03/10/2024
Teach a nose targeting behavior with me! Nose boop alerts are incredibly common in service dogs as they are pretty hard to ignore! Not to mention, they’re pretty specific! In this video you will see me presenting a target stick with a small green ball at the end! The idea is that Rio will touch his nose to the ball and I will capture the behavior with a “click.” As you can see, I start off with the target fairly close and Rio in a sitting position! As he catches on to the desired behavior, I move it around to make things a bit more tough! Be listening for the “click” once his nose hits the green ball followed by a treat! The click is a marking mechanism to mark a certain behavior to let Rio know that the behavior he just offered was what I was looking for! In the future I will be using the nose target, along with other training mechanics, to alert an elevated heart rate! Once the handlers heart rate rises, Rio will offer a nose boop onto his handlers leg to let them know what he is sensing! Nose targets are also a fun behavior to teach with your hand instead of a click stick! Teaching it with your hand as the target, paired with the “touch” command can improve focus in difficult or distracting environments and can also help improve your recall! Happy Sunday, everyone! ❤️
