Ricky level 7

We've been rather absent from the blog thanks to having spent pretty much the entire month of January recovering from a dog attack over the holidays.  Then February we were catching up with training, starting some nosework with Ricky and continuing Ali's nosework (subject for another post) and just generally catching up with life.  Oh, and we also had a bit of an adventure getting Ricky's heart ultrasound done--we did confirm the leaky mitral valve that we expected, but it looks like his heart meds are doing the trick and his measurements were otherwise adequate for his breed.

So back to the Hub.  We're still on level 7, have pretty much plateaued there.  Ricky is still getting meal fed so he doesn't have a lot of hunger drive to really advance the levels.  I'm happy enough for him to go and have a wee play when he's feeling a bit aroused or in need of entertainment.  It's certainly fulfilling my needs for something to occupy the genius hound and keep my house intact.  In some ways I actually wonder if he's outsmarted the machine in terms of finding the least effort way to get the treat.  He generally seems to realize that he has to hit one of the two lit buttons, however, rather than exerting himself to work out which one to hit, he just hits whichever one he feels like knowing that if it doesn't work, then he has to hit the other one when the device re-activates.