Danny continues to make progress despite a rather slow training week for me with being busy on another project. I have been working on loading Danny into the back of our Summit van using some wheelchair ramps that I have. I am amazed again how quickly we progressed. A little grain goes a long ways with this guy! By the end of the first session he was loading and unloading though a little clumsily and lacking confidence. Tonight, however, he walked right up the ramp and back down 4 times with loads of confidence. Next will be a short driving trip in the back of the van. I don't anticipate any problems.
Danny has also made great progress on retrieving. He now readily takes the dumbbell from my hand and holds it briefly. He will also pick it up off the ground and has even brought it to hand a few times. I anticipated this process taking much longer than with a dog but actually have far less training time in with Danny to get to this stage. I think he will be an eager retriever.
We are also messing about with turning a light switch on. He just started reliably targeting the light switch plate with his nose tonight. I know it won't take long for him to turn on the switch as he has already done so by chance a few times.
I have put a temporary halt to bringing him in the house until I get some rubber boots for him. I'll be ordering those tomorrow from Amazon.com of all places. The boots look easy to slip on and off and should solve the problem of him slipping around on my pergo floors. Then we will continue work on housebreaking.
Hope to get a few photos or even a short video this week of Danny retrieving and loading in the van.
Sue
1 comment:
Hi Sue,
I guess a little horse can lift heavier things in its mouth than a dog can, is that right? I'm just wondering what some of the advantages would be to having a miniature horse compared to having a dog for assistance. Maybe I'm the only one wondering about that?
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