First Session of "Hold" Behavior (Patreon)

Hey Everyone! 

Today I introduced two new concepts to Osa's repertoire. I recently learned that it would be beneficial for me to teach her a hold for a project we're doing at Fidelco. There's a few ways to teach a hold, but I've found the most successful way for me is to teach it with two different foundation behaviors: bite the object, and chin target. Once I have both behaviors I will add duration using reverse luring (check back in with the post on the "Impulse Control" game) and then I will combine the two behaviors (ask Osa to bite and then use the chin rest to create a steady hold without chomping). 

Unfortunately, I don't have dumbbell with me or a wooden dowel (what I would usually start with) so I just started here with her toy. Notice if she doesn't bite, I take the toy away. Now, I know that she is a biter and generally bites toys so this is a likely behavior when presented iwth a toy. If she struggled with biting, i would first start with clicks for orienting to the object, then touching the object with her nose, then double touch, then wait for bite. But fortunately, she's a mouthy one  so I  get to skip a few steps. 

The chin rest starts with me just balancing my hand under her chin for a split second. The goal is to progress that to her reaching her chin down to my hand when presented. 

This is my general game plan for her and you can see the first steps above. That being said, game plans change based on the learner in front of me so I'll keep posting our progress so you can see what we're up to in regards to teaching the hold behavior. 

Happy Training Ya'll! :)