As soon as she saw the db, she grabbed it hard. Big praise, and reward. We went through 4 reps of that, and then I put it down to the floor. She immediately grabbed it, and I praised/fed her. I was sitting on the floor, and only looking for her to grab it.
Since all seemed to be well settled in her head, I decided to move forward to the next step: lifting from the floor to my hand. I wondered if she'd balk at this sudden increase in criteria and was pleasently surprised at the answer: nope! She picked it up and held it long enough that I was able to bend down and get it (from a standing position). Huge praise and a small jackpot of food.
We worked through quite a few reps, took a balance break of tug inbetween to keep arousal level high, and returned to grabbing from the floor. There were two failures, in which she dropped the db before I could bend down to take it. Nothing from me, and she immediately picked it up again and held it til I got it. GOOD girl!! :)
Final rep was one in which she picked it up (while she was standing), and then held it long enough to put herself into a sit (I have no clue why she sat, and at this point, it matters not). I was thrilled with the progress that we'd made and ended it there with a huge jackpot.
Plan to work on this some more tomorrow, with the goal of her bringing it up to my hand, without me bending over at all. We finished our evening with a good game of tug, and she retired to her crate with a bit of pig's ear.
2 May 2012: Worked a bit more with this today, here's some footage from our work this afternoon. :)
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