Chief's Beginning Agility Training

This video is of our training session where I am teaching Chief to jump over the agility jump and to crawl under it. My future goal for these behaviors is to have him participate in obstacle courses with the kids or to have the child instruct Chief on the concept of "over" and "under". If we really want the child to experience these concepts, we will have the child perform this alongside Chief as he is doing the behavior. Of course, there are other ways we can utilize these behaviors, but those are the easiest to explain in written format.

This last week has been slower than before, mainly because I was out of town. But, I have to say, Chief is one smart little cookie and remembered much of what I did with him before the break. At present, Chief knows several behaviors: spin, "place" (go to your bed), over (jump over the jump), under (go under the jump), up (get onto a piece of furniture), touch (place his nose onto an object), "go get" (retrieve an object), "drop it" (release the object), sit, down, stay, close (walk close to handler), scoot (get on belly and crawl forward), tunnel (go through an agility tunnel), paw (give paw to handler), jack (pick up his soft toy jack), ball (pick up his ball), and he is learning more and more each day. Chief learns things quickly, and within several repetitions, has the behavior with about 75% accuracy. If he performs the behavior several times a day, including in a new environment, he has it mastered within several training sessions.

I think the funniest thing about working with Chief is that he is very much like a child with ADHD. He gets bored quickly, likes things fast paced, and gets a little upset if he has to do the same thing more than 5-6 times. On several occasions, he has literally whined and barked if he is bored with a behavior. This is usually when I know...HE's GOT IT! It's very much like him saying..."oh my gosh lady...not again!!" I don't really want him to do this (but I can't help but chuckle to myself as it is happening). Meanwhile, outwardly, I am not reinforcing the barking, with hopes that it will not continue without reinforcement. Many thanks to Becky at Texas Hearing and Service Dogs for this pointer...because I was reinforcing it without realizing it, thus creating my own little nightmare!! :)

Tammy