Friday, December 20, 2013

Training

Lewis P Wellington and I had our first session with the trainer.  She was nice, and I liked the way her focus was on looking for behaviour I'd find acceptable vs perfection.  (eg - All I need is for him to walk on a loose leash beside me, rather than demanding a perfect heel to my left.)

As expected, Lewis was a little over eager when it came to the possibility of getting Treats.  We only had to ask for and reward a behaviour two or three times before he started offering it... you'd think I never fed the dang puppy.  It's kind of hard to practice recall when he won't move more than 2 feet from me when I have food, so we worked together.  We ran around the basement and called him back and forth between us, celebrating and rewarding each time.  For practice this week I'm to get a 30' line and take him out to a park so that he (hopefully) gets distracted from the food in my pockets and wanders far enough from me that I can call him back.

When I first contacted her, I said a priority was teaching Lewis to LeaveTheCatAlone!   He's been getting a lot better, but as the trainer left she declared that we had work to do on that and would be focusing on it next week.

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