Viewing Single Post From: Focussing Attention

Viewing Single Post From: Focussing Attention
Tafia	Nov 3 2007, 06:10 PM
Total Gas Bag! Posts: 5,822 Group: Full Members Member #134 Joined: November 17, 2005	Not sure whether this will be of any use for you or not but it has worked quite well with my two, especially Davey. He's basically a really good boy but seriously suffers from obsessive tunnel vision, becomes fixated in a nano second and I found it really difficult to gain his focus, I'd have to put him on the lead and he'd just be shaking with excitement. I got a nice small sized, hard wearing squeeky toy which on the first day I just showed them both, let them both have a quick mouth and then put up on the shelf. Later that day after they'd forgotten about it, I put them both into a sit stay, showed them that I'd got the ST which I then hid in one of the upstairs rooms. The first time it took about 10 minutes for me to get them to wait until I gave them the command to go find. Our normal command for this is "Get it" but in this instance I changed it to "Looky, looky, looky" shrieked in the most ridiculous, high pitched voice possible. ST was always hidden in difficult places, making the investigation process highly interesting, the dog who found it would then get a couple of minutes to play with it and then I'd ask for it back and both would get a choice food treat. We did this for a number of weeks. The ST ended up becoming a priceless high value reward, absolutely associated with the "looky, looky, looky" call. Then we built it up by them having to work for it, complicated things which demand concentration and because they're 100% motivated they pick everything really quickly - come immediately, totally focussed on what it is they have to do to get their couple of minutes of play. I pick and choose the times when I use it so as not to devalue it but the toy is always in my pocket for when I do need it. There is only one thing on this earth more highly valued than this ST by my two dogs and that's a fox! Don't know whether this might give you any help but perhaps you could adapt something from it. Good luck anyway and let us know how Flynn gets on with the agility please!


Focussing Attention · Agility and Flyball