Oops, Luna has discovered hunting for rabbits!

I haven't been on here for a while, as I haven't been making the time to work on Levels-related behaviors with Luna. I am at the moment studying for my Dip.CBST with the Companion Animal Sciences Institute founded by James O'Heare, and we need to desperately get to work on the hands-on assignments for that course... Also, I'm busy preparing my new home for move-in day, hopefully by the first of October!

In the meantime, here's a big oops moment I had a few days ago...

For the past two weeks, I've been taking off leash walks with Luna and my mother, at the local park. Every time we arrived, it was dusk. Hence, the rabbits were out and about.

It took me three nights of allowing Luna to learn how much fun actively hunting for rabbits is, before I realized that she was learning something completely inappropriate and also dangerous.

Yesterday I grew a brain and had a plan; I was going to click and treat Luna every time she volunteered to look at me, and if she went into rabbit-search mode (ears perked) I would call her. A few things happened; first, Luna did not hunt once during the entire 1,5 hour walk. Second, she looked at me A LOT. So much in fact, that she didn't think of peeing or pooping. I solved that with cueing a few Go Pee's.

Sometimes, when I told her to please go do something other than walking beside me looking at me every few seconds, she would walk ahead, go into rabbit-search mode, and then stop and turn her head toward me, just a tiny bit. Of course that, too, got CT'd.

I called her about 10 times, when she was getting too far ahead or too intense in her rabbit-searching posture. She managed to respond each time. Half the time she turned on a dime, and the other half she heard me, stopped, paused, turned her head (click) and came back for the cookie.

When we neared the end of the walk, she found a deflated soccer ball, which provided a perfect opportunity for some fun chasing, chewing, shredding, and rolling in the grass. She was absolutely delighted, and the ball is now a new trophy that we took home.

I am absolutely thrilled with her effort to stay with me and NOT hunt, but I didn't think we'd be working on that the entire walk. Just goes to show how quickly a bad habit can be formed.

The plan is to go to the park again tomorrow. Can't wait to see how she does the second time around.

Sniff Zen

Today I took Luna to the pet store to buy a small bag of kibble to tide her over until her regular brand is delivered. Sadly, the pet store changed owners and the brand I wanted was no longer sold, so we left with something else. Oh well, it's only temporary.

In the store, Luna showed some gaping holes in our training. Holes I've known about, but can't be bothered to fix; she could not keep her nose to herself and she went into sticky-shepherd-blank-stare-mode when she spotted the baby chicks in glass cages (just for Easter).

OK, that means we need to do some work on Sniff Zen and Animal Zen. I'll work on Sniff Zen at home, then go to the pet store and work on it there. Criteria will be Loose Leash, nose to herself, ears open (aka listen to what I say). For the critters we'll have to do some Look At That, I think.

So, in the next 2 weeks, I want to visit the pet store at least 3 times, by the end of which Luna will hopefully, if I do it right, have a default Pet Store Zen.