Tripawds Three Legged Dog & Cat Forum Archives

You should definitely share Nellie's acrobatic antics! Loki would love to be an agility dog, but she came to the wrong human for that. She treats the world as her parkour course. Until she encounters a shiny or shadowy surface...

Oh that sounds cool! 

Loki seems to have outgrown this particular behavior. She used to ricochet around the living room, bounce off the seat of the couch, use the top of the backrest to execute a quick turn, and land with her fore legs resting on my shoulder. Snuggling with Loki can be a full contact sport. 

So back to the ramp.... It's miserably hot but the humidity is low, so I dragged the ramp outside. The girls took a couple of passes at it flat on the ground, then I propped it against a bench. Tempest went up and down no problem. Loki went up and jumped off the bench, but I successfully lured her down the ramp once. At this stage, they're off leash and having a bit of a free for all. I another day or two I'll work them individually on leash. Loki is super keyed up because we haven't done much while the weather is gross, so I'm not sure if we have a visual cliff issue or if she's just excited. I know she likes to jump. 

Did I remember to take photos/video? Nope. Someday.... 

Well, the temperature is much more tolerable this week, but it's also raining.  So we haven't had a lot of training opportunities.  Yesterday ended up being pretty dry, so I set up the ramp on the patio using two of the benches that go with my dining table as a "platform".  This gave us a height of about 18", so a very gentle incline.  I worked each dog individually on leash walking up the ramp, turn around on the platform, then back down.  Lots of cookies.  Both dogs did great!  Tempest almost fell off the ramp a couple of times because she was more focused on the fact that I cookies.

jerry said
PS Be careful what you ask for with a snowy winter. I'll send some your way from here in Alaska if you'd like!

  

As a life long New Englander and Subaru driver, I am very comfortable with snow.  I would be extremely happy to live in a world where the temperature never exceeded 75F.

I consider myself to be a big picture person, which makes taking things slowly a challenge for me.  Loki has taught me that I can't rush her through things.  If I want to maintain her trust, we have to work at a level she can handle. 

I'm also playing the extremely long game of I know I will never be able to compete in nosework with Loki if I cannot reach the point where she trusts that I will never ask her to walk on a surface she can't handle.  We are nowhere near that point.  I would love to compete with her (she's so good at it!), but I won't ask her to do that with me if she won't enjoy it.

Aw, thanks. I'm working hard at it. Her trust is very fragile. She's started falling asleep with her head on my leg sometimes, which is huge. She has a very big sleep startle. 

I have some updates on the ramp training that I'll post tomorrow when I'm at a real computer. I don't enjoy dealing with photos from mobile.