Distance Work

One of the behaviours in Sue Ailsby’s Level 2 is distance work. So out in the street this afternoon with a couple of the neighbours I thought we could start work on this, to distract her from herding the two-year-olds. I set up a pole for her to go around and waited. She went over to it and touched it with her nose and then her paw – but as we’ve been targeting lately I didn’t want her to think that this was what I was after, so I waited some more.

It only took a moment before she moved past the pole, and I clicked when her shoulders passed it and offered the treat in front of her so she came all the way around for her reward. That was enough for her. I moved back half a step and she ran around the pole again. We gradually increased the distance, and she continued. Click/treat x 10.

We tried again with a lamp post, working up to sending her around the post from about 2 metres away. We’ll work on it again on our walk tomorrow, making sure she has the behaviour established before I put it on cue. That will give me time to think of a cue.