Thyme who?

Haha. No one would accuse me of working Thyme too hard.

She got her fourth formal training session yesterday. The weather was beautiful, so I worked with her outside. As always, there were challenging circumstances. One thing I have realized is that I have to grab whatever opportunities I have. We will never make progress if I'm always waiting for the perfect moment. In this case, Tyche was with her. It requires a bit of forethought to separate Tyche smoothly at this point and I just didn't have time yesterday. Last time I tried to separate them quickly, Thyme broke the door trying to follow Tyche. Thyme didn't see me closing the door and I didn't see her coming. Result -- a broken slider. Oy. (At least I didn't hurt Thyme, though I did scare the bejeezus out of her.)  Yesterday, Tyche stayed with her mama.

In the end, I think it may not be such a bad thing to have Tyche in the session with Thyme as long as she's not completely in the way. Tyche tends to be an attention hog. She is much more eager and willing than Thyme. That means she will do things that Thyme is not ready to do, but that Thyme can watch. This can not be bad.

For the training, I was on one side of a corral panel. Thyme and Tyche were on the other side. We practiced touching the target. This is the tip end of the green mop handle that I introduced last time. Thyme had no problem doing this and made only a few attempts at the very beginning to touch the handle somewhere else along the pole. The challenge for me was holding the target in a position that Thyme could reach, but Tyche could not. This meant alot of reaching above Thyme's head, which she is not crazy about, but will do. Better than last time certainly. Periodically, I gave Tyche a turn. They both crowded the fence.

After 5 or 10 minutes of this, I upped the ante a bit. (Did I mention, I can be impatient.) Instead of rewarding Thyme for touching the tip of the target with her nose, I wanted to reward her for letting me touch her nose with the tip of the target.  On my first attempt, I lightly tapped the tip of the handle on her blaze, halfway between her nose and eyes. She rocketed straight up in the air.  Such a subtle, but important difference. The speed and location of the target relative to her were virtually identical to what came before. Nonetheless, when the contact was caused by me instead of by her, she lost her cool. Amazing.

She was both startled (clearly) and a bit confused about this turn of events. She held back and approached the fence much more reluctantly after this. Each time when she got close enough I tapped her with the target. Always around her nose area.  I couldn't even come close to reaching past her nose area without her moving away. No poll, no neck, no shoulder, not even her cheek. I intermingled trials of her being touched with trials allowing her to touch the target herself. I also, I should say, reduced the schedule of grain reinforcement around this time. Which is to say, I am no longer giving her a bite of grain at every single click.

I can not say that Thyme acclimated to being touched with the target. But something equally interesting did happen. While Thyme was hanging back, fearful of being touched, Tyche was center stage begging for attention. So I tried giving Tyche a couple of taps with the target. Now, I should say, Tyche doesn't have any extraordinary problems being touched. She loves having her nose and face and ears scratched. But, she is still an untrained baby for the most part and doesn't, for instance, like having her legs touched or her feet picked up. When I reached out and touched her shoulder with the target, she didn't jump, she just tried to grab the pole with her mouth; even more so when I tried to touch her legs with the pole. It only took a few trials to get her to stop though. She very quickly figured out that there was no click and no grain when she mouthed the pole. After, I would say, only 3 or 4 trials during which I withheld the reward while she mouthed the pole, she figured out that she needed to stand still while I touched her back, her legs, her shoulder, etc.. She was quite receptive to this idea. Meanwhile, Thyme was thoughtfully, if somewhat apprehensively, watching the whole interaction.

I wrapped up the session with a few more trials for Thyme, allowing her to come touch the target for a reward of grain. I did this only so she could end on a positive note.

A few miscellaneous notes.

1. Since our last session (Training day n), I have definitely felt that Thyme is less apprehensive of me in general. She seems less likely to startle when I approach her stall undetected -- for filling her water bucket for instance. In the past, I have sometimes caused a one-horse stampede when feeding and watering her. She is also more eager to come up to me at the gate if she does notice me first. And as always, if she sees me when my back is turned, she will come right up and stick her nose in my back. For obvious reasons, I try not to put myself in that situation. I do not want to end up in the path of the one-horse stampede.

2.  I got another slight indication of Thyme's sensitivity to my attentional orientation (whether I am looking at her or not) while working yesterday. It was beyond the scope of what I wanted to accomplish in the session, so I didn't pursue it. At first I had trouble offering the target to Thyme in a way that Tyche couldn't beat her to. I held the target in my right hand with the clicker in the palm of the same hand. This way I could hold the cup of grain in the left hand while keeping it clear and out of the way. With this arrangement I could easily stretch the target up and far to my right, while facing Thyme. She in turn had no trouble following this action and doing what she needed to do (touching the target). But to stretch the target out to my left while holding it up over Tyche's head, required me to reach my right hand far across my body. This in turn caused my body to swivel to the left, in effect turning my back on Thyme. In these cases, Thyme refused to approach. I wondered at the time if this was related to her understanding of my attentional focus. This configuration, 'back turned, but target offered' is very conflicting information if you are trying to understand the actor's intent. It would not be surprising if a deeply timid animal responded to such conflict with hesitation. "I'd rather just be safe and stay back, lady. You can keep the grain." Hmmm.

3.  Also, since I posted last, I have had a few informal clicker sessions with Boomerang. Which is to say, I took him for a walk with the clicker. I used it to reward moments of not pulling on the leash. I have to admit that my motivation and focus are less strong with Boomer, so I can only give broad impressions. Maybe he got the message. Maybe he pulled a bit less on the leash by the end. I'm not sure. I also got him to practice sitting and lying down some and those he's definitely improved on. His improvement can be felt in the house in daily interactions as well.