Dino in His Draft Cart in test in San Francisco

Dino in His Draft Cart in test in San Francisco

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Obedience Class

Thursday evening 7 PM. Dino's class. We were late a few minutes. We will be there on time next time. Parking places are a long walk to the building which takes extra time.

I need to remember to bring a mat for him to lay down on. I forgot that in the car.

Vicki used Dino to demonstrate about sitting without a cue, and she tried to use him for another exercise but he was bouncing all over the place so she gave him back to me. We had a problem with the heeling because he was all over the place. I was able to get his attention back with the food, but I think it was good practice because he needs to know how to pay attention with distractions. Later when we were at the Advanced class he had more attention. We were using Vicki's prime rib. I don't know if that helped!

The Advanced class was good. There were very advanced dogs. We did more heeling, figure 8's recalls, stays. Dino's stays were bad. He was only able to stay for a few seconds, but we have not practiced that much in various places so we need more work. That is why we are there. To practice and learn.

We have to practice on having Dino offer the downs as part of learning the down. We practiced the next day outside of work. It took him several minutes. I had to lure him into the down several times, then I waited and he started to offer the down, and he kept doing it. It was really interesting. I have not trained a dog in this method before and it is interesting to see how enthusiastic the dog is to offer different things and to keep trying. I really like it.

Also what I noticed is that if I wait for him to offer sits at doors and other usual sit places, he does it himself instead of having me to ask him, which is really nice. I wonder if those things will stay or eventually fade away. I will ask Vicki.

No comments: