Detours Training

I really am enjoying training Detour and trying as much shaping as possible. He isnt a bold pup by nature but odly doesnt have the same with training. He is really bold to try different things and doesnt switch off easily. I have to make myself keep the sessions short as he seems quite happy to keep going.

Each session is about two mins long if that. We do different things each session, sits, down, perch work and he is just starting hand targets athough we need to increase pressure of nose now.

He has picked up the perch work fast, after two sessions he is keeping his front feet in contact with the box and is happy to walk round with his rear feet with me walking into him although its by no means perfected yet, I am trying to move things on much faster with him as I think with my previous dogs I got stuck on rewarding each stage too much and it confused them. This time I try to ask a little more all the time, as soon as he sniffed the box I rewarded the behaviour twice, next he knocked his foot against it accidentaly so I rewarded that, so then he had to figure out how he got that last cookie and repeat the behaviour and so on. I am loving watching it all click with him!

I think that I am going to find things harder once I start training for agility with shaping things, I suspect I will mix shaping with some luring especially for speed work over straight lines and stuff.

Anyway, I am still struggling a little with shaping waits as I dont feel I am moving on fast enough. I ask him for the position then am delaying the reward. The problem is if he moves Im not really sure what to do. I say Uh oh then wait for him to offer the position again and then hold it for a bit and reward but Im note sure this is clear enough for him... hmm