Roscoe and Spur and Bim!!: Life rewards, the Premack principle? Or as my mom always said........."Finish your veggies and then you can have desert". I like my veggies!!!

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Life rewards, the Premack principle? Or as my mom always said........."Finish your veggies and then you can have desert". I like my veggies!!!

I watched some of Jenny Damm's DVDs last night. Rich is away, so watching training DVDs is a good thing to do while he is away. When he's here it's all like......"Again? Don't you KNOW this stuff already??? ANOTHER training DVD?? It sounds like all the same stuff???". I guess to him it's just like watching re-runs. That's also what he says about the Red Sox games. Reruns, same characters, same activity, same locations.......boooooooorrrrrriiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnngggggggggg. HUH???? Red Sox games boring????? Never!!! Anyway, back to the DVDs. Jenny suggests using life rewards, often. Make the most of your time with your dogs and train, often and in many different settings. Yesterday when I was working Spur he wasn't BOLTING off his start line stays. In fact, he was hesitant and needed a few release words before he broke. He so worries about being wrong. So, this morning we worked on releases with speed. The best way I know to do that is with social pressure of the other dogs. When they break, Spur breaks. I would LOVE some day for Spur to beat the The Pin Heads to me, but he feels the pressure (wonder why? Maybe getting a discussion from Roscoe holds him back? Ya think????). It does help, though, to get him bolting off his stay with speed and power, even if he isn't the first one to me.