Targeting Trapper

We had a great class at Wet Creek last night! Trapper has had motivational issues at times - not all times - but sometimes! Usually in an agility trial, his first few runs are great! He's quick and focused and really into it! By the time it's time for his 3rd or 4th run of the day comes - he's still solid and dependable - but it's like he's saying - "Ok Mom, I've been out there before and it was great!!! But I'm done with it now and I'm only doing this to be with you!"

My instructor Keri saw this during a class recently and told me that Trapper is running with me and I'd probably still get a lot of Q's with him - but he doesn't look like he's having a lot of fun out there, so she suggested that we start "targeting" obstacles for him.

What we're doing right now is putting a target plate with a really yummy treat on it after every obstacle and I say "Get it!!" and after he gets the treat on the target plate I say "GO!!" and he continues on to the next target plate and so on. As we will progress over time we will still leave all of the target plates out on the course but we'll leave a few plates empty with no treats. Obviously when we get to those empty plates I will not say "get it" - we'll just continue on to the next obstacle. The goal is to get Trapper to focus and understand what I'm saying and when I don't say "get it" then he'll know not to look for a treat - only unless I say "get it". The "Go" command is great because it tells him there's another yummy treat coming up!!

The end goal is to lessen the amount of plates over time until they're fazed out. This should build value for the obstacles and make Trapper a lot more enthusiastic about agility!
There would still be a little "maintenance" involved - every once in a while during practice I could randomly put out a few target plates for a run or two - then take them out.

A great example of building value for an obstacle is something I read somewhere (I can't remember where). If you asked a friend, husband, wife...etc....to jump over a jump in your backyard over and over - they probably would - but would get really bored after a few times! Now - if you offered them say, $500.00 for each time they jumped over a jump - they would jump until they were exhausted! They would do anything to get as many jumps in as they could and they'd be really excited about it!! Having a fantastic, high value treat or toy has the same type of result for dogs. They want to play, play, play!!!

It certainly worked in class last night as no matter how many times we lined up to do our sequence, Trapper was so focused and ready and couldn't wait to get out there. It was AWESOME!!

We've finished classes right now for the Christmas break so we have a little time off but I can't wait until our class starts again in mid-January to continue this target training! I'll continue to blog on our progress and we'll see how my little man does!

Motivation is my main goal for 2010 with Trapper - but I actually have quite a few goals to list and some of them relate to myself, Hunter and Trapper. That will be for another post!!