Ok, so another month has gone by. Quickly too. Stella has had 4 classes in dog obedience school. She is progressing better than I am! After the second class, we have learned how to quiet Stella when she’s barking and going crazy like she was for the first class. Apparently what happens is that she gets so excited, she just becomes pure adrenaline and has no control. I have to snap her back into the real world, remind her that her main responsibility in life is to focus on me. I learned how to correct this at the second class. At this last class, we got to the yard and took our spot. The trainer turned around and saw us, and I said, “You didn’t even hear us coming!” He was impressed with the improvement.
In class we have been gradually learning more and more and sending less information to the dog.
Here are the training goals – as in what needs to be demonstrated at graduation, yikes! and where we are (in class and Stella’s progress):
1. Walk in heel including the dog sits when the person stops walking – our new assignment for this week is that Stella will sit with only the command spoken (in the past, we pulled on the leash, and pushed her butt down – we are slowly taking information away). I have not worked with Stella on this part yet, but she does fairly well now at stopping when I stop, so I feel confident that this will be a smooth transition for us.
2. Lay down for 2 minutes – this is a newer item and one that we struggle with a little. I haven’t been disciplined in working with Stella on this one as much, but I will have to get better if I want to graduate school. Right now Stella is fighting going down, but on our 3rd go around, she’s generally ok laying there until I start walking.
3. Recall (maybe with a dog race too?) – this one is tricky. In our last session, we started working on this with a distraction. It’s easy to get a dog to come to you when it’s just sitting there, the real test is if it’s distracted on something else. Will it respond to your call then? Our assignment has been to recall the dog 5 times a day (Stella has an inside leash now and is in the pinch collar often). Stella does great with this. Actually I have a hard time even testing her because usually when I start to walk away, she follows me. However, when I am calling her after socialization, she’s not as quick to come. It always depends on how tired she is. So now we are learning with treats! The exercise is this: we approach a plate a certain distance away. I tell Stella to stay. I step away from Stella and walk toward the plate (the first time, it was 1 step). I place a cookie on the plate. I walk back to Stella. (This is assuming she has sit/stayed the entire time). Then I allow her to get the treat. As soon as she gets and eats it (they are small so this is seconds), I start running backwards and call Stella. When she gets to me, I tell her to sit which she does and she gets the treat. I have a feeling Stella will learn this exercise extremely fast because she loves treats.
4. Sit/Stay, this is where Stella sits and stays and I walk around her or to another person or wherever. Eventually dropping the leash. – Stella is getting really good at this one. We practiced with a tennis ball (it’s tough for a dog to sit and stay when a ball is thrown) and the first couple times she would always get up, but she got the hang of it. In our last class, I was able to drop the leash and walk to the fence and she stayed the whole time. I think the graduation task is to be able to walk across the yard which will be hard, but I think she can do it. Once in our neighborhood I dropped the leash (in a controlled manner). It was nerve-wracking, but Stella stayed!
5. Meet and Greet – this is a new one. Also one that he doesn’t expect us to make much progress outside of class because a second person and dog are needed. For this one, we walk across the yard and shake hands with another person. The dog sits when we stop and stays in a sit until we are ready to walk. We struggled with this one. Probably more me than Stella because I was weak in my corrections. But Stella got too focused on the person and dog approaching us so she wasn’t focused on me. The trainer taught us some corrections that I need to work through. I might use Brian and Heineken so that we can in fact get a head of the class.
When I think about graduation, I get really nervous. I feel that it is unlikely Stella will graduate. I also feel this is more of a reflection on me than on Stella. Stella is learning though.
So we will continue to work through our homework. We are also going to start working around Heineken. Heineken is a big distraction for Stella so it will help to test her and get her really good at her exercises.
Now I just it need to stop raining so that Stella and I can get outside to practice.
