Goat Diaries Blog by Alexandra Kurland

[Nanno]

We actually did kind of break it down. "Pick up" was learned very quickly and he was ready to progress after about 2-3 minutes. "Drop" is also coming along well since he can't take a treat without first letting go of the cloth. I do break these things down, but sometimes it's difficult to figure out exactly where and how to break it down without losing the point of the activity. Goals are very important to Sputnik--he wants to know "why". If he figures out that I want him to bring me something it will click. He can learn all the little parts of an activity, but if he doesn't understand the overarching goal, he gets frustrated very quickly.

I also don't want to train the wrong thing. He already learned to go to a target and come back to me without picking up the target. Naturally he's wanting to do the same thing when I say "fetch". So I don't want to click and reward him for just going over to touch the rag with his nose. He needs to actually pick it up and carry it to me a short distance so he understands the distinction. Right now he's only carrying it about 2-3 steps. We started with him picking up the rag and lifting it up to put it in my hand with no steps. Then I tossed it one step away, then two. I like that he's already doing this in a chain. We need to make the chain longer, not break it down into smaller chains. Breaking down what we have now would confuse him at this point. Hopefully I'll have time to work on it some more today.