Day 9: Intro to Teeter (Patreon)

On this day I introduced Denver to the teeter. I have zero aspirations of doing agility with Denver, but this type of experience can prepare him for other things like elevators where the floor might suddenly drop a little bit, or where there's a sudden loud noise associated with a footstep, like on some sewer grates. When he has control over the drop/noise happening, and he has fun with those potentially scary things, it can build confidence in other environments.

Items of note:

1) I apparently had no rhyme or reason to my marking on this one, using "yes" "nice" and "awesome". Note that this didn't seem to matter to Denver, but going forward, I should probably clean that up for clarity sake. And this is why we video ourselves! :)

2) Notice how I make sure it's not going to slam the first few times by hand lowering it, and using my foot to stabilize it. I was pretty sure he would be totally fine with it, but starting slow is never a bad thing.

3) Once he jumped on on his own the first time, I immediately rewarded so he didn't have time to have any negative feelings about the noise.

4) I end the session by picking up the piece of equipment.