llama putting toys in box

THE METHOD I'M USING

I love this game! So do the llamas. It's simply a game where the llama collects a few items strewn around a table or in a box, and drops them into another box one by one. Anything that a llama can pick up will do so long as they are small enough so he can get lots of them in the box.
The toys I use are stuffed, knitted, red, yellow and blue triangular balls (lovingly knitted by an American fan of Thomas's who, sadly, is never likely to meet him). I use the same method that I use for retrieving, rewarding the llama for first touching then mouthing the toy. We then progress to reward for picking it up, then dropping it near the box and finally putting it into the box. All this can be broken down into dozens of tiny progressive steps. I found Oscar was placing it in the box rather than DROPPING it in, so I "shape" the behaviour by clicking (or half-clicking the clicker for precision) the split second that the jaw is open at the desired height over the box... something I could not do with my voice.

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HOW WE'RE DOING

The story so far: Oscar had this game off to a fine art so I decided to introduce a bit of colour recognition into the activity by rewarding only the yellow triangles dropped into the box. Success! These days, he will burrow under a pile of reds and blues to find that single hidden yellow.

July 18th'08

RECENT NOTES ON PROGRESS

The boys love this game! I have been playing it with Oscar and Toby again today. Oscar is pretty secure in his collection of the yellow balls and I am moving the collection/depositing boxes further and further apart so he has to work!

I started Toby off on this game in May and we're making progress. His final colour will be blue, so I have already added the cue "Fetch a Blue" to ask him to collect ANY colour at this stage. (This will save having to change the cue when I finally shape the behaviour to blues-only.) At this time of writing, he is still having trouble with accuracy in getting the ball into, as distinct from beside, the box. I suspect that he cannot actually see it once his head is above it, so he has to "remember" where the top is ... and he's opening his little mouth too soon.