This whole session lasted about 40 minutes. However, this included my leaving to feed the other horses breakfast and to put the dog in the house after it appeared that she may have bitten Atty on the heels while he was standing on the trailer.
He got on and off at least four times. I included his reaction at the end of the session to show you how he wanted to continue playing the game even after such a long time.
This clip shows my closing the side door on Atty each time he targeted the boat bumper in the back of his hay back. I did NOT cue him to target. I wanted it to be his choice. When he targeted the boat bumper, I closed the side door a little. I did this several times to see how far I could go and how long he would last. But if he pushed it open with his nose, that was okay. I did try to open the door before he needed to push it open.
As you can see the butt bar is not up and the back door is not closed so that if he felt he needed to leave, he could.
In the very beginning of the session, I closed the door a little each time he targeted the boat bumper WITHOUT clicking and treating. Then I switched to CT’ing. He gets better and better each time we practice this particular behavior.
At the end, I’m waiting for him to give me some attention so that I don’t cue the back off too soon and have him ignore it. It still takes him some time to respond, but it does work better when I wait for his attention.
(And the dang dog bit him while he was in there!)
