Friday, November 25, 2011

She Shoots! She Scores!

Well, not really, but Jelly is really catching onto our soccer ball game!! After she got the hang of touching the ball with her paw, I began withholding the treats in order to encourage her to offer another behavior. Naturally, she went to the ball several times, touched it with both her nose and paw and returned to me for a C/T. She would cock her head and look at me, asking, "Well?" I waited until she "batted" the ball with a paw and then clicked and treated her. Of course, as round objects are wont to do, the ball rolled away. This provided an interesting scenario! Once she received her treat, Jelly returned to where the ball WAS, looked perplexed for a second, then ran back to get her treat! LOL I was wondering if she'd figure out that she had to look around for the ball but apparently she hadn't made that connection and she continued to turn around and look at the spot where the ball had last rested! I finally went to the ball and nudged it with my foot so that she could see where it was and then returned to my spot by the counter. Jelly looked at me, looked at the ball, and then went to the ball and pushed it with her paw! C/T! From then on, she knew she was to find the ball, go to it and bat it with her paw. This has been a fun game and one that Jelly seems to really love! Her tail starts wagging and she has this big, ol' beagle grin on her face! I'm not sure what our next game will be but my daughter's fiance asked me yesterday, "Could you ever teach her to bat it into a little net like a goal?" Hmmmm..........Well, of course!! I'm thinking I could cut the bottom out of a box and make a square goal...........
100 Things To Do With A Box...and a ball!!! Clicking really allows us to use our imaginations. If we can imagine it, we can click it!

"I myself have known some profoundly thoughtful dogs." James Thurber

Yeah.......me, too!!! 

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