Training in Public

Ouch.  What I thought I was going to be videotaping was Vito choosing to look around a bit on the first session, ignoring me, and then choosing to engage.  Instead we hopped onto a time warp and fell back a year or more on our journey.  The first session Vito didn't engage at all in 5 minutes.  This second session is about 15-20min after the first one.  While Vito seemed to connect a bit better, you can tell that he's really not into it and that becomes even more obvious after he receives a reward.

I used too much pressure to try and will him to play with me and the result shows.  Trying harder than your dog is never helps in the long run and it certainly won't get you trial ready.

Zumi is doing well with focusing in new places.  I pushed her a bit too hard in this session but lesson learned for next time.  With a dog eager to play it's hard to do any lasting damage :)

And finally here is a recent session from Vito training for dinner at home.  I ran into some errors that were very unexpected and apparently were bigger issues than I thought at the time.  I should have either had a higher reward rate for when he was correct, or abandon what he was struggling with and come back to it later when it likely would not have even been a problem.  But Vito was focused and happy and I'll be more prepared if he makes some of the same mistakes in the future.