teeth! and training frustation

The training session this morning was good and bad. He's doing really well with "front" position now. I started by putting narrow planks up on blocks in a straight line. I would stradle the planks with him on them facing me. If he didn't want to step off, he had to stay right in front of me when he sat (instead of swinging into heel position.) When that was good, I separated the boards and blocks into three different raised sections. I placed one out at 12 o'clock, one out at 3 o'clock and 1 out at 9 o'clock and I stood in the center. I would turn to face the end of a board and Dazzle would get on it and sit in perfect front position. Then I would pivot to face another board and the process was repeated.

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Once he understood what I wanted on the boards, I removed the cement blocks from under them and placed the boards right on the floor, same pattern. He had a bit of trouble, since now he could sit crooked and not fall off. But with practice he understood and got good at that. Then I removed the boards and tried to get him to repeat it. If I faced the spot where a board had been, he was great. If I turned to where a board hadn't been, he tried to line up with where it was! Too smart for his own damn good!

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I put the boards back down, but moved them around to practice in different places. That helped him understand and when I removed the boards, he had it. All this took 5 training sessions. This morning he was still doing well with sitting in front position. Too well.

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It seems he has no memory of the cues for stand and down now. All he was willing to offer without help was front and if I waited, he would lie down. Arggg. I did several tries of prompting and luring, but I've done so much "leave it" work, a lure generates focused eye contact. Moving my hand makes him think I'm trying to distract him from the eye contact and it only makes that stronger.

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I was getting really frustrated, so I quit the training session. I'm still not sure how to remind him of the sit and down cues. I did very little luring when I taught it and he picked them up pretty quickly. He has responded correctly to them in many different places (every hotel room, my parent's kitchen, malls, etc.), so I'm not sure why the understanding is failing in the place we have trained the most when there are no distractions. I tried using a toy as a reward, but he is too intensely focused to think when a toy is in my hand and might be thrown or offered for tug.

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I need to work on his stand for exam. Once I was able to get him into a stand, he still has the implied stay. I think this evening I'll place him into the stand and focus on the walk away and approach (stand stay) and just work on the cues to get him into position later.

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On another note, I got some photos of his teeth. They aren't the best because in order to stop the motion, I had to use the flash, which reflected off his teeth. But you can see that the new teeth are significantly larger than his baby teeth and he has big gaps in the front where he lost his baby teeth and the adult teeth haven't come in yet. I did find one tiny baby tooth on the couch last night, so I saved it. :-) Hopefully I will find more.
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Smile!

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You can see where he lost the most recent tooth

.Baby canine teeth and adult front teeth except for the one on the far left of the photo (right side of his mouth)
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Would you believe I taught him to move his tongue out of the way so I can see his teeth? Just kidding. I caught him mid-lip lick/yawn. :-)