Today I posted my response to Rogersmmr (
from youtube) training challenge. Just for fun, dogs were supposed to 1)open a drawer 2)put socks away 3)close the drawer.
Since we apparently have zero drawers in the house that have knobs or anything to attach a rope to, that eliminated #1 for me. Since I still wanted to teach a behavior chain, I decided to have the dogs grab a sock from the laundry basket (which I ended up flipping on it's side for Lance's stubby legs) and then have them hop on a stool to reach the drawer.
They each had 3 sessions of training so far to produce the video! Lance learned the fastest, but for a long time was stuck on actually putting the socks IN the drawer, not on top. As you can see in the video, he then could not believe that I also didn't want him jumping on top of the drawer! Once he got it though, it was smooth sailing. He still needs some help and rewards often, but it was also nice that the drawer was too deep for him to "cheat" and pull the socks out once they were in!
Vito took quite a bit longer to learn how to close the drawer. He really thought that he was supposed to stand on his legs and rest his paws on the lip. I ended up having to start with the drawer on the stool so that it was too tall for Vito to rest on it. Once he got the closing part, that is all Vito wanted to do! Several time he tried to chop of my hand as I went to take the socks out of the drawer :P
Archive
