Goat Diaries Blog by Alexandra Kurland

[Sanhestar]

this is a good start.

Just a short caveat regarding the touching with mouth open: you will always get what you click and that behaviour will become more pronounced. So it would be good if you shifted your criteria - after the touching the target is solid enough - towards "touch with nose only".

Especially in the beginning, do short sessions. I'm not sure if Alexandra talks about it in the Diaries. Count out 20 treats and when you have finished these 20 treats (keep a few for an "end of session"-ritual) take a short break, assess how the training went and start anew, counting out again 20 treats.

I'm currently working with two yearlings. They haven't yet learned to share the attention and training game, so I separate them and let them take turns. One is playing the clicker game with me while the other is eating a handfull of treat out of a bucket. When he is finished, I switch.

The switches occur rather quickly, about every two minutes or so. But I see good learning with these short sessions and frequent breaks to give them time to think.

I think, Finn will be an excellent teacher for slin-slicing and raising criteria slowly.

Well done, all four of you!