Communication

An early start to fit in a good dog walk before work. Then a work seminar before going to the training hall at 3 pm.

I want to share a video with you today. It is a bit of a nerdy training video. 

There’s certainly a lot in this video that could have been done better and more precisely. It’s never easy to watch oneself being impatient or working with unclear criteria. And yet, this video makes me genuinely happy!

Since Clicker Expo Live in January, I’ve been working on giving Xmas a “voice” — a way for him to tell me when my training becomes unclear, without having to resort to frustration behaviors.

In this video, he communicates twice that he doesn’t understand my criteria. That makes me both proud and genuinely thrilled — to see how confidently he now offers that communication.

Xmas always has the choice of going to his bed and be rewarded for that. Most times he will choose to stay with me and have fun with the challenges that I come up with, but if it becomes difficult or frustrating, he will choose to be rewarded for going to his bed instead. 

I love to see him have a choice.

Happy weekend
Emmy and the Hazyland Boys