Workin' for the champagne, drugs and fun

[lizblackdog]

I have started training Squish to point out a particular cat when I name it. You would think Spike would be the dog for this, but Spike is so cat fixated that attempting to reward him for staring at a cat is just a distraction and annoyance to him - it's actually quite hard to get him to notice that you're waving a meatball in his face, and when he does notice he doesn't care, the cat is SO much more compelling.

Squish, however, did a beautiful job. Half an hour and a bag of meatball chunks and he's dimly starting to grasp that "Where's Cassie?" means "I will get meatball for looking at the biggest cat".

On the one hand, he's frustratingly slow on the uptake compared to Spike. I was using the same indicators that I used to teach Spike "find your ball/toy/whatever object we're using as a toy and bring it closer to me" - flicking my eyes onto the desired object, which is how wolves and wild dog packs (not having pointing fingers) indicate things to each other. Spike always understands that instantly but Squish isn't nearly as attentive to body language, I don't think he registered what my eyes were doing at all.

On the other hand, Squish is a much more straightforward dog and doesn't cloud operant training with his own quirks and agendas the way Spike does. Plus, he's a dog bred for the express purpose of finding and indicating things; that ought to count for something, no?

I ran out of meatball, but I'll have another go at it when the next batch defrosts. Yayy Squish!

Comments

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

exercises in frustration generally are. :)

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

there is a reward for it: he's so bouncy and grinny and pleased with himself when he finally gets it! Spike just takes it for granted, he already knows he's a clever boy. With Squish it makes his whole day.