Bran's Law

I am now convinced that Bran is the one who is well and truly running this show and I am a fool to have ever thought differently.

I believe that he watches me try to introduce him to something new and he then makes the following assessment in his head and gives everything a score out of 10:

1. how worthwhile it is for HIM to learn it;
2. how important it is for ME that he learns it;
3. how many treats he can milk before I get so frustrated that I stop trying and, therefore, stop producing the treats;

For example, when Jo first introduced 'roll over' to him, his little brain went "Wahooooooooooo! I LUFFS rolling AND I gets treats!!" and so it was given an assessment of a measly 2, simply because he was getting so much out of it and will now happily carry it out with no treats in sight.

When Jo asked him for a default pre-training behaviour, I suspect he assessed it as about a 5: it wasn't going to take much effort on his part once he realised that all he had to do was sit directly in front of her and look at her face (quite difficult for him when there's a treat bag on display!) and he would be given a treat.

Now, with the paw targetting, I think he sensed the niggling worry in my brain about his "poor elbows" and just how much I felt that he'd be able to manage, realised that I could be played and assessed it a 240.... In class, he managed to dismantle the box with a bone crushing smack of his paw but refused to move his feet whilst in a 'stand' or 'sit'. At home, he refused to acknowledge that there was even anything on the floor and would happily hold his position whilst grinning inanely at me for whatever length of time my nerve could hold for. Until this morning, when (after a 2 day break) he decided that I'd been stressed enough, the threat of treat removal was looming and reassessed the exercise to a 3 and happily planted his left paw - time after time - on the target - not too heavily, just nicely.

I don't stand a chance really.....