Thursday, January 21, 2010

Good days and bad days

Well, tonight Timber had never heard the words "back foot" or lifted his foot to put it on a cookie sheet before, and Taenzer's brain was completely gone away to Miami or somewhere. It was okay with Timber--I just had him do some sits and downs and front foot targeting and we left it at that. He's fine, I'm fine. Training goes that way sometimes, and he'll probably be back on top of it next time we work.

But poor Taenzer--she tries SO hard, and she can tell when I'm disappointed with the results. I tried to end with some simple things she knows, too, but she knows, bless her little heart.

I'm trying to figure out how to approach this differently. What do I actually want her to do? I want her to lift one back foot when I say "back foot." I don't particularly care where she puts it down, at least not now. I chose to use the cookie sheet because I thought the cold metal would feel different under her feet from the warm wood floor, and possibly make it a bit more clear that that foot was involved in the click. I've tried this before by sitting beside her and tickling the foot I wanted her to lift, and using a dowel to tap it, and neither of those worked.

Hm. I'll have to think this over a bit more.

Meanwhile, my wonderful sister sent me a belated Christmas present--a calendar of pictures her daughter took during a trip to Europe, and two skeins of one of my very favorite sock yarns, Mountain Colors Bearfoot in the Eureka colorway--which btw the website describes as "a fun blend of dark purples, eggplant, pumpkin, green & magenta," but I'm seeing brown, copper, purple, teal, and gold, but it may look different under natural light. At any rate, it was a lovely surprise to come home to on a dreary, cold, foggy winter evening. Now I need to find a very special pattern!

1 comment:

Monika said...

Right now Happy is driving me crazy, because he's destroying our shoes. I don't have the place to put them all away. Until one week ago he left them alone, where they are, but now, as soon as I turn my back he'll grab one and gets the insoles out. What do you think I should do?