12/09/24 Article Game

While playing games with Wren over the past weeks, I have found a pattern in behavior.

If I offer medium value treats as a reward for engaging with the Articles, she will continue the game about 60% of the time.

If I offer high value treats as a reward, the Articles are forgotten and she starts to offer other behaviors like come to heel, trying to perform her 'touch' command with her front paws on the article, etc.

We have been having much more engagement in the game, and the Articles when the Articles become the 'tug toy' and we don't use food as the reward for engagement.

Today, we were extra distracted because the neighbor (whom she adores) was picking up wonderful sticks in his yard.

Wren did do pretty well picking up the Articles, but it was less consistent than previous sessions playing the game.

I'm sure a big part of that is the neighbor being outside close with us.

The Articles I used were a small dark cloth for sunglasses, a dark old small wallet, and a tiny dollar tree loofah.

The loofah presented a small challenge of her wanting to pluck it like a bird instead of offering it for the reward of tug. So I reintroduced food as a reward to see if that proved to be a high enough value for her.

It caused her to start offering obedience instead of article engagement so I did away with the food once more. She became interested in the article once more and even moved on to wanting to play tug with the tricky loofah.