School Days, School Days....

Reilly went to his first class on Tuesday.  It's interesting.  Many aspects of the class I really like, but others I don't.  The trainer is loud and abrasive.  She reached for Reilly and he shied away, which is a first for him.  I was petting him as I talked to her, and when she reached and he shied, she then told me I had just reinforced his poor behavior by petting him when he reacted to her.  She apparently did not notice that I had been petting him before as well as during her grabbing at him.  What I failed to do was stop her.  She also took him from me for a "demo" three times during the class.  The first time took me by surprise, and I let it ride simply because of that.  The other times...well, I just didn't want to make a scene in class.  But I will speak to her before the class this week and tell her she is not to take Reilly as a demo.  I know it's easy to use him because he is big, so it's easy for everyone to see what he's doing.  But he should not be getting treats from anyone other than me, or Chris to a lesser extent.  And he does not need to respond to commands from anyone but me...and again, to a lesser extent, Chris.  He's not a pet, he's a working companion.  Or will be.

On the other hand, getting him to work for me with all those other pups around is going to be an invaluable experience.  And having the experience of being around people with more expansive personality types will be good, too.

We worked on things Reilly is already familiar with, such as "sit".  We also did "down", which although not completely new to Reilly is not something I've done much of.  He did well. I will need to teach him a second way to "down", but one at a time.  It's easiest for them to come down from a sitting postion, but that puts the front of their body too far forward in a working situation.  He'll need to learn to put his front end down first, as in the play bow, and then lower his back end, to keep him in a working position.   Another was simply getting him to look at me.  "Watch Me".  "Come" was on the list, too.  This was simply walking them on a leash, then stopping and walking backwards while calling them.  Reilly can easily be left in a "stay" while I walk away from him for a good 20 feet, then come when called.  It'll be interesting to see how he does with that when we're in a group.  The distractions are bigger there.  She also had us work on a "trick": spinning the pup in a circle, as if he's chasing his tail.  I have not been practicing that one, as I see no value in it for us.  This week, shaking hands is on the list as a trick.  I do not want a dog to shake hands.  Never have and never will.  However, I will want him to learn to use his feet for tasks such as hitting the button to open a handicap door, or a light switch.  So, instead of "shake", I'll be teaching him to hit my upright palm, like a "high five".  I should then be able to transfer that command to the buttons.  I was going to use the command "target" for that, but Chris really wants me to use "high five", which is funny.  Reilly won't care one way or another, so I'll probably humor my husband.  I'll pick up a laser and start using it to direct where the high five goes, so he can learn to hit the button.  After the experience at the elevator, I'm betting that when he sees that pushing a button causes a reaction he's going to enjoy it!

Regardless, we have been doing our homework this week, with the exception of the "spin".  I'm very pleased to say that Reilly has even demonstrated that he knows to rise from a "down" into a "sit" when told.  That's a hard one to learn. 

Oh!  The other really valuable thing we're doing is teaching them to ignore food that's not in a bowl or offered.  That's really good....because using all these treats in class has turned my sweet puppy into a begger.  Instead of walking nicely beside me, he's crowding me, and getting in front of me trying to get treats, after just one session of constantly getting treated!  Hopefully, working with him on ignoring food will help get this out of him.  I don't use many treats at home, other than as initiating lures, but we're expected to use lots and lots of treats in class.

Today is Sunday, and we did make it to the park today.  We haven't been going regularly, in part due to the side effects I'm dealing with from the prednisone.  But we went today.  Reilly did a lot of crowding me while I walked, and a good bit of pulling; mostly to get to people he wanted to see.  I had to use some distractions to get him past people, and multiple reverses to stop the pulling.  However, he did his sitting and downing at the park too, so the distractions didn't totally do him in.

Meg and Reilly