Well, its day two of my training experiment. I got started rather late, and I wanted to use a different treat than carrots, since we went through them too fast. Plus they stained my finger tips orange. So I dug through our fair supplies, looking to see if I could find that bag of liquorish treats they really liked. I was successful, but there was a lot less than I thought. Maybe a handful at most. But the small pellets would be ideal rewards. Full of flavor but small enough to use as a small reward and not to fill them up.
So I went out with my new treat in my pocket, and Lissa was ready and waiting at the fence as soon as I was there. I let her out, and she went wandering around first, chasing the chickens a bit like she liked to do. But then I pulled in her focus and said "touch!". It delighted me that she remembered! She touched my hand and quickly looked for her treat. She was not disappointed.
I went through the touch exercise for a few minutes to make sure that she had it down pat. I tried "stay" again, and got some progress, but wasn't getting too far. Still, I worked on it for a bit, but I could tell she was getting bored with it. So I moved on.
"spin" was next on my list of ideas. At first I tried it with me standing stationary and getting her to rotate a bit. She dug her heels in and refused to budge. I forced her hips around a bit, then clicked. She started being slightly less resistant, but not enough to make much progress. So I tried to show her what I wanted, by walking around, next to her hip, in a circle. This did work better than the original idea, but still she would rather stand still and try to follow me around without moving more than her head.
I went back to "touch" for a bit while I tried to brainstorm how else to do "spin". At one point, Lissa was the one who figured it out for herself. It was not the spin I had imagined, but I noticed that because we had started with the "touch", Lissa was very willing to elaborate on that rather than to start fresh with something else. So I started having her follow my hand. She was VERY good at this. The only problem was she tended to get distracted when she came to the pocket she knew the treats were in. And she often times believed she deserved a treat, whether or not she did the trick properly. But soon I could get her to go almost all the way around me before a "click" and a treat. We'll need a lot more training to get it so that she can do it without direction, but I think she's up to it.
With all this training, I soon ran out of the liquorish treats, so I grabbed a handful of chicken feed (non medicated layer) which I knew she loved. We went back to working on the "follow" move, which she was also VERY good at. This trick sprouted from her loving to follow me when I tried to back up, so I led her around the field, and as soon as I stopped, she did too. So she got a reward for that.
We worked more on "spin" and "touch" and then I decided to try "foot". This was another difficultly, because rather than understanding to lift her foot, she'd reach down with her nose to touch my hand and then expectantly look for a treat. After a little while she was getting frustrated and kept pawing at the ground. Which I decided was close enough. "click" treat. She couldn't quite connect the treat with the action, but she was getting better. I decided to end on a good note with a few more "touch". Then I used "follow" to get her back to the pen.
I grabbed some more hen pellets for Rosie and pulled her out of the pen. I put a leash on her this time, because she was very impatient and would wander away. She too remember the "touch" "click" treat, which made me very happy. But it was soon apparent she wasn't as fond of the chicken food as was her mom and Lissa. So I scattered the rest for the chickens and got her some real grain. This got her attention much better.
After refreshing with "touch" for a bit. I decided I would try and teach her something that Lissa couldn't do, since she was more interested in my affection than the food. I started teaching her "foot" tapping the back of her knee with my clicker hand. When she lifted her foot or shifted her weight from it, I quickly "clicked" then treat. She was better at it than Lissa, but never quite lifted her hoof without prompting. That'll be for another day.
Eventually not even her own sweet grain could keep her interested for ever. She eventually decided it wasn't worth paying attention to. So I let her wriggle and fight the leash for a bit, since she had less training with it, then led her around in a few patterns with it before putting her back in the pen.
I decided it would be best to focus on one major trick per goat, and then build off of that. For Lissa, it'll be "touch" since she's very fond of that. For Rosie, I plan to use "foot" and maybe eventually build off that to some more acrobatics. I haven't decided for Pheobe what would be best for her. Working with Rosie and Lissa tired me out, so I didn't work with her today.
I also decided not to work with them too long each day, so that they wouldn't get tired of me too quickly. Lissa was obviously willing to work longer, but I also didn't want to spoil their supper. We'll have to see once again what tomorrow brings.
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