Had First Night Of Obedience Class - Rocking Homework!

[krissn333]

Our beginner obedience class started last night. First night was humans only/orientation, but, we had homework to work on with our pups.

 

1) Name - get the dog to look at you when you say their name.

2) Here - get the dog to touch their nose to your hand when you say, "here."

3) Sit - self explanatory

 

Tonight was our first night of working on the homework. I'm so proud of Clarice! She's very good with looking at me when I say her name. She does it all the time.

 

The one thing I thought she would be AWESOME at but that we have NEVER EVER worked on here before was Here. She is SO good at it! I don't even have to give her a treat every single time and she will do it. It's a game for her and it's adorable. She's so excited to do it!

 

She came to me already sitting naturally, so, we have been working on getting her to do it on command anyway...with mixed results. After tonight we are now to the point where she will sit IF she can see the treat. If she can't see the treat, she isn't consistently doing it. It's only day 1. We will work on it.

 

For most of the Name work, she had her buns plopped down on the floor. She offers a sit a lot even if I haven't asked. I still think that's good.

 

She seems to be teaching herself new things because while I was waiting for her to look AWAY from me so I could get her to look AT me again, she moved into a down. I have NEVER seen her do that before. She did it a couple of times. Hilarious. I can't really take credit for any of the "big" tricks she does She came to me naturally sitting, and now she's laying down before I've lured her into the position

 

So Ozzie wouldn't feel left out, when Clarice was done, I did the Name and Here exercises with Ozzie. He is SO excited over food, so the Name exercise didn't go super awesome, but he did okay. The entire time his eyes are SUPER WIDE and darting around looking for the food "Here" was a fabulous succcess with him as well and he seemed to really enjoy the "game" too

 

I'm not going to push sit with him - he only has 3 toes on one back foot and he broke that hock when he was racing. Sitting is not a natural position for him. We will work on getting him to sphynx, but, he doesn't do that much naturally either.

[XTRAWLD]

Sounds great and how exciting. Ryder is a natural sitter, and Kasey isn't so I don't push Kasey, but he'll do EVERYTHING I ask. It's also tough to train one and not the other. I'll have Kasey out in the other room while I go through the paces with Ryder, and Kasey does everything and I see him out of the corner of my eye. He just does it all like an old pro. It's so cute. "Look maaaa, maaaa, I'm doing it." "Yes Kasey but I'm not asking YOU to do it." "But maaaaa, see, look, PAW you said PAW, it's right heeere!"

 

I took Ryder to obedience training and it's hard not to get caught up in it all. Some days his mind just wasn't into it, but when they are on they are ON.

 

Interesting about the HERE and nose touch. How do you teach that? I taught Ryder to look by asking him to "watch" so that's a really good command to know, especially when trying to distract from something or to keep him calm.

 

Have fun with this! And teach EVERYONE. It's fun!

[greysmom]

[3greytjoys]

Yea Clarice!! So glad she and Ozzie are having such fun learning new "games"! Keep up your great effort!

[AnneGTS]

Sounds like fun!

[PrairieProf]

Beth has been through advanced obedience (well, the Petsmart version) and still rarely sits on command without knowing there is a treat in the vicinity. In fact she doesn't do many of the commands without a reward involved (and sometimes knowing I have a reward in one hand makes it act like a lure). And she is a natural sitter too (FWIW the missing toe makes no difference to her sitting; I can imagine Ozzie's hock might be stiffer).

 

Congrats she's doing so well!

[CharlieRhea]

Great job Clarice! Sounds like you are having fun too!

[krissn333]

 

Interesting about the HERE and nose touch. How do you teach that? I taught Ryder to look by asking him to "watch" so that's a really good command to know, especially when trying to distract from something or to keep him calm.

 

 

 

Here is SO easy to teach!

 

1) hold a treat in open palm down at your side and kind of out, palm facing the dog. When dog comes to get the treat, say "Yes!" and give the treat.

 

2) When dog is reliably coming to the lure, when they touch their nose say "Here" then "yes!" when they get the treat.

 

3) Hide the treat in other hand or pocket and just offer the open hand and say "here." When dog touches nose to hand, say, "YES!" and give treat.

 

Both Ozzie AND Clarice did this this morning too - I straight up offered my empty hand and both would touch their noses! Of course as soon as they touch their nose and I say "yes!" they are looking at me for that treat

[GreyPoopon]

Sounds like great fun!

 

I love that Clarice is offering stuff. That can be really tough to encourage.

 

Go Clarice! Go Ozzie!

[krissn333]

They both crack me up doing "here" I can walk across the room and say "here" and hold out my hand and each of them will come barreling over!

 

Tonight Clarice would sit even if she couldn't see the treat!