let's recap, what was the homework? Get your pups to stay for THREE minutes while you leave the room. So, all week, I focused on them. I came home from work, trained them. Ate, trained them. Woke up, trained them... House Church (weekly Bible Study), cancelled that and stayed home to train them. Saturday, cancelled a photoshoot to train them. Sunday, cancelled Church to train them. Monday I was off from work, guess what I did...BINGO!
Did they have it? I must say, they were a great improvement! But could they do 3 minutes? Milo? At best he could do it so long as he could see me... adn Pugs? ... No. He doesn't like sitting! He shifts... like his bum is too boney. My poor baby :-(
Tuesday approaches...
I wake up this morning preparing for work and all I can think is, "oh no... tonight's the night they embarass mommy".
We get there, warm up with walking the track...over and over. And for whatever reason, Sherri is not convinced our babies "trust" us. So, she gathers all of us up, and sends us outside to her obstacle course. First the 'bridge' then the 'A-frame" and then 'tunnel'. But you can't do one until you pass the first...
Please note: It rained the whole day prior to our evening class. Also, none of us knew we would be going outside (in a ranch!). Can you say, fully drenched muddy WHITE shoes???? And poor Tanner's Mommy was wearing really nice UGGs... so sad. And frustrating.
I swear, Sherri had it in for me - SWEAR! I thought Milo (my pup for the night) was doing GREAT. He was walking the bridge - though my command was supposed to be 'walk' and I said '
'let's go'...strike 1. He did the A-frame well (two sheets of wood with grooves shaped in the form of an A and reaching a height of 7 feet at it's peak) - though I was supposed to shout 'Climb' and I said "are you ready? let's go!"...strike 2. And when he did the tunnel...I think I got it together, but at this point, I think Sherri was just disgusted with my lack of commands!
Listen! Milo did GREAT I'll have you know! He ran the tunnel no problem - except that one time he stopped mid-way to pee in the centre (HAHAHA - that's our little secret), I felt no need to yell or scold or double snap the chain!
Whatever! Afterwards, we went back in, did the walking drills again. Then, we learned the newest command: "come". Sounds simple eh? Riiiight! The task is twofold, firstly, they must learn the immediate knee jerk come, this is when you are walking and something (danger) is baiting your pup. What do you do, give him the false sense of "go ahead" and as soon as he takes it, snap that chain and pull him back saying "come" and them wait for him and praise him when he gets to you. Then, you turn and walk away. Inadvertently, I praised and turned at the same time. BIG NO! Sherri retorts by saying, I knew i could find something to yell at you about! And sets me up as an example of what not to do. Yup... you must praise face to face first, then turn and walk back together! Second, the passive come. You place him in a stay position, walk 50 paces out and wail your right arm like a propeller and excitedly yell "come!". So, when we practiced this, well didn't Milo just put me to shame! I'm there wailing my hands and yelling come, and he just sits there...as if he's the poster child for "stay"! What a little good for nothing! Which then became my fault because I was waiving him in big enough and blah blah blah...
Anyway, after this kerfuffle, Sherri then says, "alright, line your dogs up! We're going to review their stay from last week"...Dum Dum Duuuum!!! Here is the moment of truth. Did all my hard work from last week pay off? We line the dogs up, Sherri tells us to put them in a hard stay which means dubble jerk their chain so they know we mean business, then turn and leave the room...So Marc and I do what they say, and walk to the door holding our breath that Sherri won't call our boys' names. We wait, and wait, and wait, and then she says okay everyone, come back in! YAY!!! The test is over, the minutes have passed and LIFE IS GOOD!!! Yay! My boys passed! WooHoo!!!! I'm so proud of them! Phew! but then...
Your task for next week: Work on the come! Till next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment