More Mia

Right now, I am doing a little Mia training. The first time a small Dalmatian crawls her front half into your lap as you sit at the computer and looks at you with her soulful eyes is rather cute. By the third time the cute starts wearing off, especially if the dog’s nails need trimming. So I am reprising a clicker training method I used when Lody would do the same thing. I have a stash of hot dog jerky by my keyboard, and when I observe that Mia is lieing on the floor beside me, I click her and then give her a piece of hot dog jerky. The real trick is using one’s peripheral vision to observe whether the dog is down, since even glancing rewards the dog, and I don’t want to reward her unless she is lieing down.