7 Months: Training - Day 69

Soon Emma will be practicing Mat behaviors in new locations.

I had expected a short day with Emma, since she was scheduled for grooming in the afternoon.  The groomer called Emma's owner that morning and canceled the appointment so other arrangements were made to get Emma to her owners for the weekend.  In the end we managed the transfer.

Emma did very well on her final day of the week - she had made huge gains in her Sit/Stay and Retrieve during the week and I was very pleased with her progress.  I look forward to her continued work next week on her basic skills and will start to introduce the idea of working with my wheelchair.

Today's Lessons:

Retrieve

Emma is working on Level 3: Step 2 Retrieve.  In this step Emma is asked to share holding an object in her mouth with me for up to 5 seconds.  I worked Emma slowly up to a good grip on the object, a pencil, and then would add small amounts of time between her taking it and my telling her Yes.  We got up to a good solid 1 second shared hold.  Emma is progressing nicely!

Observations

Emma is progressing nicely and I am pleased to see continued progress in her basic skill set.  I have noted though that her Zen behavior is sliding as is her response time for Sits and Downs.  I want to spend next week doing a bit of refresh and remind on her basic skills and introduce working with them outside with distractions.  I also want to reteach Zen Level 1 & 2 outside so she has a better concept of what we are asking with her Zen behavior.

I plan to take her out for a couple of outings next week, but my week is very full.  I have 2 appointments on Tuesday and 2 on Wednesday and Josh is returning on Thursday.  I will also be visiting my mother in the hospital on Monday evening after her heart surgery.

I hope to take Emma to Big R and Zips next week to begin her working in new public locations.  The goal of Big R will be to fully proof and test Level 1 behaviors while the purpose of Zips will be to walk up to and, if possible, into a restaurant without her becoming too over stimulated.  If I can not enter, we'll work on Level 1 behaviors in the parking lot.

Level 1

	Zen	Target	Come	Sit	Down
Step	Completed	Completed	Completed	Completed	Completed

Level 2

	Zen	Come	Sit	Down	Target
Step	5	2	4	3	Completed
	Focus	Lazy Leash	Go To Mat	Crate	Distance
Step	2	2	2	1	1
	Jump	Relax	Handling	Tricks	Communication
Step	1	1	1	Completed	1

Level 3

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