Today is Minka’s 23rd day here for my boot camp program, and she is just about ready to go home. She is doing awesome here! This week I am just touching up everything with her training to make sure she is prepared to go home and work with her owner. The first video below is of her off leash on an entire walk around my neighborhood with Bullet (a dog I’m fostering) as a distraction. Today was definitely hard for her on the walk, because Bullet just does his own thing (which I let him do as a distraction), and she just wanted to go off and play with him. In the past I have used Sasha, which is very good role model for other dogs in training, and so Minka always did really well with her. I knew I wanted to use a dog that would be harder for her to ignore to help teach her how to ignore dogs like him in the future. The end of the walk was definitely where she did the best (at the end of the video I release her and let her run to my car on her own).
The second video of Minka is of me working with her and the blow dryer. She is very nervous about the blow dryer and the vacuum, so I have been teaching her that there is nothing to be afraid of with either of them. What I am trying to teach her in the video is that the blow dryer is a source of affection and treats. If you notice, I will pet her with the blow dryer, and then when she is a little more relaxed, I will put the treat next to the blow dryer so that she is basically getting the treat from the blow dryer, creating a positive experience with it.
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