Reply To: Shannon & Cricket (DRTDT)

[Alana McGee]

Great! I am so looking forward to seeing how we do outside. Before I can do that, we’ve hit a bit of a wall inside that I am hoping for your help on. So far we are stuck at the level of difficulty that we ended with last class.

My understanding from the last class was to start to remove visual cues, and then progress to multiple targets. What I have found is that as soon as I start to obscure the targets Cricket gets stressed without the visuals (she is super visual, so this doesn?t surprise me much).

Instead of removing the boxes completely, I thought I?d help her by moving the boxes (flower pots) out of direct sight and placed them next to chair legs, or half tucked behind things thinking that might help her get the game (I am pretty sure this is your guys’ suggestion from the lecture).

Ahhh – It just occurred to me that I?ve been putting both hot and cold flower pots out ? keeping the game mostly the same, but just making the boxes harder to see. Maybe I should only be ?hiding? one hot flower pot, slowly make that more difficult to find, and then move to the tea ball? I think she is getting frustrated by finding cold targets and not being able to pinpoint the hot target.

We?ve done no multiple target searches since I thought they came after the advanced searches ? did I get it wrong?

Also- when I see her getting stressed I manufacture success by having her target a scent source I have in my pocket ? so I think (hope) that I am preventing her from being too discouraged/stressed. She still loves the game, so I don’t think our little challenges have caused her to dislike it at all.