Reply To: Mary & Lola

[Alana McGee]

First off, no need to apologize on video arrival time 😉 Breaks are good and we encourage them.

Running around for a new minutes is completely normal, nothing to be concerned about.

Great idea keeping the area small. Even though Lola knows this area as “her playground’ that is a very different game than truffles, so it’s interesting to watch her shift. It is good she is comfortable here. Provides a great opportunity to try new spaces.

This looks great! She’s so excited when she finds the first one. REALLY really nice bond the two of you have. It makes us both smile every time we hear your voice doing this with her. She loves it. The connection is palpable.

1:26 she is working the area really nicely- this would have been an okay time to use words for encouragement at say 1:33 as she is getting closer to pinpoitning. We don’t think it would have broken her focus. When Lola is on odor, while she is sensitive to you, she’s fairly obedient to it, as we have seen in other videos as well- meaning she stays with it- returns to it.

1:49- something to try next time she “brings you one”. Silver teaballs are far easier to see than truffles. You can still be using the same kind of verbal praise you are here, but before you bend down to the location of the truffle and ask for a re-alert pinpointing behavior, ask her to show you. You will eventually be relying on her to indicate where it is if you can’t see it. If she has dropped it a foot away as she did here you may not know. It’s the difference of waiting about 1 more second before you move in, but try it, and see how that goes. It’ll help in the long run when you get to working with naked truffles that are the color of Dirt!

2:35 It’s nice you give her a chance to express herself here with her mini zoomies. She enjoys it so much and that certainly comes across on video. You have a very nice way of transitioning her and encouraging her here back into a work area. Well done Mary. You do it naturally though positive energy and movement in the space combined with verbal cues.

2:53 was a great example of her showing you again with you asking for it of the precise location of the truffle.

This looks really great Mary. Let’s see how she starts to do in some of those more unknown places. She certainly loves it 🙂