The second lab that Zora and I took as a working team was Doggie Zen with Cecilie Køste. We all thought we would be learning meditation and massage techniques. In this class, Zora had to learn to walk away from her ‘Zen’ bowl of treats before receiving the cue ‘ZEN’ to go get the treats from the bowl. The first step was to ‘love the bowl’. So, I would put a teat in the bowl, and I would click as Zora would take the treat. After a couple of repetitions, I introduced my cue ‘ZEN’ to cue taking the treat out of the bowl.

The next step was to get Zora to wait before taking the treat. I would place the treat in the bowl, slide it on the floor away from her and hold onto the leash so that she couldn’t lunge for it. When she backed off slightly, giving slack in the leash, then I would cue ‘ZEN’ and she can get the treat out of the bowl. This would progress until she is turning her eyes away from the bowl, looking away from the bowl and finally turning her whole body away before getting the cue ‘ZEN’.

The last step is to get a behavior before going to the bowl. I chose a paw touch, because that is Zora’s strongest or most probable behavior. This part didn’t work out so well. I think, and my audience agreed, that we progressed too fast to go to this step. I loved getting feedback and help from so many wonderful trainers. And Cecilie Køste!