Week 4 of Sabrina Obedience

Yesterday was Sabrina's fourth class in Graduate Puppy Obedience. I confess that being the first day of April vacation, my body was exhausted and my mind was elsewhere. I think it reflected poorly on Sabrina's performance. Regardless, we still received a much appreciated praise from the trainer.

Graduate Puppy Obedience is nothing like Puppy Kindergarten. Puppy Kindergarten was so easy and fun. This class is serious business. We have to work our dogs...HARD. We work at keeping out dogs' attention with the constant distraction of all the other dogs.

Our dogs start out having to sit in a heel position and then have to stay with attention completely on us for up to 15 seconds. You try staring at something or someone for 15 seconds. It is a long time!

Then we have to put them in a sit stay 4 feet from another dog and handler, walk a few feet out to create a triangular formation and call the dog to us. Our dog is expected to come to us and ignore the other dog sitting 4 feet away.

And there is the long down stay. A few minutes....off leash.

And then there is the meet and greet. VERY HARD. You have to walk up to another dog and their handler, put them in a sit stay (the dogs that is), and begin light-hearted chatter with the other person. All the while, your dog remains in sit stay and may not get up to say hello. Like I said, VERY HARD.

But I can see how it can be very useful. If I am walking my dog and see someone I know, whether they have a dog or not, nothing is more difficult than to carry on a conversation while your dog is wiggling around, tangling up his/leash and being a great distraction. These interactions almost always have to end abruptly with the person with the dog dragging their dog away.

I don't want my dog to be rude or a nuisance when I am trying to talk to someone. But then again, this seems like high expectataions. Really really high.

And did I forget to mention that all of this training happens at the beginning of class, when all the dogs are excited to see each other and are not allowed to interact or play?! Play comes later and play must remain calm and fair. The second any dog gets too rowdy or gets those "crazies" the trainer will spray them with a water bottle. In the middle of play without much warning, the trainer asks us to get our dogs into a sit stay or down stay for a minute or two. It is supposed to be a way to get your dog calm and maintain your control. Sabrina, luckily, is fantastic at this. Whenever I have a treat in my hand that is!

The other thing I learned is how to keep a dog from stripping the skin off your fingers while trying to take a treat out of your hand. For 4 years I have been working with Riley on this and all this time I just thought it was a lost cause. I thought I was doing everything the way I have been told to. When the dog nips your fingers, you yelp and turn away from them. I try to tell my dogs, "easy" before I hand them a treat but they go to grab with their teeth every time. I refuse to offer a treat in my palm and get completely slimmed. And so I resort to tossing treats, which is not a good method either. I am terrible at tossing and both of my dogs have very poor mouth-eye coordination (could still be because I am terrible at tossing though).

So I FINALLY learn the right way. Apparently, if your dog nips you and you draw your hand away, it will only make them want to "chase" that treat more the next time it comes near in fear that it will be taken away again. And "chasing" a treat will probably entail some nipping from the choppers. So the trick is to tell them, "easy", offer them the treat, and if they come after it with their teeth, you bop them on their nose. I tried it once with each dog, and sure enough that bop was enough to keep their teeth off my fingers and out came a lovely soft tongue to take the treat. It was like magic! I've only been doing it wrong for 4 years now. URGH.

Since I have the week off I promised Sabrina to work with her in the back yard. We need to work on our heeling, sitting in heel when I stop, sit stay outdoors, down stay outdoors, and something which is called "finishing." I have chosen to use the term, "side". It's supposed to be the easiest way to tell your dog to get out of the way and return to your side, in a heel sit. haha...I kinda have to laugh cuz it's ridiculously hard, though I have seen dogs that compete in Obedience to do beautiful finishes. We can dream can't we? I'll try to remember to report to you how it goes.

Homework

Sabrina went to her first obedience class yesterday: Graduate Puppy. It's for puppies over 6 months old. There are some really sweet dogs in her class: a mild mannered Golden-doodle, a very excitable yellow lab, a sweet little Lhasa Apso, a talkative pound puppy, and a 7 month old Berner girl from "a farm in Germany." I can now bet on 9 out of 10 Berners I meet within a 20 mile radius are from that "farm in Germany." If that doesn't send a big red flag to potential puppy owners, I don't know what will. Somebody is really cranking out puppies from that farm!
This is the first graduate puppy course I have ever attended and I am so glad we signed up. It is very different from Puppy Kindergarten. We immediately worked on how to teach our dogs to behave on a leash, from greeting other dogs on leash, to socializing briefly on leash, and then walking away at a heel. I learned about reading dog behavior/language as well as good dog owner etiquette. I wish every dog owner would go to an obedience course!
Sabrina was so excited throughout the class. Her paws were sweating the entire time and I could tell that she wearing herself out way before the class ended. When we finally made it back in the car and was heading home, Sabrina was passed out in the back. She slept the rest of the afternoon too. It was a lot of excitement for one puppy, especially alone without her big brother to show her the ropes!
This week, we have homework. We need to work on the 'heel' command. Sabrina has spent about 2 seconds of her life on a short 4 foot leash. Although she did quite well yesterday in class, I know we have a lot more work to do. I remember spending hours of time with Riley teaching him to heel, especially in the city, walking through crowds on Newbury Street, maneuvering sharp corners, and narrow walkways. I need to do a lot more of that with Sabrina. Unfortunately, I really don't know when I'm going to plan all of this training. I'm being very lazy today and can barely get the dogs out for a walk. I wish Riley could train her!