Category: Fun Stuff ¤
  Author: Assorted Contributors ¤
   Title: Training Bloopers ¤

Here's another eye opener.  A couple of years ago I was having a student do
some target heeling along a wall to straighten out sits.  A few reps and the
dog was looking great, getting lots of reinforcement, etc.  Then my student
did an about turn and the dog proceeded to switch sides and heel against the
wall...  I know, we trained her to do that....

>Terry,

>
>I just had to share my experience at teaching this trick...
 I had printed up some return address 
>labels 
>I put one on her forehead and clicked when she attempted to brush it off with 
>her paw. After a few brushes the label would come loose and drop to the floor 
>and I would replace it with a new one... Well, my puppy just perked right
along and 
>before long we had this behavior on cue with the sticker on the head.
>
>Then I went solo, without a sticker on the head. I gave the command and Chloe 
>looked around and pounced her paw upon one of the stickers that had fallen on 
>the floor.  I just about fell off my chair laughing since I had shaped her to 
>touch a label with her foot and she had that "Chloe" look of determination on 
>her little face.
>
>Lana Mitchell 
>
>


They are SO amazing.  I taught my Giant to heel, then three days before
her first show, I totally lost my mind and put a choker on her to "let her
know that she has to do it, not just that she wants to do it" - or, to put
in another way, "It's just +P, I can HAAANDLE it!" (there's no end to it -
we may be in remission but we'll NEVER be cured, "My name is Sue A. and
I'm a J&P trainer!").  Anyway, I lost my mind, put a choker on her, and
gave her a couple of (comparatively) minor little shots.  Suddenly she
stopped dead (half of me screaming "shoot yourself now, you idiot, you
just blew 14 months of dedicated clickering", the other half screaming
just as loud "Oh no you don't, you bloody HEEL!")...  Anyway, suddenly she
stopped dead, looked me in the face, looked a little puzzled, suddenly her
ears went up, her tail wagged, and she LEAPED into heel position on my
right side, ready to work again.

Dumped the booze in the sink... no, sorry, that was another life... threw
the choker in the garbage, sat on the floor and cuddled and apologized and
had a good cry, admired her wonderful solution to her problem (insane
mother), and spent the next three minutes telling her she was safe to heel
on the left again.  The trial?  Four trials, four legs.

Sue eh?