Took Kodi for a walk Saturday morning. He was such a good boy. We had a great opportunity to see if he could perform a simple task with his Halti and gear on.
You might remember that we had a problem in the past with him performing a simple 'pick it up' task when he was wearing his walking gear. We had worked and worked on it, following the directions of a Service Dog training organization, but it didn't go well at all.
Saturday, while walking we passed by an empty coffee cup, laying the middle of the road. It had a plastic lid on it and was a pretty large cup.
I decided to stop and ask him if he could pick it up. I asked him twice, as he nosed it, rolled it around a bit, seeming to assess how heavy it was. He tried to put his mouth around it, but it was pretty wide and smooth, so he had some trouble picking it up that way, so after mouthing it and figuring out the best way to pick it up, he gently took the edge of the cup lid in his mouth and picked up the cup.
He offered it to me, high enough so I could reach it. I took it from him and praised him over and over. What a good boy he was, picking up something that wasn't mine, that I hadn't dropped, something awkward, and with full gear on, handing it to me, rather than picking it up and dropping it again, which is something he sometimes does.
We have progressed in steps, as he's refused to pick something up at all for me, picked things up and dropped them again refusing to pick them up a second time and now he's picked up an item and handed it to me, while out in a public setting. I'm so proud of him!!!
We had walked to an outdoor flea market near home and mingled with people between the tables and displays. He had done okay, but was pretty skittish, not sure about all the people moving so close to me and the chair. Overall he had done well in an exercise meant to socialize him a bit.
As long as we are able to make a little progress, I'm happy. We do have some setbacks from time to time when I'm not so sure we'll ever be able to 'proof' in a public setting, but then he'll make a bit of progress and my confidence is renewed.
