We got up at 6:30 this morning to get ready for a morning agility lesson with Moe. Unfortunately the lesson had to be cancelled at the last minute due to impending storms. Dragon was awake and feeling playful so we played tug and then did some training.
We did our second session of teaching him to put objects (his toys, currently) into a container (large plastic bowl). During the first session he was hesistant about holding his head directly over the large bowl. I was holding my hand above the bowl as a target and he was putting the toy into my hand. Then I would drop the toy into the bowl so that he would be used to the motion in the final behavior. Today he had no problem putting his head over the edge and dropping his toys directly into the bowl. At the end, when I told him to take a break, he even pulled a toy out, poked at it a bit, and then put it back into the bowl! I used plush toys so that they wouldn't make any noise, which would greatly increase the difficulty level for him. I'm teaching him this behavior for a few reasons: 1) it's a useful "service dog" type trick, especially when it's expanded to a more general concept of "carry item X to Y and place it there or perform another behavior," and I enjoy both teaching those tricks and having a dog who can perform real work, 2) it's another way to help him past his noise and motion sensitivities, and 3) it's adorable and impresses people, and really, that in itself would be a good enough reason, right?
Another new trick we're working on is jumping through a hoop. Currently I'm having him walk through it while it's an inch above the ground and I'm wiggling it back and forth a bit, so that he'll be comfortable with it moving a bit while in the air. Since he's already comfortable doing bar jumps, my next step is to get the behavior I want by setting a low bar jump and putting the hoop over the bar.
After the training session I went back to bed for an hour, and let Dragon sleep on the bed with me. He was sooo happy.
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