Pocket full of Kibble...

There are days when I regret not feeding raw food... and then there are those perfect West Coast days where a walk in the woods and a pocket full of kibble can cure any melancholy mood.

Melancholy mood...
As a die-hard Canucks fan, last night's, game 6, 4-3 overtime loss, was unbearable. But life goes on, and, alas their is always game seven. It's hard to quantify how many 1000's of hours of time I have invested (emotionally) into this team... I am beginning to understand how Leaf fans feel.

West Coast day...
I love the rain. I am also so lucky to live a mere 5 mins. from the beautiful Delta Watershed Park. The Watershed Park has the perfect canopy for rainy day walk.

Among my many goals for Iorek (or as Tamara calls him - Yorgi) is to make sure he knows his name (duh), has a strong recall (double duh and safety), and he learns to harness his chase drive. So this morning I did a quick and brief clicker training session and then stuffed the rest of his kibble in my pocket. Instead of taking all the dogs I decided to only take Iorek and Lyra. I felt one high-drive dog, a toddler, and a huge forest full of joggers, dog walkers and wildlife was distraction enough! I made sure to start the walk off with a crazy high rate of reinforcement... Iorek got at least 50% of the kibble in my pocket in the first 5 mins. Then I tried to stick to a variable reinforcement plan --- you know between picking Rendall up from falling, throwing the stick for Lyra, and just enjoying the beautiful day. The first few times Iorek blasted after Lyra I would call him back right away --- each and every time with success. Then I started letting him chase Lyra around a bit and then call him back... continued success. I made sure that I had a fair amount of kibble left over before we got back to the car so that I could boost up the rate of reinforcement near the end --- Iorek should get the idea that even thought the walk is ending good things still happen... overall it was a very successful walk and training session.

Lyra had an even more successful walk... other than the giant stick she insisted on carrying around she also caught and killed a rabbit. I wont bore you with the details other than the fact that Iorek didn't really know what was going on and that Rendall saw his first kill... his reaction - started laughing and ran the other way as I quickly disposed of the widdle wabbit.

Here is a video of Lyra and her stupid stick... iphone video -- so the quality is a little so so -- Rendall thought the stick was funny as well.