Star Pupil

Sunday was Olive's second "Family Dog" class at "Tails U Win". I am happy to report that she catches on fast. The instructor "borrowed" her at one point to demonstrate walk etiquette, and thanked me afterward that my dog made her (the instructor) look good. Now if only I could get Olive to make ME look good.

Most of what is being taught is pretty basic: sit, lie down, responding to her name, behavior Olive already knows. We started on using hand signals, some of which Olive already seemed to know. At least she followed my signal to "lay down" (I pointed to the floor in front of her), though it took me a bit of trying to get her to catch on to "sit". There I didn't know what signal she might have been taught previously, so I made a circular motion with my hand to indicate her rump should go down. We were told to make the hand signal, then give the verbal command if she didn't respond. After a while a dog will associate the hand signal with the verbal command. Sure enough Olive caught on after a few tries. Imagine her thoughts in dialogue with me as:

Me: hand signal for sit.

Olive thinks: I don't know what that means.

Me: "Sit!"

Olive thinks: Well, why didn't you say so?

After several tries, Olive realizes "oh, I guess that hand motion means sit".

My only wish was that I had practiced hand targeting with her a bit more. That is where after getting her attention I hold out my hand flat near her. The object is that she should turn to sniff my hand and follow it if I move it one way or another. This is a stepping stone to getting her to follow me in a walking situation. She follows my hand, I click the clicker and reinforce with a treat. Even before the class started I had been working on "with me" (what some would call "heel") with some success. At first I tried to use "heel" as a command and got little response. Somehow I started using "with me" instead and got a much better response. Since then I have been using "with me" exclusively. I can see where hand targeting would be a help in firming this skill up.

For training treats to use at the class, the instruction to the humans was to bring five different kinds of treats and a hungry dog. I gave Olive her usual breakfast Sunday, but nothing else that day until class time. For treats I brought a small amount of her usual food (Blue Seal Active Dog Formula), cut up a "Dentastix" treat into small bights, bagged a handful of small dog biscuits that a friend had given us, bagged a handful of "training treat" pellets that I picked up in the grocery store, and cut up some leftover grilled chicken from the day before that I packed in a small plastic container and brought to class in a small cooler with an ice pack to keep it cold. Olive eagerly went for each of all five treats, though I think she liked the chicken best.

Now our task is to practice what we did last Sunday until our next class on the 25th.