Pod Training

With Venom out of commission for nearly a month recovering from his obstruction surgery, I felt like I haven't been doing too much with him.  Of course, I stack him on the kitchen table or counter all the time, but I hadn't done any really fun training with him for a while.

I had ordered a set of Fitness Pods made by FitPaws.  The pods are four, rubbery, half spheres, each a different color that can be used to teach balance.  They can also be used to help train dogs to stack for the show ring.  My pods arrived and I decided to start working on them with Venom.  I videotaped his first training session with the pods.

My training plan was that I would choose a pod color for each foot.  I would start with one pod and put the pod down on the ground and begin to reinforce any interest in the pod, building up to touching with his foot and then lifting his foot.  I started with the left front pod and quickly realized that he was offering his right front pod more readily, so I switched to the right front pod.  I made other changes within the very first session like changing where I was positioned and how I was delivering the reinforcer.  I do not reinforce any foot touches with his left front foot, only the right front, for now.

This first video shows that first session.  This video was taken just minutes after I introduced the pod.

After this session, I realized that the pod was sliding around too much so I added a bath mat to keep the pods more stationary.  There were a few sessions after the one above and what was happening was that he was stepping onto the pod with the correct foot but had no place to put his other foot, so I made the decision 

to add a second pod, for the left front foot.  He did quite well!

As you can see, Venom's tail is going the whole time.  There were a few moments of frustration where he lied down and barked, but I could see he was still enjoying the problem solving so I went ahead and let him figure it out for himself.  I was happy with how the session went.