After our outing to Everbowl on Tuesday, Brad and I headed to TJ Maxx to do a practice public access test for Felix. He will be taking his PAT in April, so I thought it’d be good to run through it. We didn’t videotape everything on the test, though, like no elevators or bathrooms or restaurants.
We started out in the parking lot and got a video of Felix walking down the sidewalk and across the street (which is part of the PAT to traverse a parking lot). Felix did OK, though he did heel a bit further away from me.
We also got a video of him entering the store through automatic doors and walking around in the store. This was the first time I’ve done a training outing to a store without treats, so he was further away in his heel than I’d have liked him to be. Apparently he gets really close when I have treats, but when I don’t, he’d rather have more room from my wheelchair. Which makes sense because he’s so small and my wheelchair is so big!
Still, I’m definitely going to have to practice more weaning off of treats so that he heels closer to my wheelchair!
When we got to the back of the store, we worked on turns. On the PAT you have to do a left turn, a right turn, and a U-turn. Felix did well on the right and left turns, but his U-turn was a bit sloppy. It worked, but just wasn’t as pretty as I know it can be. So I’m going to have to work on U-turns more in the next few weeks!
We ended up near a display of flowers and worked on his stay cue and come. He has to stay for 30 seconds. It is OK for him to move from one position to another, like from a sit to a down, so long as he doesn’t move locations. He started out in a sit, and went to a down. After the 30 second stay was over, I moved my wheelchair and he went into a stand stay, which is OK. Then I backed away and had him come to me.
Brad got a few pictures of us in front of some mirrors, which were right next to the flowers. Of course we got pictures in both places because they had visual elements!
Next up we wanted to have him greet a friendly stranger. For the videotaped part of this, he did really well. However, after the video cuts off, he reared up on his hind legs and did his paw-begging thing with his front feet like he wanted to say hi more to the person. So that wasn’t ideal.
That section of the store started getting really crowded, so we moved over to the bedding area. In the bedding aisle, we did leave-it, where he has to walk past a treat on the ground. The first time I did it, he was perfect. But Brad didn’t think the treat was in his way enough, so he made me repeat it. When I repeated it, I threw the treat right in front of him so he’d have to step right over it. On the test, it says the dog should be about 3 feet away from the treat on the ground. Well, walking right over the top of the treat without knowing he was going to get anything in reward was just a bit too challenging for Felix!
So we deleted that video and took another one where this time I was able to place the treat more in Felix’s way, but where he wouldn’t have to walk on top of it. He did excellently!
Brad thinks part of the challenge for me doing this is that I’m placing the treats by tossing them out like I do for the find it game, so he’s used to being able to get them right away when I do that. For the test, another person just sets the treat out ahead of time and the dog doesn’t even necessarily see it being placed, they’re just supposed to be aware it’s there. The dog is supposed to notice it’s there, be able to get to it, but choose not to without being physically restrained. It simulates food being there in the real world, which we can’t always control.
While we were in that aisle, Brad took some pictures of Felix and me as we looked to Brad through his cell phone (which he was using to video us).
That was pretty much everything on the test, but I wanted to show how Felix can handle walking down the food aisle in TJ Maxx. So Brad got a video of it for us. We had to turn a tight corner and go through a narrow display to get to the food aisle. That required Felix to do a through command, and then return to me. It took him a minute to return to heeling with me because he was air sniffing the yummy smells of the food aisle! But by the time we got halfway down the food aisle, he had returned to being a good boy and ignoring everything.
I wanted to re-try the greet, and this time Felix was perfect! He was amazing the whole time!
And finally, we got a video of Felix heeling next to me as we exited the store. He got confused and tried to go out the entrance doors, and then he got confused again because there was a man standing in front of the exit doors, but we made it through!
Overall I think Felix did OK for his practice PAT. There are still some things I need to work on for sure. I need to work on him heeling closer to me, and I need to work on my U-turns. I think he also could use practice with the dropped treat and with friendly stranger.
I’m not sure if he’ll pass his PAT in April. If he’s having a typical day I think he’ll pass it. But if he’s having a bad day, he might not. If he doesn’t pass, I’ll just wait a month or two and do some more training and re-try it. So there’s no harm done in trying to take the PAT in April.
Once he passes his PAT, then I can work on other things more. I really want to teach him the retrieve so he can pick up dropped objects for me when I’m in my wheelchair!