If you have been following the blog, you may have seen that young Clara is an absolute maniac for the flirt pole. It is right up there with playing ball in her list of favorite things.
Clara stretching out to get the toy
I waited quite a while before introducing Clara to the flirt pole because teaching “release the toy” was a real struggle with her when we played tug and ball. I had visions of her getting overly excited and breaking the flirt pole by pulling on the toy endlessly.
Alexandra Horowitz and her Dog Cognition Lab are investigating play between dogs and people. So was there ever a more fun way to participate in a research study?
For those who aren’t familiar with Dr. Horowitz, she wrote a great book called “Inside of a Dog.” She is also the one who authored the study that demonstrated that dogs’ appeasement behaviors after being scolded have no relationship to whether they did the deed in question.
So here’s the link to the new research study on play. Let’s all flock on over there and submit videos!
The hard part for me was choosing what game to play. But Clara’s current passion for the flirtpole is such fun, even though our releases need a little work. Ahem.
Our submission is below. There’s a time limit of 60 seconds, so that’s why it ends pretty abruptly. It was actually our 5th session of the day. I had cut my head out of the first several takes. She is moving more slowly by this time, but still In the Game for sure.
I hope lots of people participate. I can’t wait to see what comes of the study.
At the request of a couple of friends, here is more of Clara with the flirtpole. This is a session earlier in the day than the one we sent to Dr. Horowitz’ study, and Clara is very very excited. She also outsmarts me to get the toy back.
