experiments...

So I did some experiments this week.  One,  almond milk & pudding mix does not thicken very well.  Two, getting dogs to pay attention to me when coming out of the house.  My dogs have good recalls but when we first exit the door for walks things are a little crazy.  Wicket is so excited up races out the door (once released on cue) and makes a line between me & the tree line (bunnies & squirrels oh my).  During the back and forth runs of Wicket, Chloe is afraid she will miss the fun critters too.  Now Wicket never leaves my sight but Chloe does & comes back 85% of the time when called.  I have been working on ways to keep them from doing their ritual run out the door.  Treats work with Chloe but once I am done Wicket still goes crazy & makes his frantic run.  So, I tried toys.  Well, well I think we found a winner.  I pulled out several toys & let the dogs tug with me when they came out.  Since I only have two hands & have to push a stroller they had to take turns as we walked.  Once I told them all done they would walk a head of me & we would play recall games.  If the dog came, that I called, fast on the first call they got to tug with me.  This was way more fun then all the critters in the woods.  Now I have a way to reinforce my recalls, not running crazy when first leaving the house and that mama is lots of fun.  Granted this was not difficult for my dogs since they have a recall foundation.  Think outside the box for the behaviors you want to change.  -Heidi