A clicker genius

8th March

Another short training session this morning before going to work...


TRAINING DIARY

Jesse absolutely adores clicker training, but I also make sure that I play a lot with a toy in between to lighten things up and also to keep him interested in toys, not just food. After starting off with freetime, this is what we did.

* Sit - just a couple on cue

* Down - yipee... break through! Jesse offered a down, I managed to click it correctly and he didn't stop throwing in downs after that! Excellent. Already managed to add the cue too.

* Back - Jesse does this so nicely, although I had to be very careful with clicking him at the right moment as he has started a little to sit straight away after a few steps back... I must have clicked him wrongly at some point for him to start doing this again.

* Touch - got Jesse to do a few touches where he had to stand up on hind legs to touch. No problem at all. Have also started to extend the touching period for just a second or two. After a couple of confusing moments for Jesse because he didn't get clicked for a simple quick touch, he caught on and kept his nose nicely on my hand for a couple of seconds. Once I got the targeting of my hand nice and solid (also following hand), I will introduce the target stick as that will be a great help with a small dog!

Jesse and the others were happy to see me as always when I got home from work. We just settled down waiting to watch the Crufts coverage on BBC2 when we had a power cut... and it didn't come back at all. So we missed the program and sat in the dark with candle light for the rest of the evening! It was not very convenient as it was hard to spot Jesse wanting to go out for toilet, so I am afraid we had a couple of accidents in the sitting room. Never mind...

I got my brand new camcorder today and tried it out, it is great. I mainly want to tape the dogs when we are out to see what they are up to and whether they settle (a neighbour said that they barked quite a lot... that would mainly be Troy). It'll also give me a chance to see how Jesse settles when we are out.
I also want to tape another few bits and pieces as well, e.g. clicker training sessions with Jesse, training sessions with Dylan and also Flash, and some footage of Dylan and Flash running just for fun... now that it is light again during our morning walk, I can do that!


7th March

Yesterday went all well, I think we are slowly getting used to the new work routine. Jacqui did some ttouch on Jesse when she was here... what a lucky boy he is to have such lovely friends!

Flash and Jesse now play together really nicely. Only very rarely do we now have to calm them down when Flash gets too rough. Flash is enjoying it too! Jesse is becoming more and more a pretend lurcher as predicted... he makes the funniest noises when playing with Flash at times... very much copying the noises that the lurchers make when they play...LOL

I think Flash is still very worried that Jesse will be leaving again like the last puppy we had here for three days... that really shook him up. Hopefully within the next few weeks, Flash will realise that Jesse is going nowhere and will relax a little (he is very tense and restless at the moment, which is mainly down to his allergies, but I think also due to his worries about his new brother).

Yesterday was also the first time that Jesse has started running to or at least towards the back door when he has to go out. It is not 100% regular yet, but many times now it is easy to spot if he needs to go now, because he goes to the kitchen. So the house training is going very well indeed and we are pleased! Having said that, I stepped into one of his poos yesterday that he left in the hallway unnoticed... I only realised it once I actually put my foot (with a slipper on thank god...) in it... LOL

He is such a cheeky monkey when it comes to house training... he sometimes pretends to do a wee, just to get his treat! LOL




TRAINING DIARY:

We did a few minutes training in the morning before going to work. As usual I started with a couple of minutes of freetime to warm him up.

* Sit - working nicely, I have to start getting him to sit in different positions though, that'll probably need to be lured though.

* Down - still only lured... I am waiting for a breakthrough on this one

* Touch - touching my hand is coming along really nicely. He now walks easily to whereever my hand is to touch it.

* Back - he loves this one. I need to make sure that I click before he sits. Sometimes he is so fast, that my timing is slightly out. And as he learns so quickly, he also learns the wrong thing when my timing is out.