Clicker Training Monday

I don’t work on Mondays, so I’ve been making a point to find some time to do some clicker free-shaping with the dogs. I say dogs collectively, I actually mean Kim and Dylan. Mollie doesn’t understand clicker training. I can teach an old dog new tricks, but she was introduced to clicker training late in life and she wasn’t that bright to begin with.

My one vague idea was NOT to have a fixed end-goal. I find an object and dog is invited to interact, and we see what happens. It’s been a lot of fun so far. Dylan has done clicker/free shaping since he was a pup so he’s generally quite quick to come up with things, he is really over enthusiastic and tends to focus on whatever we’re doing. Dylan makes a lot more progress in one session, but I’m afraid Kim is cuter x1000. She tends grumble and rowrl and make all kind of supercute little noises, and she goes off on tangents where she tries every trick in the book. It is adorable.

We originally started off and did a couple of weeks with a box lid, which Kim chose to stand in and Dylan chose to flip over his head. This time we used a blanket, which had a bit more thought behind it. Dylan has worked with a towel before and I was hoping he would transfer, and I was also hoping that I could encourage Kim not to use her paws. Dylan doesn’t use his paws very often, he tends to use his nose to poke, or picks things up with his mouth. Kim is the opposite, she tends to push with her paw, or grab/hold underneath or inbetween her paws. Probably so she can use her mouth to bark at it as well, I don’t know. I have no idea why they both have such a strong preference for one thing or another, but it’s interesting.

One day I will post the videos.