Targeting the Possibilities

I recently taught Lotte to hand target, and even more recently, have begun playing with using the target as a training tool.

Point in case, the tippy board. I had Lotte stepping up on it from the side, but could not convince her to come straight up onto it from the end. Finally, it occurred to me to use the hand target - success! I am now getting her to walk across the board (tipping it each time) without problem. This was only after a few days of working with the board. As an aside, I'm glad that we've been working on it, because if we hadn't, I bet she would probably still just be pawing at the board in class tomorrow. As it is, I think we may be ready to up the size of our tippy board soon (but I'm going to wait until we move up to the next size board in class).

I'm using the hand target to teach her to "beg", and it occurred to me that I can finally teach her to come to front, by using my hand target to draw her in straight! I'm also starting to work on the formal heel using the hand target, which was actually my original intention when I began teaching it. I picked that idea up here: http://loridrouin.webs.com/twelvestepheeling.htm   (great resource).

I'm super-excited about the possibilities we have now. I've never been a fan of guessing games with Lotte, or just waiting for her to get it right... having such a simple tool to be able to tell her what I want to do/where I want to be is great. Really, why didn't I think of this sooner?