They are all so different!

I'm having loads of fun teaching Chaos things, he learns really quickly and just has bags of character. I decided long before I got him that I wanted to do shaping with him, I have done little bits of it with the others but it wasn't their main method of training. I read loads of books, watched DVDs etc and then he arrived, I shaped a sit and a down and then that was it. For a few weeks we only really worked on those things and I did think about not continuing with it but we got back on track and we now have a nose touch on the floor when lying down (not on command) we are working on left and right and over the past two days we have been working on going around a cone. I'm glad I decided to pick it up again with him, he does seem to learn things quicker that way.

Anyway yesterday he had 2 short sessions with the cone, today was session 3 and he is now going round the cone and coming back, im so pleased with the clever little man. He is quite sensitive and really thinks things through before doing them and he has to make sure he has eaten all crumbs before trying again! The clip below is from our session today, its not great but its hard to watch the puppy, hold the phone, click and reward but you get the idea!

After training Chaos so successfully I thought id give it a go with the others, it never hurts them to learn new things. They are all so different though in how they learn and things they offer. Brenda has done no shaping at all, she didn't even acknowledge that there was a cone in front of her she just sat and stared at me, I then tried releasing her from the sit with an OK and she then went over and sniffed the cone. Obviously she got a click but we have yet to progress from a nose touch on it.

Heidi as you can imagine is wild when she does any sort of training, she sprinted out to it laid down next to it at first but within less than 20 seconds she was running out and around it and back to me.

Kody at first tried his routine of lie down, nose touch the floor, cross his legs and sit but then did sniff and paw at it, again no further than that.

Brian...he has never got the idea of shaping, he thinks he has to knock over any object we use so he ran out knocked over the cone and ran back.

Probably not the most interesting post really but im really enjoying learning a new training method and hopefully Chaos will continue to as well so just thought id share our training :)