Day 9

Day 9 was yesterday, seems I'm getting in a habit of posting a day (or two) late. But I'm still hoping to stick to it and not miss any days!! *fingers crossed*

Last night was Bennett's first puppy class. We had a class last week,  but it was just for owners. The class is held at the local vet clinic (bonuses: it is VERY close to my house, and Bennett gets to learn that she can have fun at the vet clinic!), and the trainer was recommended to me by a lady I met at a recent obedience trial. She is very pro-clicker, shaping, reward based, so that is good for me! The class is quite basic, however, and much of the time is spent chatting and doing ground level stuff that I have already covered with Bennett in the past week or so (loading the clicker, name recognition, offering behaviors, learning to relax, etc.). But that is fine, the instructor seems quite accepting of me working a little on my own when the other students are catching up.

Last night was a lot of chat about the basics, while the other students rewarded for their puppy offering downs on a mat. Bennett and I worked on some shaping of a "head down" trick during this time. We did do a "find my face" exercises, which really just highlighted how well all of our heel position work has been sticking! The idea is to turn your back on the puppy and click-reward for them moving toward your front. Little steps at a time, until the puppy is eventually coming around to sit in front and look at your face. Bennett kept getting stuck at heel position, sitting and looking at me there. It took some more effort to get her to step toward the front. In all honesty, though, I'm not going to force the issue that much. The goal of the exercise was to encourage the puppy to offer you focus and attention. I don't particularly want Bennett creeping forward out of heel position, and am quite happy if she wants to stop there and offer focus instead. I plan to train a "front" position separately, and focus is clearly not a problem for this puppy so far!! I think we are going to follow up on the "find my face" game next week, so my goal is to teach Bennett the "front" position by next Wednesday so that we have something to show for ourselves. Not exactly the game the instructor wants, but getting the same behavior and more conducive to my long term goals.

Bennett rocked the class during the puppy handling exercises. Touching the feet, ears, face, belly, giving kisses and checking teeth. She lapped it all up! Surely because of the plentitude of kisses she received as a wee baby!

The recall exercise was fun, and it really highlighted my background in flyball! While all the other owners used food and puppy voices for their recalls, I had Bennett's plush tug and yelled for her. Racing recall and LOTS of tug drive!!! Growly crazy tuggy praise = crazy fast puppy recalls! She was moderately distracted her first attempt by the very cute GSD puppy in the class. He had just finished his recall, and she thought him to be quite handsome as he walked past. They showed their mutual attraction during play time, where Bennett and Max the GSD had a rowdy and loud bout of puppy zoomies and chase time! New best friends, I think!

Needless to say, there was a VERY tired Sheltie in the house last night, and I didn't hear a peep from her all evening until potty time in the morning.

Days 7 & 8

No time for writing last night, so I'll squish yesterday and today into a single post.

On Monday nights I teach a Bridge Obedience class for Breakaway Action Dogs in Frederick, MD. I normally take Romeo with me to demo the different skills we are working on. Last night I took Romeo as usual, but also left a bit early and took Bennett as well. I worked Bennett in the lobby area of the training building while the classes before us were going on. I didn't teach anything new, rather just focused on polishing previous skills in the new location. The building is purely a dog training building, so lots of fantastic smells! A puppy class was on at the time, so about 10 bouncy puppies as well. Bennett did really well with her sits, downs and "get in"s. She met some of the other trainers and students, and wasn't hesitant or shy at all! At this point of the game, because she can have a tendency to be hand-shy, I'm letting her approach whoever she wants (within reason), and even put paws up on them, so long as she is polite about it (ie. not pushy, scratching, or noise-making). Her "sit" is nice and solid, and she offers it readily, so once the confidence with other people is solidified, we'll work on sitting nicely.

A couple of surprises during the evening: 1) Bennett is not too thrilled about hanging out in dark corners. Okay, so that maybe isn't so surprising, but it came up randomly when a slightly reactive dog came in and we moved to give her space. We spent some time hanging out in the dark corner, exploring, and working on heel position. 2) Trains are super interesting, but not scary. This is good, not noise phobic at all! But very noise curious. She had to sit and listen to every train that went past. 3) Her sit-stays are really coming along, and it appears as if other dogs won't be much of a distraction! She held a sit-stay when a young Lab from the puppy class escaped and came for a visit. Good girl!

Tonight, Bennett had her first shaping session. We worked on laying down on her mat. It was straight shaping, with no verbal or body cues. It took a while for her to get started, but after a couple of minutes she figured out that the mat was the focus and was quickly moving to down on it repeatedly. She's picking up the idea of the clicker really nicely!

I have to say that Bennett's working style is not really what I am used to!! She is a crazy, loud, energetic, and bratty puppy. But when she is working she is very intense and focused. I'm used to kamikaze and skirting the edge of sanity. Bennett is methodical, but not slow. Very careful and thoughtful, but not to the point where she is reluctant or hesitant. For the down on her mat, I was clicking for a down, and then tossing the treat away to the side to get her to stand up and leave the mat. She would do a weird little Border Collie stalk away to her treat and back to the mat again. I could almost smell the gears turning, and every movement on her part was very precise. While it is certainly not a problem now, I will have to keep an eye on her to make sure that she doesn't start thinking "too much" and getting slow. At this point, it is lovely! But I can see pickiness on my part resulting in hesitancy on her part. Just something for me to keep in mind as we move forward. That said, there is some fantastic potential for really sharp work from her! She pays much more attention to detail than either Gio or Romeo do.

Day 6

Napping and playing are important for puppies AND people! So that is what we did today.

Day 5

Today there was a Howl-o-Wine doggy Halloween costume event hosted by a local therapy dog organization, Wags for Hope, and the Sugarloaf Mountain Vineyard. I took Bennett and Romeo, Gio stayed home as I didn't want to stress him out too much after his recent vet hospital stays. Bennett rocked a pirate costume, and took part in the costume contest. She quite liked the stage, and upped her prancing when people clapped and "awwww"ed for her.

The event consisted of a number of local vendors, a wine tasting bar, food booths, and some live music. Our goal, in addition to checking out the wine (!!!), was to hunt down as many people and new distractions as we could. Anyone that looked our way was asked to "give the puppy a cookie". I had a bag full of treats, and all children and adults were prompted to feed the puppy. Initially, she was a little stand-offish about the strangers, but by the end of the afternoon, she was readily crawling into laps for cuddles and kisses! Nothing fazed her at all. Between revving motorcycles, a squeaky windmill, loud speaker announcements, live guitar music, big bouncy dogs, or any of the myriad of things we ran into. She took it all in stride, stayed happy and enthusiastic for the entire ~3 hours we were on site.

I broke the afternoon up a bit, moving off to the side of the action to work on some skills. Bennett is eagerly offering sits in all new locations, "get in" and "down" are generalizing really nicely, too. Once her puppy excitement started to wear off, we worked on settling in public. Her tiredness and having Romeo as a role model really helped, and she was comfortable laying down in the grass and watching the excitement as we chilled for a while.

Despite her sustained enthusiasm and good mood, the event tired her out completely! Apart from the occasional potty break, she has been napping in her crate for the entire evening. Tired puppies make me happy!

Day 4

We clipped toenails and trimmed paw hair. That is quite enough for today, thanks!!

Day 3

It was back to work today, so less training got done than in previous days. Bennett spent her first full day crated while I was at work and held her bladder the whole time! YAY girlie! Now, if we could only start speaking the same language for alerts to go out during play time.

Our after work clicker session involved more heel position sits and the start of "stay". We're just working sit-stay for now, and I can get about two steps in front and then back to heel without her breaking. Each day, I like to review what we did previously, and then introduce a little bit of something new. Training sessions are only 10-15 minutes so that she doesn't get frustrated or bored. I split the session up with short crate breaks while I worked Romeo. She has to learn to wait nicely while I'm working the other dogs, so she got to sit in her crate in the same room that Romeo was working, and when she was quiet she got treats.

Gio's been sick the past couple of days, and spent the day at the vets for observation today. He'll be home this evening, but on a very restricted diet, so I don't want to tempt him with food. That means no more treat-training tonight. I think we'll just take the time to play and cuddle!

Day 2

Another day of government furlough, though the news is making it sound like we may be back to work tomorrow. We got a couple of little training sessions in today, between prepping for "back to work". This morning we played ... yeah, that's training, too! Bennett has decided that she is an avid tugger and found a little plush springy toy that she is fond of. We played tug, where I encouraged her to chase the toy before catching it, tug tug tug, then I introduced the "give" command. She's picking up on it nicely and I only occasionally had to crowd her mouth off of the toy with my hands before she would release it. Of course, the reward is getting the toy back! Give it up, get it back, and repeat. Most of the time, she will now release on her own when I stop tugging and say "give". We also addressed the concept of multidog play. How to play together nicely, appropriate levels of "fighting for the toy", as well as taking turns catching a tossed toy. This is just as much practice for Gio and Romeo as it is for her. Gio is the ever-tolerant play partner. He tugged with Bennett a bit, and is such a good boy, basically just holding the toy still and "growling" while she tugs. He could fling her across the room if he wanted, but he is so gentle with the little play buddies! Romeo is slightly less tolerant of her, and there was one minor snark moment. But, he is all noise and flash, and Bennett took it in stride.

Clicker session #1 we worked on more sits from yesterday and introduced downs. Bennett is readily offering "sit" now, even throughout the day when she thinks she wants something, she will sit nicely for it. Down was initially a struggle. She is the first of my crew that hasn't been "lure-able" for downs. However, when I tried the "under the leg" trick, she hit the dirt! After a couple tries, she was diving under my leg into a down position! That seemed to provide the light bulb moment for her, and I was then able to lure into a down without issue after that. By the end of the session she was offering downs all on her own.

Mid-morning we went back to the park for a long-line run. Schnauzer friend Jasper was there again, so she enjoyed some zoomie time with him. Then some toy tossing with Romeo. At the end of our park time, a string of ambulances drove past. Bennett was certainly interested in the sirens, but not nervous or afraid at all. Her instinct was to turn to watch the vehicles and sit at attention. Instead of allowing her to focus on the noise, I instead called her for some fun recalls and we worked some puppy push-ups for treats. This addresses two issues ... working amid noise distractions AND beginning to generalize "sit" and "down" outside of the living room. No problem!

We practiced napping most of the afternoon.

Clicker session #2 was a rehash of sit and down, this time with me standing. Previously, I was teaching as I sat on the floor with her. She had no problems with the change, so I upped the ante and worked on introducing sit in heel position. I used a small wicker box to serve as a guide to keep her in straight beside me and lured around it into heel position sits.