We’re making quick work of the toy traffic cone. Gus now lifts it off the ground a few inches and holds it long enough for me to reach down and take it. Each day, I hold my hand higher — and no click unless he touches it with the cone. Like many cone-carrying horses I’ve seen, Gus likes to nod his head to flap the cone up and down, so the instant it flops onto my hand, I click.
I’ve trained dogs to pick up, hold, and bring a dumbbell, which, for reasons passing understanding, is one of the hardest obedience exercises to teach. Dogs will grab and run with a stick, but tell them to take a dumbbell, and go even more insane by asking them to walk even one step while holding it, and they’re thunderstruck. “That’s totally impossible! I’d be glad, however, to offer you a sit-stay.” Training it forcibly with an ear-pinch or solely positively with a clicker, or by any method in between, the dumbbell retrieve typically takes weeks and weeks. For horses, which possess no natural instinct for retrieving, it usually takes many months of inch-by-inch progress.
Gus makes gains with every session, and he rarely takes any backward steps — once he learns it, he’s got it. We spend two or three sessions raising my hand until it’s at my waist and also a bit ahead of his nose. He stretches his neck to hand it to me; when he opens his teeth to let the cone go, he gets the treat. If I stand farther than a neck’s length away, though, he won’t move his feet toward me. Then one day, as I lay down the wooden mat, Gus veers off and picks up a cone. I didn’t cue him to the cone, so I ignore him. (We’re working on “leave it” for just such an occasion, but he hasn’t quite cottoned on yet.) I show him the mat, but he won’t leave the cone. So I try calling him away from it: “Come to me!” And damned if he doesn’t walk three or four paces over to me, holding the cone the whole way. Click! He’s never done anything like this before, but he repeats the feat a few times on cue. Click! and a whole jackpot of treats. Not to mention ear-scritches and hosannas.
The next session, when I back away as Gus picks up the cone, he just stands there in a funk, then spits out the cone. I’m not surprised, and I go back to him, letting him hand it to me while stationary. We only do that a couple of times and then play with other toys for the rest of the session. Next visit, the magic returns: he doesn’t hesitate one instant but strides over to me with the cone, first time, every time. Show me a dog who can learn that fast, and I’ll show you a donkey wearing a dog suit.
Lately our favorite cone trick — a chain of “pick it up,” “come to me,” and “step up” — has him fetching the cone and carrying it to me across a long distance to the pedestal, where he steps up and presents it aloft like a trophy.
Lately our favorite cone trick — a chain of “pick it up,” “come to me,” and “step up” — has him fetching the cone and carrying it to me across a long distance to the pedestal, where he steps up and presents it aloft like a trophy.
No comments:
Post a Comment