Vito Tail Hold

I've actually been working on teaching Vito a new trick!!!  I saw a trick on youtube several years ago and it's been on my to do list.  Long to do list that only gets longer and not shorter.  I wanted to teach Vito to grab his tail, hold onto it, and bring it to me :)

Kinda new in that I actually started the trick 2 years ago with Vito but gave up.  At that time I did actually do quite a bit so my groundwork was already laid.  With a few reminders, Vito remembered how to mouth his tail while lying down and I held it.  I remember getting to that point was a pain in the butt as Vito quickly learned to target his tail with his nose, but then actually opening his mouth never occurred to him.  I tried just pairing bite the pen I held at his tail with nose targeting his tail didn't make progress.  At one point I even tried wrapping his tail in vet wrap to see if I could get a bite.  That helped a ton once I left a little flap to hang down and then got rid of the flap and eventually the tape.  But then I was stuck as Vito would either just mouth it or try to "tug" it with a quick bite and pull back.

So starting in late December I resumed work.  At one point I had an epiphany that Vito did not know how to hold an item that 1) I still had in my hand (as I don't teach hold that way) and 2) at an angle where his head was not directly facing me.  The first fix was really easy and I just went back to an object.  The second fix was really hard for Vito.  He has such a strong retrieve and reorientation to me that it was hard to convince him otherwise.  Eventually did :)

And then I finally added back in his tail.  I forget about my project often so I think I've done maybe a grand total of 10-15 sessions in the past 2 months.  Today I did his very first session of grabbing his tail on his own from a stand (with my help in holding his body still) and holding.  Once that step is better I have no idea how I would progress it to walking.  I originally planed to do walking before a hold, but Vito just had such struggles in not biting and immediately letting go that I did the original switch.  I'm not really a plan ahead type person anyway.  I typically just start training :)

Just for fun I compiled this video of some of his lessons.  I managed to find one old video of Vito from January 2013 when he was just starting to understand some open mouth criteria.  The rest is current.