As you may know, I’m planning to run off and join the circus with Bud for a few months, travel around the country, write and blog about the experience. I’ve told Maria, but she seems to be taking it in stride.
This is a perfect next chapter for me, something I’ve wanted to do my whole life.
Of course, I have to first teach Bud some tricks, and the first one is to catch treats from a distance. Not a big trick, but the best we have for now. We can build up to better things, we have a good working relationship now.
But loves training for the circus. All he has to do is sit, watch me, and catch a treat. There’s no downside for him. I’ve got to figure out the right distance.
The thing is, he doesn’t mind of the treat bounces off of his thick head first, I’m training him to follow it through the air, open his mouth and catch it. It works all the time at a certain distance, it the arc is high enough, he can spot it, open his mouth to catch it.
If I’m too close or too far, or if I don’t throw it high enough, it will bounce off his nose or his head. I shoot for three of three in any session, and once he does that, we stop – you know, end on a high note.
Maria is laughing at me for this, I know, but I have faith we will get there. Come along and watch.
I’m surprised you want to run off to the circus as it appears that there are moments when you have a circus of your own at the farm—3 rings and all with you as the ring master or maybe it’s Maria. I say this in jest as there have been moment s in my life when it too appeared to be a circus of 3 rings. Gotta love a circus no mater what or where it is. Keeps one smiling and humble.
This is a good idea, to be sure. The circus will not know what hit it. But I can’t help but think though that Bud is training YOU to join the circus. It’s you who is trying to learn how to throw, more than he who is trying to learn to catch. This makes sense, since there is something you want (a successful catch) that keeps you trying. he, on the other hand, gets a treat whether he catches or misses. It’s win-win for him. I wonder, following positive training ideas, if it might work to add some extra incentive or marker, like a click (from a clicker) if he correctly catches, or a followup treat when he catches (to demarcate a catch from a miss in his mind)? Probably I am taking it too seriously (sorry!) and you may not really want to join the circus after all, hard as THAT is to believe. Maybe what you are really showing us is how to have gentle low expectations fun with a dog who needs it… and that of course makes total sense. Still, the circus is such a great idea….
🙂