I was just going through some videos I'd taken just before the holidays and found this one....which seems very appropriate since we seem to be staying on the agility training theme!
When we are out walking together, I stop to coax and lure and then reward Lusi with a food reward for getting onto anything that has an unusual surface texture or is set at a height a bit above the ground level. As we pass by the remains of cut down trees we stop and Lusi clambers onto the remains of the trunk and tries to sit or sometimes attempts just to balance on it with all four feet. Stones, boulders, and fallen trees, are all equally good in providing different textures and elements of difficulty.
In a recent walk to a new park I was giving Lusi a fairly free long line to roam the grounds when she headed for what must have looked like the ideal agility course. Her inspection of the first piece was followed by her traversing the second piece; this comprised a long low ramp leading to a long extended low horizontal walk and then down another ramp at the far end. Yes, it looked pretty close to a "dog walk" to me too!
Now it is possible that she was following a scent up onto the "dog walk"...or maybe she chose to try the equipment out and just happened to pick up the scent which she then followed. In either case there was a definite desire, both to get on and to stay on the wooden walk. I had not indicated in any way that she should even approach the walk so it was quite surprising to find that she stayed the course almost to the very end! What a clever girl!
It looks as though we are beginning "to shape behaviour" when it comes to trying out agility equipment.
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