As we alluded to last week during our crash course in elevator training, we identified the issue to be unsteady footing and not the moving part of the experience. In addition to elevators Cooper has acted similarly on shaky metal flooring at the Badger basketball game. So for this week's focus we went back to school, literally.
On Monday, I took both dogs for a walk. The plan was to use Monte as mentor and have Cooper follow and gain confidence. Our training took place on the metal bleachers at the high school football field. Since Monte was only a few months old we walked up and down the steps a few times every week, so he has no fear. When they are together Cooper is Monte shadow, so he too raced up and down the stairs. There were only a few occasions when he showed any uneasiness.
We have repeated this for a couple days before Cooper and I went solo. In addition to the football stadium, we frequented the playground. The target of our training there was the wobbly bridge. Now we need to take our training and apply it to other situations which can be an issue because dogs are not good at generalizing.
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