Viva learning to foot target - Part 1

Viva says "What are we doing with this thing?" 

We are going to doing some foot targeting!  Here's a great link talking about targeting. 

 

Targeting: This seemingly frivolous behavior has numerous practical applications.

Here is one of my past posts where I used targeting as a starting point with Catty:

 

Using force free training to work through the dreaded nail trim

This was Viva's first try with learning this fun game and wow did she pick it fast!  I start off with shaping - as soon as any part of her body touches the pod I mark that.  I assumed this would take some time but, as usual Viva surprises me!  Watch how excited she is with this game - that's even with my slow deliver of a food reinforcer.

I love this video of Viva and my delivery of the food reinforcer is much quicker! 

What I love about the video is how she's thinking about what behavior will produce the food reinforcer.  She's a smart girl for sure!

Then we had a distractor but, that didn't slow down Viva!

"I love this game!"
 

So, why am I doing this with Viva.  Lots of reasons! It's great brain enrichment, she's interacting with something that is a new experience for her and we are increases her problem solving ability.

However, the main reason is that I eventually want her to put her paw in the palm of my hand.  You may remember this video:

 That last second you can see that she pulls away when I touch her foot.  One way to work with getting Viva use to a human hand touch her feet is by playing this game where she will voluntarily put her foot in the palm of my hand.  No force by me and it will be a fun game for Viva.