Saturday October 7th 2006 - team practice (TTH)

(Backfilled in October 2009 due to impending closure of Geocities)

Great news: Walter is now consistently taking the magical treat ball from the ledge! Jenn suggested a brilliant idea a week ago, which is to cut a slit in a tennis ball and put treats inside, and practice having him get the ball and being fed the treats from the ball. So I've been doing that this week, and it has worked! He took the treat ball every single time today, never leaving it behind, including once when it fell off the ledge, always bringing it straight to me. The first time we put the ball on the ledge today he only put his hands on the box, so we did another warm-up turn without ball and he got all four on the box every subsequent time except one of the first attempts. We progressed to starting him from two jumps back, me following along beside him as far as the first jump, and starting from a few jumps back instead of right at the box seemed to make it easier for him. I videotaped today's session and from watching in slow-mo I can see that his earlier attempts were kind of unsure, footwork-wise, but by the end of the practice he was starting to look like a pro. He seemed to really enjoy today's practice, which was nice to see. At the next practice (which will be a couple of weeks from now) we'll start fading out the magic treat ball.