You know what I mean. The behavior your dog has done thousands of times in many many different places successfully. Then one day you ask for it and instead she throws out this weird string of behavior vomit and you go, “What the heck dog?!”
That.
Zora and I had a session of that this morning. “Zora, mark.” She runs right over it, passes it about 10′ then looks confused. Okay….walk her over to the mark reward 2 front feet on it a couple of times. Then reset, closer this time. “Zora, mark.” She takes a hard 90′ turn away from me and runs around a cone 30′ away. Seriously, dog?! Walk her back over to it, reward 2 front feet on the mark a couple of times, a behavior and cue she’s done successfully I don’t know how many countless times in her life. She can usually reliably send to a mark from up to 100′ away. Heck usually my challenge is working on her not sucking to the marks, and getting her to do them only on stimulus controlled cue. Today she had major brain farts. And reset, even closer. “Zora, mark.” She tentatively moves to the mark and steps up on it. “YES!!!!! That’s your mark!”
Rolling my eyes, seriously dog. You know this.
Another instance of ‘train the dog in front of you.’ Cuz a detailed review of “Mark” certainly wasn’t on my training plan for today. The directionals practice I had planned shall have to wait.
