Sunday, October 6, 2013

Bogie's second training session

Bogie's first training session went pretty well.  First

Our second session was mostly verbal.  A critique of my command technique as we demonstrated our progress on Sit.  Shawn did a little work with Bogie to reinforce the command.

Then Shawn explained the 5 stages of Heel.  That was a problem.

I had already taught Bogie my concept of Heel.  And even I am aware that it isn't the right kind of Heel.  It's mostly "walk slower because I am going to keep you on a tight leash".

Shawn's suggestion was to use a different language for the commands.  I picked German because I suspect the Rottweiler up the street was trained in German and I want to be able to talk to him if he gets loose again.  Fortunately, he responded well to hand gestures last time.

So Sit becomes Sitz (seats) and Heel becomes Fuß (foos).  I tried to look up Klingon commands but even when I found words that came close, they didn't have a pronunciation guide.

The first priority was to get Bogie to Sitz every time he is asked.  And that is what we practiced after our second session.

I was having a hard time not moving my hand, or my body, when I said Break.  The dog needs to respond to the words not the hand gesture.

I also couldn't find a decent place away from Angel to do the training.  Shawn recommended that Angel not be present so Bogie would stay focused.

Bogie is the only one that follows me into the garage, so I tried that.  Worked at first.  In fact, that Saturday we did two short sessions of Sitz very successfully.  But on Sunday, he just stood there and looked at me.  When he finally did Sit, he did a Sit and Slide.  That's my term for a Sit that fluidly degenerates into a lay, one vertebrae at a time.

After a couple days, I realized that Bogie's biggest love is playing fetch with his Tribble toy.  He captured it fair and square off the shelf and it has become his favorite possession.

With it as motivation, I was able to get Bogie to Sitz before I would throw the Tribble for him.  However, we didn't come close to the ten times in a row Shawn requested.  We made no progress on Fuß. And we were training with Angel in the room. 

I went to the third session convinced I had flunked every test as a pet trainer.

Top Dog Boarding and Training.

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