thoughtfulFor our current class, Obedience for Dog Sports, we need to think of a project. We're supposed to work on chaining behaviors -- that is, we'll give one cue, and the dog will perform three (or more) behaviors in a row. As an example, right now Galen knows "Come", which means (a) come to the area directly in front of me from wherever you are and (b) sit there. So that's two behaviors off one cue. I'm having a hard time thinking of three behaviors that make an interesting or useful set to use for the project.
We can use behaviors he already knows well (Sit, Down, Stand, Stay [in all those positions], Come, Touch [touch my hand with your nose], Shake), behaviors we're still working on (Heel, To [go out to a target and touch it], Wave [like Shake, but without touching anything], Settle [go out to a mat and sit or lie down on it], Here [like Come but without the sitting part -- he's actually pretty good at it but it's new, since we started with the more formal recall]), or new behaviors (Spin, Roll Over, Crawl [Cathy's been working on these three for a week or two], or anything else you can think of). We probably don't want them all to be brand-new, because he's got to learn them before we can put them together.
Any ideas?
It's like the warning the High School trainer gave us about training your dog to go get you a beer from the fridge -- he can do it, but once he's got the fridge open, he doesn't really care what you wanted....
Guy's service dogs used to do things like press the elevator buttons for him, and open doors and things, but again, you don't want your dog thinking he's supposed to open closed doors all the time, huh? :-)
Come, sit, wave.
Turn, spin, bow.
Sit, shake, shake with the other paw (or wave, wave with the other paw).
Sit, lie down, roll over.
I could go on and on ....
(She also mentioned how the more she sees him in action, the less she thinks "Lab mix" and the more she thinks "hound mix". Yep. Us too.)
Galen looks quite Lab-like, but boy does he not have any of the typical Lab personality traits.
But after discussion, we are going with Ninja Dog: jump Touch, Down, and Crawl. It should be cute, he's already good at the first two parts, and the transition between them ought to be useful practice for going from exciting things to controlled things.