Friday, February 17, 2017

New Toys

To make sure we keep Marley learning I ordered a few new things that we can use to work with him.  I got a couple more dishes of a certain size - we can use them for "shell game" type games.  Whether he has to follow one item as we move the bowls, finds food under one or more of the bowls, or starts learning to retrieve something from one of them to trade for a treat.

The other was a low budget indoor agility kit.  It includes a square tunnel (needs some propping so it doesn't lean over enough to go flat) and a weave pole/jump set.  The recommend introducing one item at a time.  I figured it we started with the tunnel the others would be easier, at least as far as getting used to them.

So, I set the tunnel in an area of the living room that didn't block the flow of traffic and against something that would keep it from falling.   At first, Marley was suspicious, but he did a bit of sniffing, feinting, backing, sniffing some more.  Later, we moved it to a better location and double-teamed him to get him to go through.  Within a very, very short time he understood he was to go through the tunnel in order to get the "chicken cookie".  He even went through a couple times  without being asked to so. 

We'll give it a couple days before introducing the weave poles.

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