As I wrote about last week, Chewie and I have started to work on stay.
Currently, Chewie can stay on her platform while I walk about ten feet away. I am expanding this behavior by adding more distance. We are also increasing the duration of time that I can wait when I walk away.
Here’s a photo from a recent day when we were working on stay. We had just finished a short practice session, and we were about to start another session.
However, after the first session, Chewie left the barn and walked out into the yard.
You can’t see what is happening in the distance, but one of the neighbors and another individual were struggling to load a bed frame into the back of an SUV. The whole scene was definitely out of the ordinary for what usually happens on this quite street.
Chewie was very interested in watching the neighbors! She was not scared or concerned, she was just curious to watch what was happening.
When I was a younger trainer, in this type of situation, I would have tried to use food, perhaps higher-value food, to entice Chewie back into the barn to continue training. However, it’s much more difficult to teach a new behavior if Chewie’s attention is divided between me and something else.
Long term, I would like for Chewie to be able to stay on her platform and engage with me even when there are interesting distractions happening outside.
But, in the moment, I realized the commotion at the neighbors was going to be too challenging of a distraction.
One big part of training is knowing when it’s a good time to train and when it’s a good time to take a break!
So, we took a break for a bit, and I did some barn chores. Chewie followed me around the yard and helped me with my chores. She also got to satisfy her desire of keeping an eye on the neighbors.
Then, when she was ready, we continued with our training practice.
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