Exercising those brain muscles

It was too wet to let the Ts play outside last night, so since their tummy upset seems to have passed (knock wood), I broke out the expensive all-natural treats and the clicker and did some shaping. They're SO cute--they just love shaping sessions. One stays in his or her crate while I'm working with the other one. I had gotten these bright orange plastic thingies--they're like markers for frisbee golf or something--so I put them out.

As each T came out and saw them, they KNEW those orange things had something to do with their getting a treat, and they each set to work right away to try to figure it out. My general goal was to try to get them to go out to the orange thing, go around it, and come back to me, but I try to stay flexible when we're doing shaping. Both of them immediately grabbed it, so the first thing was to get them just to go to it and NOT pick it up.

I did Timber first, in the living room, and got him going back and forth between two sets of orange thingies. Oh, man, they think SO HARD, those little brains just creak with the effort, so from time to time I have to stop and do something simple like down, sit, speak, touch, to give them a break.

Taenzer was very funny--I did her out on the porch because there didn't seem to be enough room in the living room. She didn't get clicked for grabbing the orange thing. I have to keep her going, she gets discouraged either, so I called her back to me, gave her a treat, and got her going again. She trotted toward the orange thing and just as she got there but before she could put her head down to grab it, I clicked. She froze in her tracks, and you could practically hear her thinking, okay, I'm supposed to be around this thing but not pick it up. She got the idea pretty quickly, really--it helps that I've been sending her into the kitchen to touch a post-it note on the oven, so she kind of has the idea of going out toward something. We didn't quite get the whole go-out-go-around-come-back sequence--I need to look for some cones or something--maybe a plunger or something like that, that she can obviously GO AROUND. But I was happy with the progress we made, and it is just SO much fun--all three of us enjoy this immensely, I think. At least, they certainly get excited when the clicker comes out, and Timber once brought it to me when I left it somewhere.

Funny Ts.

Honeyboy.





Honeygirl.





Waiting for pizza! ("Do you think it'll get here soon?")