Yet another blog about a stellar training session the Squidge and I had.  I set out about a month ago to teach her to back up (not hop back, but walk backwards) because this is an excellent body-awareness trick for agility, and the first training session went awry.  I wound up shaping her to scooch back in a down position, which I thought was too cute NOT to click.  That trick is now under decent stimulus control as “beeeep beeeep beeep” (like the reverse signal on a truck).  So last night I decided to teach her the original trick; walking backwards.  She, of course, learned it in no time, and is walking backwards like a pro.  Now all I need to do is put it under stimulus control, but I can’t think of a cue!  Ashley said it should  be “get outta here” and the trouble with that is that I will be using “get out” to mean something else in agility.  I am thinking either the ever-simple “back it up” or “reverse” or something cute like “scram.”  We’ll see. 

Then we worked on heeling.  Yes!  Heeling at last!  Heeling is one of my all-time favorite things, and I have decided to teach it the way they teach it over in the ever-more-progressive-than-the-US-countries of Sweden, Norway, and Slovakia.  What this means is that I will be doing it the way Fanny Gott does it:)  Basically, I will start by teaching her the body position I want while walking backward, so that any mistakes made will not be attached to MY heel position.  This way I am also not luring at all, it is a total shaping exercise.  Idgie will heel with me half a room length, with me walking backwards–much faster than my other method of heeling.  This is a link to a full description of this method http://www.fannygott.com/clicker-training-heeling   and this is a link to some videos of what it looks like  http://www.fannygott.com/videos-of-heeling-and-stand.  I am really excited about this!  She also worked on stimulus control for Spin, BeepBeepBeep and some signals for down, stand, and sit.  Rock on little puppit!