Goat Diaries Blog by Alexandra Kurland

[Sanhestar]

this looks good! A few remarks:

I would ask him more often to "hold" the rag, as this is a part of the behaviour with which he still struggles.

You change criteria with regard to distance of the pick-up and bring it back behaviour very drastically and he shows you that the distance is too long for him by dropping the rag. You now have the beginning of a behaviour chain, were he drops the rag because it's too difficult for him to walk the longer distance with the rag in his mouth. You repeat the signal to pick up and then walk over to him - making the distance shorter.

So he learns, that he can drop the rag to get you to decrease the distance his has to walk when he feels he can't perform the complete behaviour. I would go back to shorter distances until he is solid and brings back the rag without dropping, hesitation or stopping on the walk to the rag and back towards you.