I just spent some time working on the chute with Raven – it’s one of 2 pieces of equipment which she doesn’t really have down yet and I swore I was going to work on it over the summer. With 2 days before she gets spayed and goes on enforced R&R, I figured better late than never.

I knew all it would take would be to let her chase Jayda through it a couple of times – and I was right. Why not Bryce, you ask? Because Jayda doesn’t care if Raven runs into her/over her/under her. If she ran into Bryce he’d turn around and tell her off – a bit counter-productive, ya think?

It never fails to amaze me how different Jayda is at home when she’s not worried about anything – she’s such a goof! She was deliriously happy to see me set up the chute in the living room and went running through it with such gusto (before I had even finished setting it up) that she got herself tangled a few times. Did it bother her? Nah! I had to be really stern with her to get her to SIT and STAY while I straightened it out properly. She reminds me so much of Sally when she gets like that – it makes me smile.

Anyway, Raven watched Jayda having fun for a while, then ventured through after her, got cheese, watched some more, followed her a couple more times, got more cheese. Then I worked with her solo for a few minutes, alternating reinforcement between cheese and her tuggie. My chute fabric is kind of stiff and I can set it up so the end stays open just a skootch but she still has to push through some fabric to get there. It’s a great training chute! It wasn’t full length – that’s not an option in my house – but pushing through the closed fabric is the issue and I’m pretty sure (based on her typical learning pattern) she will be able to generalize easily to a full-sized chute once she’s comfortable with the basic principles.

We got to the point where she was eagerly running away from me and doing it on her own, and I ended the game while she still wanted to do more. We’ll have another session tomorrow, then hopefully all the fun she’s had with it will percolate around in her little brain during her time off.