My plan today was to concentrate on RZ. I am not progressing the way I feel I should be with his walking. He goes into RZ but then as soon as he is rewarded he leaves, I think this is because when rewarding loose leash and I put pressure on the leash and he comes back to me I reward in RZ and then release I would guess right away from his behaviour. Since I have rewarded the wrong behaviour often it is probably going to take some correction to fix it.
This morning we went out had a pee and headed to the driveway. I played some tug and then pulled his leash back and cued close (left side) and started moving. I would say reward and correction where about even, did about 3 rewards. The correction was pulling him back and allowing him to find RZ. Stopped played some tug and did some more work on the left again about 3 rewards. You could tell he wasn't sure what was expected, I waited for a pretty position and released to play tug. I think next session I will go back to step treat, step treat, to build the value.
After that I took him off leash and we went for a walk, all was good his responses where normal. We were walking about 100 feet from the squirrel tree and he headed for it, I let him run to it and get a good sniff around walked up to about 5feet and recalled, nothing. Walked closer and recalled and he came right to me we played tug I moved a little further away while tugging and released him to the tree. He barely engaged with the tree and I recalled and he came beautifully on the next release he ran towards the tree stopped a foot away and looked at me to call him :). Still needs work but happy with the progression.
We continued to walk around the front yard. He started hunting in the long grass probably for mice, I called him nothing, I walked up within a foot called, nothing, I grabbed his collar moved him a few feet let go called nothing, finally on the next call he responded I praised and petted and let him go back again I called nothing when I go to within a foot and called he responded. Released again he responded on the first try we played tug. I released him to go play and we headed to the house he stayed hunting for about 30 seconds then followed me and went into the big cedars. I called him he came out right away and when he was almost to me detoured to the squirrel tree. I called him he ignored when I got closer he responded I put him in a sit did two recalls and went inside.
I am guessing that his little brain just went into sleep mode, regardless remember what I always tell my students why is irrelevant all you need is the solution. For today at least he will stay on leash and we will work the long grass for recalls. The other issue may be I am doing to much and need to back off a little bit. So only two more work sessions today and both very short maybe 2 minutes. Tonight at class he will stay in the car. The rest of the time he will be on leash for bathroom breaks, maybe he can go off leash for 5 minutes when we get home tonight.
I had a few minutes while Logan finished breakfast so took Iggy out for a pee and did some shaping for the back up. Brought him out of his crate did some tugging, removed the toy from his mouth and sat in a chair and looked for any backward movement of any paw was able to reward almost instantly. I was throwing the reward in the right place between the front paws slightly back but I was waiting for him to eat the reward and then look up on hindsight I should have kept rewarding because in taking the food because of the position he would have again backed up. We did about 4 treats and then he started offering a lot of downs, I think in the excitement I started leaning forward in the chair which is close enough to his down cue, I released the downs I know I shouldn't but can't help it (I am not 100% convinced that is wrong) and it started to go downhill so we stopped. I started working on the stand cue (Chris's method) did one cue rewarded 6 treats for holding the stand and put him back in his crate.
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