Reading the article I noticed two things- 1) This misbehavior (the nudging for attention and play time) is Olive. She is manipulative for attention every day. Even if it's cute, it's manipulative behavior and she has me trained well. 2) we have actually been doing this training method for a couple of things since she was a baby and on those particular commands she is 100% responsive 100% of the time. For example, if Olive wants to eat dinner she has to wait until I say "OK." I may ask her to come to me, go away from me, lie down, sit down, roll over, it doesn't matter - if I didn't say "OK" she won't eat the food and she will do whatever I say right away because she knows if she does it quickly she eats sooner.
Today marks the start of our 'Nothing in Life is Free' days. If Olive wants a toy she must do something for it. What it also means is I am going to carry around treats 24/7 and when I ask her to come to me or sit or do anything at all there is at least a 50% chance in her mind she will be magically given a treat for her good work.
So I loaded up my baggie of cookies and manipulative little Olive got right to work on trying to train me. She recently got a new treat seeking toy (the kind of toy that's a puzzle you can put treats into and they have to work to get them out) and when I made up my bag of cookies she brought her treat seeking toy to me, put it in my lap, and nosed at my baggie of treats. Nice try, Olive. Nice try.
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