Archie loves his little round tippy board. He will leap onto it from quite a distance, sticking his landing and sitting for his treat or release to the next obstacle--they are almost equally valuable to him now. His focus in agility has dramatically improved in the past three weeks. Looking forward to late December when he can begin competing in AKC, I got him a real teeter.
Someone else made the aluminum base but I prepared the plank. Priming, painting, surfacing--the board was ready when the base arrived.
Archie's initial introduction to the teeter did not go well. Archie was rather freaked out by the noisy, clanky frame. So I put that away in the garage and let him explore the plank by itself on the ground. With the mounting hardware on the bottom, the plank still rocked about 2 inches. After a couple of days, he was happily running back and forth along the plank to reach targets on either end. I then put a 4x4" post under the plank. It was really interesting to see Archie go through the process of exploring this thing, learning where the tip point was, and most importantly, learning that he controlled everything. That latter bit was most amazing. I could see his entire expression change the moment that he figured that out.
So today, a week after his new teeter base arrived, I hauled it back out and set it up at the lowest height. Even so, the teeter still had far too much tip, so I put a rolled up towel under the "down" end and piled up some cushions under the "up" end. These served two purposes--they made the teeter much quieter and they greatly reduced the distance that it would move. But with the increased height, the teeter is now a one-way obstacle, so I taped just a single target to the "up" end (I want him to race to the end and hold position there, riding it down to the ground then waiting for his release).
Archie watched me run Mimi over the teeter a few times, clicking as she hit the target. I also had two jumps, the table, and his tippy board out to serve as distractions from the teeter. As usual, I always run her first so that I can test out my set up. Plus Archie stands at the back door and gets very excited when I run Mimi. I want him to be high like that so he can learn to focus and run with control even in that state.
Then it was his turn. I clicked him for any interaction with the teeter, including jumping on then immediately off it. He even jumped over it a couple of times. Fine by me, that got a click and treat too. Then he noticed the target on the end. I put a treat on it--it was just higher than he could reach with his nose so he put his paw on the end of the board...and pulled it down so he could get the treat. I knew then that he was very close to putting it all together. After a couple of passes at the teeter, I ran him over the other obstacles. I didn't want to exhaust him mentally on just one thing. And this gave me the chance to reward happy tippy board actions--I use the same command for the tippy board and the teeter so I could reinforce the behavior.
Archie then started jumping on the teeter board just behind the tipping point. I clicked the moment he reached the tipping point and gave him many treats, one after the other, as he advanced past that point and the board began to move down. Like the other day, there was a very distinct moment when he realized that he was in control of everything. Within a couple of minutes, he was running the length of the board to the target. He even pulled off a jump to do the teeter instead. That was when I called it a day--it's best to finish on a high note if you can!
Not bad for a week of training.
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