Second Session

After Fox did so well during the first session, I decided to work on grooming at liberty. I got him to target my hand a few times which he remembered then his nice green brush. He cottoned on pretty quick. I raised the brush up to his neck, he stood so I reinforced. As I moved down his body giving him a nice groom his head kept peering round trying to find more treats LOL. He only got the reinforcement when he was standing calmly facing forwards though. We had great success. I was able to groom him all over on both sides at liberty with no sign of Fox wanting to move away. Best of all we got all kinds of lip smacking, chewing and yawning for which he got lots of reinforcement.

Since I have problems picking up Fox's feet, I thought I would have a crack at training him to get better at this. I gently ran my hand down his leg and asked him to lift his front leg. I got a shift in weight, so I reinforced. I asked again, the leg came up so I reinforced. I put the leg down and asked a couple more times before Fox was very willingly lifting his foot up. It was great. The best part was once when I had let go he kept holding his leg up by himself looking for treats. Much hilarity ensued, cheeky monkey. I tried the other leg and Fox straight away lifted his leg up and started contorting himself into odd shapes to get the treat. At one point his head was upside down right down between his front hooves. Is there such a thing as being too motivated?

I'm feeling really positive about this. I've only done two sessions and already we've made so much progress. This way of training is also heaps of fun. There is no frustration or anger just lots of smiling and laughing. Next session I think we'll try targeting a moving thing.