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Guilty!
Noodle offers jambettes and 'spanish nearly walk' all the time!
Yes - she has caught me a few times in the shin! And yes - I will extinguish some of it later - I guess I do extinguish some now not least because otherwise that's all we'll train for if she has her way - she loves it so! But I don't want to flatten any of her enthusiasm and she is just learning that she can work the treat dispenser!!!!!
Yup, me too!
Shin bonking has happened occasionally as well...and we're working on the "please don't do this when you're likely to clip Leigh on the shin" as part of a larger "this is what personal space actually means" project with Circe. (Not a concept she came equipped with!)
I created this possibility, in part, because I've been cueing her to work towards Spanish walk while standing in front of her. And she has SUCH a lovely extension! But, while it's done with energy, it's not done with force, so the contact is mild -- usually more surprising than anything!
Both my guys offer leg lifts/jambettes a lot -- they are one of the few things so far that they offer on their own, and I love that and want to encourage it. They think it's a really fun game!
Right now, I don't want to say "no, you're wrong" with this kind of exercise -- I'm really trying to eliminate that message except in moments where they're doing something that I really don't like.
Sometimes I'll push past it when I'm asking for something else, reward it for a couple of lifts instead of what I'm asking for, and then say "that's lovely, but can we try this now?" and ask for the new movement again. That seems to make sense to them. Circe almost unilaterally is wiling to shift gears after one or two asks, and I'm finding that it's an indicator with Stardust -- if he's up for the other movement/exercise, he'll shift gears quickly, too. If he doesn't want to do the other exercise, he'll continue to offer the leg lift.
I guess this is a version of our highly unscientific free shaping experimentation!
Leigh
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