Porcupine game! Yay!

Gingo and I worked on our porcupine game today. I found a few holes in our basic 360 degree turns so that's what we played with. The challenge turned out to be more of a friendly game issue. Gingy yielded okay, but when I rubbed him to let him know we were done he just kept going.

I had to try several different things in the process of getting him to STOP! I can't believe I said that LOL, a LBI needing help stopping? So anyway... The first thing I tried was just being persistent and waiting until he offered to stop, but he just kept going and going. I also tried doing a lot of rubbing and that seemed to irritate him a little...hmmmmmm... After awhile he wasn't bothered with me rubbing him on the neck at a standstill but as soon as I asked him to yield he wouldn't stop. He didn't ever get faster or more tense he just wouldn't stop. Finally I decided to use the cs in order to get him to yield, don't really know why I did this(call it a gut instinct), but it work quite well. He finally got to the point where he would eventually stop after I did with me still rubbing him, so maybe it was the distance the cs gave me that helped.

As we played with this little challenge, we had another semi challenge going on. Gingy would come in and start nosing me then he'd see if he could give me a little push with his nose. That's where I stepped in by backing him up severely. I would wait after I'd backed him up and eventually he'd lick and chew. After that I would ask him in and we could continue. A couple of times he licked like he was coming off of adrenaline....

After he had stopped successfully several time with the cs, I reverted to using my hand. It took a little while with my hands then he understood and that's where we left it. I'm going to keep working on this a little every session until it isn't an issue anymore.

Wow, I guess this is what I get for only focusing on circling, it never occurred to me that there might be improvement needed in other games! We are now officially going through the self-assessment looking for holes, so maybe this will help us broaden our horizon a little. I'm rather excited about working through the self-assessment because I think it will help me find new things to challenge Gingy with. Now I'm sitting here wondering why I never thought of working through the tasks on the self-assessment before, but I think I know why. I wasn't really emotionally strong enough before this to keep from getting direct lined about being able to check off all of the tasks. I guess I will find out whether I am prepared for this adventure in the near future LOL. Think going through the self-assessment will help me get over my circling addiction, it will bring our play time back into balance.