A Tale of Two Kittens and One Puppy

Over his Christmas/New Year’s break, my husband built me (and the dogs) a mini-teeter. Chester absolutely loved the teeter until the first time we let him do it unassisted. He didn’t seem particularly bothered about it that day, but he began to act squirrely about it afterwards; jumping off before he got to the pivot point.

So I decided that having a teeter to work with at home would be helpful.

The very first couple of times we tried him on it he seemed fine. But true to what’s going on with him and the teeter, he was soon jumping off of it before the pivot point again.

If I put something under it to soften the impact, as I did in the photo below, he was fine with it. But the minute we took away that aid, he’d start jumping off of it again.

I wasn’t planning to even try using it for Lola yet. She’s just begun her teeter training, and I don’t want to undermine that. However, I decided that I would back things up even further for Chester: I’d simply put the teeter plank on the ground. Lola didn’t even want to touch it, but she often has the reaction to new things. So I broke out the good stuff: cheese.

After a couple of days for being clicked and treated for simply looking at the plank, or putting a paw on the plank, Lola was happily walking the plank.

My husband cut down a few pieces of PVC even shorter, so that the teeter was even closer to being on the ground. I trained Chester with the cheese and the plank on the ground for a couple of days, and then used the teeter at its new, lower height — and he was quite happy to do it without any aid at all.

At class, Chester is still happy to do the teeter as long as the instructor is assisting us. But I want him to get to the point where he can do it on his own. Since we’re doing whole courses by now, sometimes, it’s a pain having to have someone assist me — especially since Chester is the only dog who needs assistance in our class. Hopefully with the extra training at home, he’ll soon be happily doing the teeter by himself in class.

Technorati Tags: mini-teeter, teeter, pivot point, clicked and treated, PVC