Summary: Raph on 2×2 over two sessions – both on the building and testing the value stage.
Since I’m doing 2×2 with Gitta, Esteban gave me permission to work with Raph in parallel. Esteban had introduced him to the 2×2′s in the ‘building value’ phase. But when I first took him out to the poles – he didn’t seem to even notice them there. All Esteban’s work had been in another location – and I wasn’t there to see how it was done. So after those first few attempts (you can see a few in the video), I decided to go back to square one.
I switched out the toy for food, and went back to shaping going through the poles. Raph caught on quite quickly, and I soon was able to get a little distance away from the poles.
One of the things I was most impressed with was the fact that he would come back to me so readily after a mistake. Raph can be a bit soft, and has much less shaping experience than Gitta. On top of that – he has that annoying BC (pardon my generalization) habit of not wanting to come to hand. Coming to us usually earns a nice tug, but since I was working on 2×2, I couldn’t tug with him if he had made a mistake. That’s why you’ll hear such effusive praise when he comes back to me.
I also noticed that if his focus was on me – he would generally stay engaged with me when I released him. If I waited for him to focus forward – he would almost always get it right. I don’t know if this is cheating – or just good dog training, to wait until I see him focus forward.
Esteban was manning the camera for about half of the first session, which was a distraction – but Raph would always come back and work with me.
Session 2 was even better. You can see him immediately focus on the poles as soon as we come out. I think he’s probably ready to come right out to 2 and 8 tomorrow.
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