Thursday, January 21, 2010

Treadmill

Last weekend I bought a treadmill.  Mostly for me, but tonight I decided to get the corgis on it.  Grace was the first one up on it. She did walk a bit, but no amount of bribery was getting her back on there. Instead she went and lay on the chair to watch the show. Peace seems to say that no amount of food will get her to go near it.  Not surprising, it took months to get her to try the tunnel. So really I had the 2 very food motivated corgis to work with. First Magic. I think everyone knows that Magic will do anything for food. Anything. In about 2 minutes I have Magic trained to hop on and walk.  So far I think his longest walk before hopping off was about a minute with several food rewards while walking.  Rinnie has been the funny one. She is the most uncoordinated dog I have ever known.  It takes her 3 tries to get on the couch. She spent most of the time Magic was on the treadmill, with her front feet on it sideways walking.  Then I got her to go to the bottom and walk her front end on the moving belt, but the back end stays static on the floor. OK so far so good. But then I ask her to step onto the treadmill with her back side, and poor girl, she cant seem to figure out how to move the back end up while moving the front on the belt.  Oh she tried. She tried hard, but everytime she tried to take that 43 inch step onto the belt, she somehow would stop her front and fall face first onto the treadmill, then slide off the moving belt.   But she is a game little girl. She did keep trying. I think all told she managed about 7 steps on the moving belt when we ended the session.  And to think, as a pup I had plans of her in agility!  Not anymore!

3 comments:

penni said...

I can just see the dogs trying out (or trying hard not to try out) the new contraption. Great story. Thanks.

Laura and The Corgi, Toller, & Duck said...

great story! I'm laughing really hard as I can just see it!

Sharrie said...

So far, Zippy only clatters over the treadmill when he is making a wide turn in his required evening wind sprints. But----I think my son would help me with a real trial sometime.