Puppy Training part 2
A little update on puppy Momo who, as I wrote in my previous post, presented me with some new training challenges very early in her life by teaching me that simple free shaping excercises can be stressfull for a puppy even if the handler has no real expectations and is really trying to keep things easy and fun.
After some thinking I made a plan on how I will teach Momo to be more relaxed around clicker and I am super happy with her progress. She is naturally a very nervous puppy, so it's important that she learns to control her impulses and I also really think she needs to be able to relax on cue. So that was my first goal. I can't change who she is and I don't want to, she's perfect. But I can change how she feels and reacts.
I observed her behaviour when she was relaxing with me on the couch after a long walk. Behaviours that she offered most often were "frog" (extending her rear legs behind her back), tapping a ball with her front paw and poking a stuffed toy with her nose. She was also very relaxed when playing with a cat toy, chewing on something (preferably cardboard) and carrying things in her mouth.
I took Momo for a walk and then I fed her some so that she wasn't too hungry and then I took 5-10 kibble. I have no self control, so I monitor myself by having limited amount of treats. It's also good for my training abilities because when you have only 5 treats, you have to use them wisely. I am normally horrible at planning things and prefer to go with the flow, but here I felt like my training needed to be more organised. I played with Momo and the cat toy and clicked whenever she offered her relaxed behaviours. I rewarded some tries with food and some with more playing, but made sure she didn't get too stressed anywhere on the way.
After a few weeks we were able to do a bit longer sessions and include other tricks again. If I noticed she was getting nervous, I told her to do her relaxed tricks and then continued with more adrenaline stuff. I made sure all sessions were still short, included enough playing and that she was able to use her brain without getting stressed.
As I said i am very happy with how she acts around clicker now. She can handle more "serious" mental work without getting overly agitated, but still happy to cooperate and showing nice drive. I will update about our progress again in a few weeks.
