Cool trick idea. Stop, drop, and roll. Call Tom towards me, give a drop command and then a roll. It'll all be from a distance.

I'm still sort of working on "what happens when you smoke", backward weaving, beg on verbal, small amounts of paw handling and "delicious" with Opie. I think I've started "delicious" and bowing with Tom.

But I needs to finish my current cellphone trick first!!! Last night was not a good session. He picked it up many times before it had started ringing. He wasn't as focused. Oh geez. I hope today's goes better. I had thought I'd get the backward weaving for the show but I stopped training that so hard about a month ago. That's only three quarters of the way done, perhaps. So Tom picks up the phone early and I leave the room for several seconds. I don't really have a way to make the cue easier because he knows the behavior it's just getting it on cue. And I don't have a way to make the cell phone go off, I use the timer feature, at the exact second that I want it to. Drats, that would be beyond perfect. I could always have it go off when he's waiting and that would reward the waiting. Instead it goes off at a predetermined time. This feels more like the stuff Karen Pryor talks about, with dolphins and having a set time they have to do something for. Instead of Kathy Sdao's method of putting things on cue. You give the cue when the animal is waiting. Please let me know if you have any ideas.

Curious idea to teach dogs to stop reacting to a doorbell. What if you have one that they can reach and you train them to target it. I wonder if they created the sound and realized nothing happened if they'd stop reacting when others created it. Or if it might help in a much larger training program. Hmmm, it'd be interesting to try... Or it might increase reactivity if the dog hit doorbell and reacted and the reacting was in some way rewarding. If you stuck a treat in front of their nose in the surprised moment that might be the only way to make it work.

Last night's dog cat interactions.
Opal got to the dining room table edge, five feet away from Niko. I let her stare for a few seconds and then reorient herself to me instead of shoving chicken in front of her nose. I'm more confident she won't spontaneously explode. I think her forcing herself to look back to me is really really really good because that's the end behavior we want if Niko elicits prey behavior. The dog's reorienting to us, knowing that the more preylike Niko acts the more chicken or liver they get.

Tom also did very well. I'm thinking I got him to the end of the island. I started with him this time just to mix things up.

Niko's more confident that the dogs will not eat him and are contained. I hadn't expected a spike in Niko's confidence but that's definitely good.