Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Lessons from "Step Ahead" Level 2 Obedience Class - Class #4

Tonight, Hyedie drove the Miata to my office and picked me up with Dukey in the front seat. He shed a lot and was quite nervous and hyper when we arrived at school. We had 45 minutes before class to settle him down but it may have been too much because he wasn't that sharp tonight...

Tonight we learned/reviewed:

1) Review of Stand Stay (Duke had a lot of trouble with this!)
2) "Stack" your dog to make him stand (hold collar and push up on belly in front of hind leg)
3) Around (using a treat in each hand and luring your dog to walk behind you from the right and back to heel position on the left)
4) Sit stay with Voice only
5) Come without voice
6) Heeling exercise by using a lure and progressively walking in a tighter and tighter circles. Clockwise is used for dogs that lag, and counterclockwise is used for dogs that lead ahead.
7) Dog pushups (Down with right hand, Stand with left)
8) Down at a Distance
9) Sit stay attention span work (30 seconds+)

IT WAS A PACKED NIGHT OF WORK!!!!

The funniest part of the evening was during the Sit Stay attention span work, as all the dogs were staying, one of the big houndy-type dogs decided to screw it and stood up and decided to run around in a circle. All the naughty dogs (Duke included) became very distracted!!!

Some other ideas picked up:

-Corinna (the instructor) was having a conversation with at student regarding the COME command. She was suggesting that you could take your dog's meal, divide it in 3, and make him COME and as the reward, give the 1/3rd of the meal to him. Duke's recall is not that good unless it is part of the Sit Stay Come sequence.

-Hyedie had to switch to better treats to get results with Duke (very stinky Wellness treats)

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