I’ve been trying something new-ish with Loki and his dogwalk. I think it’s good. It’s a good concept. I’ll talk about it more if it works. We’ve probably had 3 sessions since starting, and I guess you could say it complements Silvia’s method in that it brings a bit more awareness to the importance of the end of the plank…
But we’re still sitting at about 50% JP’able hits. This isn’t great. The frustrating part is that even if I start from the same starting point, the hits are unpredictable. I really appreciate Lu now, because once I had a starting spot that worked for her, she’d hit the same way every time. Loki will do: average/good hit, JP! Leap, leap, leap, JP! All from the same spot. They’re not like, normal leaps either, they’re like an extension of the last stride so that his front-feet don’t have to hit at the bottom of the plank, even when there’s a long strip of carpet keeping it from looking like the bottom of the plank.
So I think I just need to remember in those leaping times, to stop after say, 2 leaps. Stop, reset, do the little extra ‘supplementary’ bit of the training – remind him how awesome the end of the plank is, and try again.
I just don’t know how else to solve this. It feels like we’re going to be stuck here forever. We could raise the plank, we could lower the plank, we could do good starting spots, we could change starting spots, we could back-chain, we could use carpet, we could throw a toy, we could drive to a toy, we could drive to a tunnel. I could give him a week’s break to think about it, I could keep going until he gets it.
There’s so many answers and this is truly the first time we haven’t been able to ‘get it’ and figure out a way to help him understand what he needs to do. And it feels so shit because he’s trying so hard and getting puffed and I’m just at a loss as to how to help him.
Maybe we’ll try to stop and reset.
Poor little Ro.
Life, iLumenated 