Zooka and I have training sessions for most of his meals. At 8 months, he eats two meals per day. (We fed three meals per day up until 7 months old.) So we use breakfast and dinner as opportunities to train.

Sometimes we work on “serious” stuff like Heel and Stay. Sometimes we work on “fun” stuff like Fetch, Shake, Lift, Over, Under, Touch, Target and other stuff.

Sometimes I ask him to do specific things. Sometimes I ask him what he wants to offer. (He has some go-to's for that.)

Since it's been a while since we taped a meal/training session, we did one this week. He is eight months and a few weeks old in this video.

We worked on Heel. He is great with his turns and stopping when I stop. He needs more work on his Front. He is great at Finish. Still needs work on Swing.

His go-to from early on was the Finish to Heel so he tends to go straight to that one without waiting to see if I want Finish or Swing. That's mostly my fault because that's what I taught. We added Swing in much much later and so that one is still new.

You might notice, too, that I use a lot of body language to help cue him in on the Heel work. The turns, the Swing (especially, since it's newer), you can see I use my body to help give him hints. I will fade those out later or make them much more subtle. But I am able to use fewer words this way and then I can turn my body language cues into very subtle cues later on.

In this video you can see he does some jumping/hopping. Not sure why that started but it's been cropping up the past week or two. If we wanted to compete, we'd have to clean that up. I don't plan to compete with him, so I might not worry about it. I haven't decided yet. I am not making a big deal out of it at this point.

You might also be able to tell that I have been doing some work on Under. In this case, I stand ahead of him with my back to him, and when I say “under” he comes to me with head through my legs and is facing the same way I am but standing “under” me/between my legs.

This used to be one of Romeo's favorites. (Romeo was our previous Vizsla who we lost in May 2018.) Until this taping, Zooka had NEVER offered this behavior. You see him offer it when I am actually working on Heel. But because he is offering it for the first time, I give him some slack. I thought it was actually cute and funny. But I don't want him offering that regularly IF I have already asked for something else.

We also do a bit of disc work. You can probably tell that we have NOT worked on this in a while. He is supposed to keep both front paws on the disc and turn when I turn. Since we've been doing so much Heel work, he tends to want to be in Heel position. But early on we did a lot of work with him across from or in front of me and turning when I turn. You can see we are out of practice with that.

We did a bit with Over and Under. In this case, I am using myself for going over and under. I can also use props, agility jumps, etc. In this case, I want him to jump over my stretched out legs. And go under when I am on my hands and knees. He's getting pretty good with these. I need to start mixing up with different objects here soon.

We also work a bit on nail trimming. In this case, we have a PVC pipe with sandpaper taped to it. He “scratches” with his front paws and sands down his own front nails. Then I only have to trim rear nails with the clippers. I like this!

We also do some Fetch. This one we had to start from scratch and he's just recently getting good at bringing it actually to me and putting in my hand. We only do a few repetitions each time so he does not get bored with it. When we actually play Fetch, it's the same. He likes it a few times. Never over and over and over again.

He is recently getting very good with the Shake now too! His natural inclination was to “rake” or “scratch” with his feet, so getting him to offer just the paw without raking my arm took some work. (Look at the nail trimming above and you get the idea of what he naturally was offering with his paws. Which is why the nail trimming was so easy to teach!) He's very gentle now – much better! I only have him Shaking with his left paw so far. We are working toward being able to use the right paw.

Zooka is definitely a Lefty like his Momma. We are working on him being able to use both paws for things like Shake, Lift, etc.

In this session, we worked mainly on specific things I was asking for. As I mentioned earlier, we often do sessions where I let him choose things to offer. I will have to tape on of those soon so you can see what those sessions look like!

So this session lasts approximately ten minutes. This is a typical meal workout. Breakfast and dinner each day. It's much harder to do with raw food. This is really the only thing I liked better when I used to feed kibble – much easier to use for training! But we make it work.

You can see that he's not perfect on this stuff. I have taken things easier on him than I did with Romeo. Romeo and I were on a mission. Zooka and I are more laid back about it this time around. I will still get where I want to be with him, I am just not putting such pressure on us to get there as fast as I was with Romeo.

If you do training sessions like this, tape it once in a while. It's great to be able to review and catch things you could have done better or want to change.

We're not perfect, but the important thing is that we are progressing and we are having FUN!