What are you feeding her?

 Quote: heather perring

... Hm..Maybe I should start teaching her some neat tricks and see if that helps her state of mind. She loves to work and is really fun to train because she is so intense with her desire to please.

Bonnie and Meredith gave great suggestions! In Bonnie's duckie post, I was reminded about teaching the dog the names of a few toys. I start this with the touch command, and make sure the dog has that touch command down.

Then I have three or four toys but I start with one and say "Touch duckie!" and mark and reward when he does, being careful (if I have to use it) with my negative marker. (I use "nope," copied from Ed, because I find that I just naturally use a better tone with "nope" than "no," and I want no correction sound to get into the word.) I start with the requested touch item first in my hand and then on the floor closer to the dog, to set him up to touch duckie first, before duckie is ever lined up equally.

I start every (short) session with a well-known touch command, like touching my palm. Kind of a practice run.

I am sure that others will have more and better ideas about marker-work with naming items.

It's fun, and it's upbeat, and the dog likes it. Well, my dogs (I think just about all dogs) like any marker training (as in "My turn now!! Me, me, me...." ) .

P.S.

If you haven't taught "touch" yet at all, that's a fun thing to teach on its own, and becomes the basis or part of many commands.

http://leerburg.com/MARKERS--backup.html#hand
("Splitting the HAND TOUCH Exercise")

http://leerburg.com/playem.htm?name=flv/7-27-09news.flv

http://leerburg.com/MARKERS--backup.html