Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Puppy class

Week three of puppy class, and all are going strong! I'm extremely pleased with this class - everyone has goals, everyone is motivated, everyone is having fun!
The Chihuahua's mommy told me that she had to change her goal - she thought her little one was dog aggressive, and I duly noted that on my sheet. Well, turns out, she discovered, we are only dog aggressive on the leash. If off leash, then, we seem to be just fine. I have to wonder if he's feeling the tension from the other side of the leash. Did you know current and emotion travel down quite easily and quickly via that conduit?
Tis true.
We worked on down in class last night. Too funny! I had two of 8 puppies who already knew how to down. I picked a boxer pup to demo with thinking 'easy!' Sometimes I get overconfident in my abilities - in that class, I should have picked the doxie baby. Boxer baby did his imitation of Stubborn Boy very very well! I only got him to down twice and I'm pretty sure his folks didn't at all. Down can be tricky to learn in class.
Sometimes our puppies just Won't with our positive techniques for a bit. I tell people I like them to figure it out for themselves, and that way I know they know. (In another post I'll share a few other techniques for down if the 'sit, then lure' doesn't work for you.)

We did some loose leash walk techniques. We worked on leave it, and did a come game. Worked on some problem solving - my mouthy mini bull terrier was Much better last night, tho I'm seeing some signs of dog aggression we must keep an eye on. Housebreaking seemed to be better, overall, with the techniques I shared.

My funny from last night - Stubborn Boxer's Daddy said 'we were talking last night and we want to know if its okay to record you?"
I asked, 'think you are going to forget how to do something or??"
He said, "No, we want you to say 'sit' and 'come' and 'walk' because he does it for your voice and he won't for us at all!"
Laughing - don't think its the sound of my particular voice that does it.......

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