Poor Nikolai has some scruffy patches in what will eventually be a beautiful, shiny black coat. Because of this, I’m hoping some special “tricks” will help him be more adoptable, plus give me a way to calm him at adoption events.
I started working with him today and found that he likes food but won’t eat from my hand. However, thankfully, he will follow my hand with his eyes when I’m holding delectable chicken. Plus chicken will help his fur.
He seems to be getting it. I’m doing very short spurts, just two or three times so he doesn’ t get bored. It took awhile the first time to get him to go from looking up to putting his bum on the ground. After that it seemed to come pretty easy for him. His “first response” (response to the first attempt in a new session) is getting faster each time though still not as good as his third response of a session, but I’m hopeful. He now knows the concept and we’re just working on faster recall. I don’t think he’ll be a candidate for “high five” since it doesn’t come natraully to him. Maybe “Lie Down” would work since he loves to do that…