Ready
Some dogs are obsessed with balls, their entire walk is completely focused on when and where the ball will be thrown. Zoe is not one of those dogs.
From the beginning I haven’t tried to get Zoe focused on a ball because I wanted her to enjoy the environment more than focused on me throwing a sphere. Also, as you probably could have guessed, she is NOT a retriever. Every once in a while we will find a ball on the beach and she will enjoy it for a bit and then drop it just as fast as she picked it up.
So a while back we started a new game called “READY!” It was born our of her early snail hunting days and then grew into whenever I would throw something into the garden and she would get so excited and would want more. Then we were walking on one of our trails and I had the idea of saying “READY?!” and throwing a stick or a rock. She bolts off, many times leaping like a dear to find the thrown object, sniffs it, then runs back, ready for the next!
I have evolved the game so each time she is ready I make her sit and we have solid eye contact for at least 9 seconds before I throw it. I figure some additional training reinforcement can’ be bad right?
We should all be so READY for life!
Ready! from Jordan benShea on Vimeo.
