Catty wants to try out the scratch board

Catty LOVES and I seriously mean LOVES to train!  When I started getting serious about training with Catty I remember telling our trainer Lori Stevens that Catty was just too smart for me.  I had a pretty steep learning curve to catch up to Catty.  But, with my practice and her being forgiving of my early days of working with a marker - we now have lots of fun together.   

 

So once D'light and I were finished with our morning scratch board work, I decided to try out introducing the scratch board to Catty.  This silly gal frequently make me laugh as you will soon see why...

 

 

"What are we doing and it must have something to do with this board!!"

 

 

blurry tail - she's so excited!!

Here we go... you can see that Catty and D'light have very different training styles!    Catty is so excited to work and you can see her quickly trying to sort out what I'm asking of her.  I'm not being a 100% clear in what I'm asking her thus her throwing her feet like she's doing. Another bonus of ongoing training is that you get to really know the subtleties of the dog in front of you.  This is also why video is good during training sessions!  We did this for a bit and then it was time for a break.
 



I'd put the board away thinking we were done...  Catty didn't agree!

This is where I found her (she's in front of the board).  These days Catty will give us a sit pretty when she's asking for something - again silly dog!



 

"Why are we stopping, we just got started!"

 

I decide we can work some more and off we go.  Catty is a very "excited" learner and what I'm wanting to mark is that scratching of her nails on the board.  I'm also sorting out what we need in the next board to make this work well.

I turn the board around and this works well. At this point Catty has been doing the scratch board work for no more than 10 minutes total and Miss Smarty Pants has the concept down!

 

Next we will work on duration of the scratching and then we will move onto working at the back nails.  So, the question that you might be asking is why I'm doing this since I can cut Catty's nails with nail clippers.  Well, this is a very fun game for her, it builds our training relationship and I get to practice more precise marking during this game.

 

 

Catty says "Why are we stopping?!"

 

blurry tail again!

"Mom I really want to keep doing this!"

 

 

Love my super smart Catty girl!