Blending choreography and cued behaviors in freestyle is harder than it looks! Below is the current opening to Brian’s freestyle routine to the music of “Arrival of the Birds” by the Cinematic Orchestra. The routine thus presents a bird theme. In this opening, Brian should be backing away from my wings into a “nest,” and then spinning and downing while I’m fluttering my wings. Right now we’re working on him ignoring the distraction of my arm movements while responding to my cues. The other difficulty has been moving to jackpotting this sequence after so heavily reinforcing it. Here was a moment in practice where we get it right:
We’re currently at the novice level with this routine, and will soon need to be adding a bit more complexity and time as we move up. I’m happy the opening is starting to come together!
The Spaniel Annals 
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