Resq TailsThe trials and triumphs of rescued dogs

Rogue continues to make progress since I posted last. We’re still doing our mat work in the mornings and including my husband in her training in the evening, but we’ve made some adjustments as she’s progressing.

In my last post I was using the Manners Minder to reward her remotely for staying in place on her mat. It didn’t take long before I figured out I would need to fade it out if I wanted a truly relaxed down on the mat. The noise that the machine makes just prior to dispensing the treat was just way to exciting for her to stay still. LOL It did however serve it’s purpose nicely in that she is able to run out to whatever position I choose to place her mat and turn quickly and lay down facing me. Another change is that my husband has been able to move to sitting in a chair. This change didn’t seem to bother her at all. Yay!

I’m also having her do short sequences of agility with my husband standing on the course. It started like this: I set up two jumps in a straight line. I had my husband on one side of the jumps, (back about 15 feet though), and myself on the other side of the jumps. When she completed the two jumps, I sent her to him and had him give her the Jackpot of treats. We did this a few times. The effect was that instead of staring at him like: “Yikes! There’s a boogie man on the course!” She was looking at him with curiosity like: “I wonder when he’s going to put that jackpot down again?!” As of last night I was able to run most of a course with him standing in the middle. I am not going to continue to have him give her the jackpot her now unless I start to see her stressing over him being there. I think it served it’s purpose as the Manners Minder did and I don’t want her to develop a habit of running over to check out if the judge might have a jackpot waiting for her.

Anyway, I think that she’s making progress in some areas more quickly than I really expected. We’ll keep up the training and post more later.