Obedience School, Week 2

Sorry this is late. As you may have heard, Mr. Ginger has been out of town (again).

As we pulled into the parking lot, we spotted the Vizsla dodging between cars, leash dragging along, human unit (possible hotel heiress) several steps behind. Once inside, Ms. Howard Johnson decided that rather than try harder, she would simply put the loop of the leash around her chair leg so that the canine could stray only so far.

This actually turned out to be fairly effective, as other attendees simply avoided what we might call her sphere of non-influence.

Within 20 minutes, Dominance Issues Duke had worked himself into such a froth that he literally frothed up his dinner. This led relatively quickly to the Shitzu following course. Later she “let it go” in the middle of the room, conveniently near the drain built into the middle of the floor. The Vizsla soon had a “go” too, but not near the drain. A mop was required.

Crazy dog seemed slightly less crazy tonight, at least until she spotted a cat on the other side of the glass wall of the training room. That’s right, one wall of the training room is glass, so that shoppers can look in on the goings on. While it might be great for selling people on the training classes, it does tend to hamper the actual training.

As for the evening’s lecture, it was kind of how-to dog-spa night. We learned about massaging our dog, brushing our dog’s teeth, and this unpleasantness.

Last week’s homework was to practice our praise phrase and “watch me.” Practicing the praise phrase involves repeating, in our case, “good girl,” while shoveling treats to the dog. We were told right up front that this would probably be the dog’s favorite training activity.

“Watch me” is similar, but it involves holding the treat near one’s own head and saying “watch me . . . watch me” before handing it over. This is some sort of attempt to get the canine to associate the term with gazing at the human head. Kirsten the trainer promises that it will be useful later.

Our in-class exercise was to perform the “watch me” in front of the group. The Eliminator did fine. Later, we had to trade canines with another human unit, perform “watch me,” and see how well the other dog did.

I ended up with Olive, who is just about twice The Eliminator’s weight. Most of the extra weight seems to be devoted to whatever muscle group powers tugging on the canine end of the leash.

This week’s homework: getting the dog to sit without saying the word. By holding a treat further and further over and towards the back of the dog’s head, the dog will eventually have to sit down. Ideally she will eventually associate the hand gesture with sitting and do it.

It really isn’t much of a problem getting The Eliminator to sit. Correctly assuming that sitting is basically the only command her human units know/understand, she sits whenever she wants something from us.