pots and did 5 trials. 5 out of 5. The cue is Find It. And the signal is placing her chin on the lid of the pot.
I am in the process of making a scent wheel. Lily is ready to move to the wheel.
Lily's Bucket List Behavior
Sending Lily to Get the Light from about 7' away. The highlight of today's exercise is that she is passing the Call Box as she goes to the light switch.
When Lily turned over the step stool, she barely misses a beat as she assesses the situation and then....innovates!
Her accuracy on changing the condition of the light is quite reliable. If she doesn't make the change on the first cue, I find that I am saying "Keep going" and ... she does.
Remote Shaping
We haven't done Nonsense Shaping in quite a while. Skyped with Cathy this morning. She was shaping Rooster and Monty and that was my inspiration.
When Lily was younger I spent a LOT of time shaping her to Back Up and then to Stand. As a result, all Lily's shaping sessions begin with Lily moving backwards.
For today's session I placed 3 similar but different tug toys on the family room floor....and then used shaping as a "remote control" to direct her to each. This shaping session lasted a little over 10 minutes from beginning to completion.
Lily remains actively In the Game. She has developed a strong shaping savvy, loves doing it and rarely is the first one to quit. I divided the video in half. The first video shows shaping Lily to the first tug toy. The second shows her going to the remaining two toys. Each is a little over 5 minutes long. (Far surpassing Marge's 2 minute limit!) But when you're Flipping for your own consumption.....and it's your own dog.....you can watch forever without tiring!
I love watching these videos. You can actually see her "Aha!" moments of understanding. All three toys look like the same behavior to me. But watching the video, it is obvious that Lily doesn't see the relationship.
Isn't it interesting to see how difficult it is for Lily to understand that the clicker is leading her to the tug AT HER FEET!
In this final (short) video of our second shaping session, I am using the same toys and the same locations but the toys have been changed around to different places than in the first session. And I am also directing her to the toys in different order than I did the first time. In this session, the changes don't appear problematic.
The difference? NOW she understands the game!