It seems the untraining of Gizmo is going well. He hasn’t been waking me up as early lately. He still hasn’t completely given up, though.

This morning I overslept: I slept til 6:15 am, something almost unheard of for months and months. I was particularly tired yesterday. Gizmo did come in and go through his reportoire right before I got up, but I have to admit that that showed amazing restraint on his part.

Surgery update: Chester is recuperating well. Five days after the surgery we noticed that he’s using the leg more. He’s not always putting weight on it, but he’s doing it more now.

He has been very good about the many hours he’s had to stay in his crate lately.

We are working on “watch me” right now: Chester has to look at me, no matter what I have in my hand. I put a treat into my hand, hold it out from my body, then wait until he looks at me to click and treat. He got this pretty quickly when I held my right hand out to the right.

As soon as I held my right hand out to the left, though, he just sits and stares at the hand. Same when I hold my hand down. A good lesson in making sure you generalize things (do the same thing in many different locations, with your body position different).

The idea is that eventually he will learn he only gets rewarded if he’s focused on me.

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