We did some "shaping work" tonight. The idea behind shaping is to positively reinforce the dog by clicking and then treating when they do the desired behavior. It is build upon in small steps. You may initially just click for the dog looking towards an item and then when they are doing that successfully, build up to the next step. Sky really seems to love this type of training. It is neat to see her try to figure out what we want her to do. She keeps trying new things until she gets it right.
Sometimes it is difficult for Ryan to push his footplate on his wheelchair down to put his foot on it. We decided to work on training Sky to help with this task. We started clicking Sky just for looking at the footplate and then eventually for putting her paw up near the footplate and then for pushing the foot plate down. In about 10 minutes she was successfully pushing the foot plate down with her paw. I tried to capture it in a picture. It's not the best, but you get the idea!
One of the cues Sky knows is "Tug". She will grab Ryan's coat sleeve and start tugging. If he needs to he can say "back" to get her to pull in the right direction. She and Ryan were having a difficult time before because his arm was getting caught in his sleeve and he couldn't get it out. We purchased a larger coat for him so it would be easier to get his arms out.
One final story. Today Ryan was up in his bedroom with Sky dusting his airplane collection. I heard him singing a song to the tune of "O Christmas Tree". It went like this. "O Sky Puppy, O Sky Puppy. How wonderful are you!"
