he so wants to please you. (Or possibly he wants to find a way to get you to hand over some sausage...
For Carbon, these two things are the same.
In order to film for your trainer could you set up a camera to one side so that Carbon doesn't see you holding it - I wonder if that might encourage him to relax.
Main problem is my cludgy big camera with no tripod. I kind of have to hold it unless it's something I can film from table height.
@snowbunny sent me her old GoPro but before my surgery I bought the wrong size SD card for it. D'oh!
So I can't use it yet. As soon as I can get out and get a new SD card, then I can use the GoPro with the chest harness I also bought for it. That will make a huge difference in filming these types of games.
It's all fine in any case as the purpose was really to film our first attempt and get our trainer to tell me everything I'm doing wrong. I like to do it that way vs. working and working on a game only to find out at the end of the week that I've made a hash of it.
What is a "settle"? What are you trying to shape here? (I know, I sound like I'm channelling Carbon....)
The end goal is to have him lay on his mat and truly relax, so hips shifted to the side, head down, maybe even laying on his side. The written instructions I was following said to only mark and reward when he was truly relaxed, which never really happened in our first attempt.
After our trainer watched the video, she clarified that I could mark any incremental move towards relaxing, such as looking away from me, moving into a down position (like when he play bow stretches as one point). My other mistake was that I was using the same mat that we use for the 'Go Mat" game, so he's expecting a much higher and more frequent reward...not to mention associating the mat with another behaviour entirely. So different mat, NO food rewards and more incremental marking.
"Settle" is really important for an SD because 1/2 of their lives is waiting around. The end goal is that dog will lay by your side completely relaxed in any environment. For us at the moment it's also key because it's a stepping stone to teaching him to go under an airplane seat, lay down and relax. You teach that by combining the Go Mat game with the Settle game.
Carbon has been doing Settle outdoors for quite some time and is pretty good at it, especially when it's just the two of us working together or at the Irish pub with Nadine and Fine. He catches on quicker in a high-distraction environment, so at home is always harder for him - he's kind of a reverso-dog in that way.
