Reply To: Lois & Speed (DRTDT)

[Alana McGee]

Camera battery died while editing video. You’d think a Sony Cybershot would be smarter about power usage while connected by USB.

Speed also did a couple more box sessions on Monday. Last night we did minimal visual identification, outside. Only 1 session with 3 hides; it was practically dark.

This morning we did 3 hides in same area and then 3 hides in front yard. The video is of the 3 hides in the back and the last hide out front.

This is video of only the backyard session.

Same as with Monza, I practiced scratching around the box, delaying reward a little bit after initial reward.

It’s a long funny story and a love of James Brown, that lead to the James Brown voice talking to Speed. I haven’t used it since agility and Speed thinks it’s funny. And when Speed slapped that hide with his paw, it made me think of how James Browns yells ‘UH!’ ……Anyway, it appears to reinforce Speed’s persistence and makes his tail wag.

Speed started to wander towards the woods after Hide #2, so I called him back and suggested to search the gravel to keep rate of reinforcement high.

He did great in the front yard. He’s sooo excited about truffle hunting. He bounds out of the house, He makes me laugh.

Since both dogs seem to be at the same level, my plan is the same as for Monza. We?ll head off to the ?enchanted meadow? for more hides in grass on Sunday. And I?ll try to do a blind hide in one of the areas we used today. We?ll have no trouble varying weather conditions ? it?s 50-80% chance of rain for several days. Should we hunt in the rain? Seems like we should do more work with ‘visual identification, outside’ in wet conditions before hunting in the rain.

I wore the GoPro as a ‘backup’ if the video from the tripod was too distant.

Let me know if there’s anything I should consider for Sunday’s training.

Thanks Alana and Kristin!