Thursday, November 06, 2008

Last night around 9pm the phone rang.  I assumed it was Patrick calling to tell me good night and that he loves me.  Surprise, surprise!  It was my friend Sara Jo that I have known since first grade.  I haven't seen her since my Junior year of college.  We've emailed now and then over the years.  She has just moved to Syracuse from Germany and we have reconnected thanks to Facebook.  It was really great talking to her.  We actually spent an hour and a half on the phone.  It was interesting reminiscing and finding out that she didn't even remember not talking to me in seventh grade.  Of course, from my perspective, it's kind of hard to forget.  Anyway, I'm planning a visit for a couple of days next month once Saffy's school is done.  

I've been working on sit with her today and I realize what the problem is.  I'm supposed to use just the hand signal which is open palm in front of her nose and then over her head.  However, instead of sitting down and looking up at my hand which triggers the click and reward, she stands up on her back legs and tries to get the treat out of my open palm.  So, I need some new ideas on getting her to sit.  Any suggestions?

1 comment:

Lauria said...

I sometimes have a similar problem with Mycroft (my cat). He'll get so excited that dinner is here that he'll sit pretty rather than sit. So the hand you're signaling with is also the hand you're treating with?

You might try to put the food in your clicker hand and hide that hand so that it doesn't exist. I find that my cat can get distracted trying to get the treat instead of doing the action that gets the treat. Without the treat in your hand, you might be able to get him to sit with the hand signal. But now it might be ingrained that that hand has the treat no matter what you do!

I used a "pointer stick" to teach Mycroft to follow it. It's so transparent that there's no treat to get distracted by. I followed the same motion that you do with your hand with the stick. As soon as his butt is on the ground, I treat. At first he might try to pick up a paw to bat the stick, but once he realized that I was clicking the sit, he got the hang of it. Hope that helps!