On Saturday the dogs and I went to do some demonstration/activities for a boy scout event. We had groups of kids rotating throughout the morning. The hardest part was the 30 minute time limit!
I’d debated for a few weeks on the activities to do. We started with a quick mechanical skill practice (food into a cup, one at a time, then adding in the click then food in the cup, then seeing a behavior, click, food in the cup).
We discussed targeting and it’s applications. And then did a targeting activity with Griffin. Nose to hand. Click. Feed. It was perfect because we could use 3 kids, one for the hand, one for the click, one for feeding. After 5 or so reps, we rotated, and did that a number of times.
Next, we listed all the fun sport/hobby things to do with dogs that we could think of and all the serious work. And then we picked a behavior to train and talked about how to break it down. Most groups picked retrieve and jumping….. we spent about 5 minutes on each, making a training plan, running through steps, and switching roles. Griffin thought it was great.
And we ended with questions and some showing off with tricks. For me, it was most exciting that we had several people talk about training their cats. And we talked to one kid who does carting with his goat through 4-H.
It was a perfect day, I hope we get to do more of these!