Training Progress ( 1-22-07)
Sherman - recruited our neighbor Jezron to come to the Dynamic Dogs class and test the TDI dogs around kids. Shermie knows Jez & was fine. Most of the other dogs did really well too. I was happy to see a lot of familiar faces in class...Timber (the Rotti Sherm is very jealous of), Cowboy (Penny's boyfriend), Maxwell (the stupendous Spinone Italiano ) & Oscar (Kelly's adorable little Poodle, at least I think he's a poodle...I'm terrible at ID small curly breeds!). I tried very hard not to compare Sherman to Penny & it was easy in that they both have their own strengths. I can leave Sherman w/o him panicking. I can walk him across any surface w/o a problem, he's not afraid of anything and he's exceptionally happy to be hanging out with Mom. His only issue is other dogs & while I can control him with a Leave It or Look!, he likes to make a lot of noise. But we did ride in the elevator w/ two little dogs w/o incident. He didn't even look at them. And his heeling is pretty bad, but he's very good at LLW so I could care less if he stays in heel position.
Penny & Lola - took them both on walks w/o any problems. Practiced all of the usual stuff and am happy to report, they both acted like completely normal dogs!
Training progress (1-23-07)
Lola - did some fun clicker stuff. Worked on a few tricks...Spin, Twirl, Bang! and Get it! She remembered all of them. Played around with the Swing finish & she was sliding into heel w/ only a hand signal in about 3 minutes. I love the Clicker!! Actually Lola loves the clicker...or better yet, understands the clicker! Makes my life a lot easier.
Penny - took her to Ruth's Advanced class. It was awesome! We did lots of heeling patterns, worked on the Swing & Round finish (Penny picked up the Round a lot quicker than Swing) and worked Stays/Recalls. Penny was the first one to go & she was really stellar. Ruth had us put the dogs in a SitStay and walk around in random patterns. We could go up to them & reinforce the stays but the goal was to avoid the anticipation of being called. Not only did Penny not break, but she did a beautiful front (OK, it was a little crooked & not as close as I would have liked...but I was beaming!). We did some DownStays with distractions & Penny was next to a very handsome APDT that she was just dying to play with (they were making wiggle eyes at each other), but she never broke. We also practiced Back Up, which Penny knows to mean back away from the door, but it was good to practice having her back away from me. Ruth asked if I intended to compete with Penny. And then told me I should. I'll admit, Penny is awesome. Especially being the first dog I've ever trained (and we started only 3 years ago). She said Penny would have no problem getting her CD. But what about her "bundle of nerves" handler??? We'll see. I'm going to see if I can ILP her & then decide.
