14 Months: Training - Day 31

Jack prefers to lay down than to sit.

So, somehow it' Monday again.  I am not sure how the weekend goes so fast, but here we are with another Monday under our belt.  Jack arrived today with a happy tail and relaxed body.  He's fully adjusted to the routine of coming to my home during the day and staying while Ronda goes to work.  He even walked up the ramp with me before Ronda had even climbed back into the car and drove off.  The fear that he's being left for life at my home has abated.

What hasn't is his fear of being left for life when left in the crate here or at home with Ronda.  We both still hear howling and Ronda finds evidence he checked every window by knocking into plants near them.  It will take him some time to adjust to being left with or without a sitter, but overall, Jack is adjusting to his new life.

Here he is happy to greet Emma and play with Max and follow me about.  Today I brought out the power chair and rolled it around the house while I did different training jobs.  Like Emma, Jack hasn't had a lot of experience with the power chair and though he's not overly afraid of it, he's not terribly calm about it either.

With my using it in the house he calmed and figured out how to avoid it without being overly reactive to the chair moving toward him.  We did training while I sat in the chair and lots of talking and praise while he learned to work around the chair.  Over time, like Max and Emma, he'll learn to walk beside the chair so I can take him on walks during the day.

I had planned on taking him out today, but my day was full with my day job.  I had a couple of errors in an application to locate and solve and a job application to finish.  I am also in the process of teaching myself Python and so my day went by so much faster than I thought it would.  I will try to take him and Emma out tomorrow instead.

Today's Lessons:

Focus

Jack is working on Level 2: Step 1 Focus.  In this step Jack is asked to simply find my eyes with his.  Focus, a primary skill for any training, is something Jack tends to give naturally, but I want to not only improve it, but place it on cue.  Jack enjoys looking into people's eyes and he gets a lot of reward for doing so.  He loves to rest his head on my lap and gaze up into my eyes, which leads to my talking to him and giving him affection.  This is something that Jack craves and therefore, eye contact for Jack is easily rewarded.

In this case, instead of rewarding with affection he's earning his breakfast and lunch for eye contact.  When food is involved Jack can't seem to make eye contact and teaching him he can will help him focus in new and strange locations when we need.  I simply waited for him to make eye contact, even a glance, and clicked for his looking at me.  At first I had to click for any raise of his nose, even the slightest, because he was too busy with looking at the floor or touching my foot or giving me sits and flats.  In short order he got the idea and we spent the rest of both of his meals here simply clicking for looking up into my eyes.

By the end of his final session he was starting to make and keep eye contact for up to 1 second.  Jack is doing well with this lesson, but still needs to continue.  I would like Ronda to please give Jack praise, affection and food rewards for any eye contact Jack makes with her this week.  I would also like for her to ask for eye contact during Zen and before being let outside.  The more situations he has to think of looking into a person's eyes, the faster he'll learn the concept.

Homework

Comeafters for Level 1 and Level 2:

• Target
• Zen
• Sit
• Down

Observations

I am very happy with Jack's curiosity and enthusiasm for learning.  He loves to train and is willing to join the game whenever we offer to play it.  What I do need to do is build up his willingness to sit for extended periods of time and one way to sneak that in is by asking for sits and maintaining them while we work on a different behavior.

I am happy with Jack's progress.

Level 1

	Zen	Target	Come	Sit	Down
Step	Completed	Completed	2	Completed	Completed

Level 2

	Zen	Come	Sit	Down	Target
Step	3	0	1	1	1
	Focus	Lazy Leash	Go To Mat	Crate	Distance
Step	1	1	1	2	0
	Jump	Relax	Handling	Tricks	Communication
Step	0	0	1	0	0

Level 3

	Zen	Come	Sit	Down	Target
Step	0	0	0	0	0
	Focus	Lazy Leash	Go To Mat	Crate	Distance
Step	0	0	0	0	0
	Jump	Relax	Handling	Retrieve	Communication
Step	0	0	0	1	0

Level 4

	Zen	Come	Retrieve	Target	Relax
Step	0	0	0	0	0
	Focus	Lazy Leash	Go To Mat	Crate	Distance
Step	0	0	0	0	0
	Handling	Communication
Step	0	0