training news

First of all, I am going to have my hands full! Our friends dog Georgia is coming to stay with us and I will try to train her to to not whine while going on walks and maybe to start tugging in public. Seems easy enough right? Well, Im not a professional and her owner has been working on this for a long time. Im hoping I can at least make some progress in the right direction. Georgia will be arriving tonight.

I took Kate to a dog park the other day. It is really open and huge. I went during a time that is very empty. Having a fearful dog has helped me to realize that lots of dogs are very rude. She is clearly showing that she is nervous and many exuberant dogs take this as a sign that she wants to play. I was very wrong about taking her to the dog park. It was way too overwhelming and we had no escape from the dogs.

So last night I took her to Green Lake for some training. It is basically 3 mile path along a lake in the the middle of Seattle. All dogs are on leash (or supposed to be). We made some real progress there. I rewarded her for looking at other dogs and for looking at me when other dogs walked by. She told me that 15 feet or more was as close as she wanted to be to another dog. So that is where we worked. Unfortunately someone came up from behind us and before I could save her, some clueless person approached us with her dog and Kate snapped at him. I tried to walk away and she followed "but he is very friendly". Ughh! Other than that little incident. I think we were very successful.

At the dog park with Indigo and Epic yesterday, we did some recall work. As usual when it is time to leave there is always several people playing chuck-it near the parking lot. And as usual Indigo and Epic were happily stealing other dogs balls and ignoring us. I went to the car and grabbed our chuck-it. Indigo, being the more aware one saw it and came running and didnt leave our side again. Epic did not notice until we called him with the chuck-it waving in the air. Not great, but it was a start.

Pax is getting better and better with his recall and general self control. He is getting MUCH better at bringing the ball back and dropping it at my feet as long as no other dogs are around. Unfortunately we are having problems getting him to stop biting Indigo when they run together, so Pax will need a muzzle. He also will not stop peeing on the floor in the middle of the night. Crate or no crate, water after five 5 pm or not, let out at 11 pm or not, he pees. Its extremely annoying. I think we will have to start letting him out in the middle of the night.