I am now just over 12 weeks of age, and have been to that nasty place to have needles stuck in me. My last (ever) vaccination, and the microchip. Ouch that one hurt, but the Vet said I was a very good boy and gave me some treats.
My training is coming along very well. I wait when I am told and only get up when mum says the magic word "OK", I sit and stay, I down and stay (anything up to 1 minute now, with mum 5 paces away), I sit at a distance when mum shouts "wait" and sometimes I might lie down at a distance when she shouts "wait". Mum is also teaching me that 2 pips of the whilstle mean "come". I now come when I am called, even when there are other dogs around. I also come when called when I am playing with other dogs..... at the moment that is. Mum says that one day my hormones will probably get the better of me, but she said she is prepared to wait and see. I don't think I know quite what she means by that?
Now mum is a cognitive psychologist, and she is very interested in the mental processes which are involved in learning. Sooooo, she carried out an experiment on me when I was 9 weeks old. Could I possibly learn the Kennel Club's Good Citizen's Gold level task of "go to your bed"? Mum placed my vet bed on the floor, and had the clicker ready. Every time I stepped foot onto that vet bed, she clicked the clicker and gave me a treat..... oh dear, I think she was a little disappointed because my concentration was the size of a gnat, and I couldn't grasp the concept that I had to take myself off to the vet bed of my own accord in order to hear the click and get a treat....... or so she thought. I will let mum take over now tell you now what happened next:
Well, let's put it like this. I truly believed that Barkley was far too young to make any sense of this task, so I decided to leave it a further week to see what would come of it at 10 weeks. However, the following morning, I put the vet bed out on the floor again, in case Barkley decided he wanted to rest on it. To my amazement, he looked at me, then looked at the vet bed, and then went and lay down on it, looking towards me with with total expectation that he would hear the click and receive his reward. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. So I picked up the clicker, called him back over to me, and then waited. Sure enough, Barkley walked straight over to the bed, laid down, I clicked the click and gave him the treat. Still not convinced, I got him up again. Once more he went straight back to the bed, laid down, and showed me that he had in fact learned the task. My goodness, a 9 week old puppy, who had learned what is effectively a send away to a marked area. Absolutely amazing. What a powerful indicator the clicker is which tells the dog that it has made the correct response that that the reward is on it's way. Even though on those first attempts Barkley didn't seem to be making any sense of what was going on, 24 hours later, his brain had ordered things and made sense of the patterns involved. What amazing little brains these puppies have.
See, I am a very clever little boy.
I am a very happy and rapidly growing little boy too.
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