Moving in!

Fizz has settled right in here with us as if she never knew any differently. None of the household noises phase her at all, she's great with the kids, and Miss Vik thinks she's pretty cute. Because of the size difference in Vik and Fizz, they're not having play time together yet.

Fizz started her training today. Emilie and I worked on restrained recalls. I had freeze-dried turkey liver, aka Puppy Crack, Emilie held her with a hand under her belly and one on her chest. From 5 to 10 feet away, I'd call, and Em would let her explosively release, racing to me. We worked it for about 2 minutes, and then had a great tour of the back yard, and played Leaf Chase. The idea is that she will come to me on the first call of her name, no matter the location or distraction. In order to work up to such a strong recall, I need to put a lot of deposits into that "account" in the Bank of Fizz. We will play recall games 2-3x per day, varrying the games but always having fun and big reward for coming to me. This will build a lot of value for me in Fizz's world.

I also worked on teaching her what her name is. We were out back with low to moderate distraction (the environment). When she was a few feet away from me, and finishing sniffing something, as her head came up, I called her name once, and then fed her puppy crack when she came to me. She caught on to this quickly! We'll work on it more around the house tomorrow. I'll keep a pocket full of various treats and any time her distraction level is low and she's near to me, I'll call her name and feed (or offer a game of tug).

Our final training session was playing Susan Garrett's "Its Your Choice" (aka IYC) with her dinner kibble. She was very excited to see her evening meal. I took a roughly half-filled 1/4C scoop into the den and sat on the floor, she followed quickly with me. I offered her two pieces of kibble individually, in order to get her interest up. Then, as she approached the scoop, I put my hand covering it. She spent a solid 45-60 sec trying to get into that scoop: shoving her nose between my fingers, biting on my fingers, and finally, digging furiously at me with two paws.

As soon as she gave up the digging and laid still, I said "yes!" smiled, and quickly grabbed a piece of kibble with the other hand and fed it to her. She went right back to trying to get into the scoop, and worked even harder. However, this time, she stopped and looked at me. I already had a piece of kibble in my hand and immediately put it in front of her nose.....she snarfed it right down. The light went on, and she'd look at the kibble scoop, then back at me. Each time she looked at me, I'd say "yes!" and feed. I was able to take my hand off and away from the scoop, which was sitting mere inches from her on the floor. She stopped looking at it all together and I jack-potted her. One more attempt to get into the scoop, followed by a very solid sit and look at me for several rewards. As she held my gaze, I told her "get it!" and released her to the final few pieces that were in the scoop. This whole session lasted 4 minutes. VERY happy with how well she did! The lightbulb moment in IYC was a lot of fun to see.

Tomorrow's plans include more recall games, more Name Game, and teaching a nose touch to palm. Also hoping to start Crate Games, now that food drive is showing up strongly.