Cheers! Well, we've settled into about three days a week at the ballfield/parks, one out at the farm, and three doing "parkour" walks. I think it was about day five that she was really ready to move on from the off-lead stuff in the baseball diamond. Once she kind of figured out the process, she would settle into either a neat heel, or quartering either in front of me or to the left about fifteen feet out, or occasionally "offering" what I am cheerfully naming a "long send" ("va") for something particularly interesting further out.
I started switching it up, moving into the playground/concession/bleacher area and playing hide & seek per your game, which was great. The setup is perfect; triple-fenced, never locked, and always deserted before about 7:30. So off-lead attention stuff with hide & seek, plus naming/rewarding exploration/urban agility behaviors: jump over (hup), jump on (up), stand up on your hinds and check this thing out without putting your front feet on it ("ay mira"), check this thing out & climb if you need to ("check it out"), recalls, follow-on, look here/there, go in, go under, go around, turning right and left (gee/haw), etc.
Her language acquisition seems incredibly fast, compliance rate exactly what I'd expect– based on an immediate calculation of personal reward =). She is a little timid, but I don't think constitutionally so, more like I'm exposing her to a ton of new situations and concepts and allowing her to do a lot of her own decision-making about "how" to work. She seems very game, but thoughtfully so and willing to engage stuff that startles her at first. She seems to really like sign language paired with the verbal cues.
I am itching to start with specific bridge/target work, but promised my trainer I'd give her a month to settle in before throwing that at her. I am "training" her as far as her earning her meals with different games. I'm trying not to structure anything, but just play with her and reward helpful behaviors. Like if she wants to chase, I'll throw a stuffie and play "fetch" with a piece of her food for a return-to-hand, or different "send to place" things like "on your mat", "in your box", "in that corner", with sit/down/etc from a distance. Also nosework games, exploration games, etc.
She is a world of fun. Very like handling exotics, and although I --REALLY-- wish I was co-training a falconry bird this year, I'm double-really glad I'm not, at least as far as being able to spend a year focusing on Scout. I am debating whether or not to enter her to rabbits, or whether it might be more useful to try varminting with her first.
