New feeding routine and general cuteness

Mufaasa and my abnormally large basil plant survey their territory.

 

So, I’ve gathered all the pipe I need for two jumps and three sets of 2×2 weave polls, too bad the hardware store I was at didn’t have a single one of the connectors I needed (like, and elbow joint, people? Seems kinda basic). Ah, well, some night this week I’ll truck my butt over to the place that actually does sell that stuff and get a move on. All in all, I’m looking at $60 all together for a lot of equipment I need (at least at the level we’re at). And I at least have some traction paint for my practice plank, so I’ve got something to use, and since I have the pipe, I can make more of my ghetto weave polls  for now, since I don’t want to interrupt his weave training to much.

Besides that we’re working on his ability to tug, stop and then start whatever activity we’re trying to do without loosing all his energy. As soon as he releases the tug his energy goes way down, and it’s not usually that we’ve tugged too long, so I’m not sure what else to do. We’ll keep at it, and food still works at least. Also, our sit/stays before obstacles have been awfully sloppy lately, which is aggravating since I practice his stay all the time.

This is what we’ve been doing nearly every night for a while now, which I think is great for anyone to do with their dog. He has to sit and stay while I pour his food in roughly a straight line along the floor, and then I release him (I vary whether he has to wait for me to close his bag, or I make him wait for a while afterwards, or any different variable so he knows he has to wait for my release him and not just until I’m done putting the food down). Here’s a crappy video:

I also work on it in all sorts of places. It’s always been my policy that he has to stay while I take his leash off when we go to a park, then remain in the stay until I release him (again, varying the time, sit, down or standing stay, distractions, etc). I’ve also been incorporating it into our games of fetch. He does a sit stay beside me, and I sometimes stay next to him, sometimes walk ahead, wait for him to look down his line (which is super hard, since he really, really wants to just stare at me and his ball), give him the break command, and then throw the ball. I’ve also added a new element to our feeding time routine: ghetto jumps! I knew I was going to find a use for all my old Star Wars books someday.

It’s a bit hard to see in the video(dark room, dark dog, crap camera) but I was waiting for him to look at his food dish. It is working as a lure, but also encouraging him to look down his line and getting him used to the idea of a lead out.

 

Aside from that Mufaasa continues to be an absolutely handsome devil (who didn’t even take out my Christmas tree like I was very convinced he would). Also, I’ve switched offices (read: cubicle) at work, and we now have a window! You have no idea how awesome that is. It’s the only way I’ll see the sun aside from our morning walk until the spring! Draw back is that we’re by the window, which means I’m even more freezing than usual. Advantage is that we’re by the window and Mufaasa now has one more thing to keep him occupied during the day.