More chin targeting with Sienna

Sitting on the weighing scales

This is our next session of fear free handling for this stunning young girl.

We begin by building duration again. She often gets distracted by the noise of the other dogs – it is a kennel environment so lots of activity at times. We do not call her or try to get her attention – it is essential that she chooses to engage.

When she gets distracted, we just simply wait for her to engage again. As time goes on, she is distracted less and less as she enjoys the session.

We begin by rewarding every time she chooses to place her chin down on the towel. 

Dogs will often tolerate things, even though they feel uncomfortable. This is not fear free training! Eventually, they will stop tolerating things.

We teach that things feel really good by marking and rewarding choices. You can see Sienna firmly place her chin down at around the 40-second-mark in the video below. Sienna is really distracted in this one as a dog is approaching the room!

I have my right hand held out so she can see it. She keeps an eye on my hand, to begin with, but soon gets used to its presence.

At around 1.07 she is aware of the touch but does not move her chin away. This means she is happy for me to continue. The moment her chin lifts up though, I must stop. Around 1.44 she is unsure and looks directly at me when I move my hand. I wait for her to give permission to continue. 

We finish the session with a visit to the weighing scales. I had covered the scales with the towel we used for chin targeting. Sienna already has built up a "feels really good" association with the towel. When asking dogs to stand on weighing scales, we can minimise the anxiety and stress by placing a towel down. This reduces noise and also makes the scales more comfortable. A towel can easily be calibrated with the weighing scales. You can see how quickly she stood on the scales today in the video clip below.