Experimenting With Timken Part 1

Working with Tim on his confidence and trust issues with humans and environmental stimuli is somewhat like an ongoing experiment in a way.  We go about introducing him to new situations/people and then observe how he handles each encounter. Trying the best we can to figure out if he is ok with the new thing and we can continue with that situation or that he is not ok and we need to back off a bit so he can be comfortable as much as possible while he is still working through getting used to the new situation or thing. It is a balancing act all the time for us and for Tim!

We are still experimenting with the Tim and Kyjen Tail Teaser. It isn't that he has to play with the Tail Teaser for any reason. It is just something to work on with him and something we are able to gauge his progress with something that makes him very nervous. The last time we played with him he did a tad better but in reviewing the videos it struck me, " He still is very skeptical and although he is showing he is getting more curious about it maybe the rattle in the tail attached to the cord was freaking him out?" So I went about taking the rattly tail off the cord and tying one of his favorite toys to the end to see if this helped him relax a bit and maybe even want to explore it and play/tug with it.

In this video I experimented with the bunny suspended in the air. You can hear a dog growl and then bark  in the back ground, this was my dog Skip who was letting me know the UPS truck was going past the house. This threw Tim off but he did manage to get a sniff in.

Here Tim gets really brave and even takes the bunny and tugs a bit with me. But then when I raise the wand in the air he is a bit skeptical again, you can see how sensitive he is. I will need to keep the wand low until he really gets comfortable with this. I do like that he is more engaged with the toy now that the rattly tail is not part of the equation. He might be ok with that in the future.

Just throwing in a cute picture of Tim with an egg baby. He does love his egg babies :)

Stay tuned!  Experimenting with Nosework to come......