Well we have two more to go! Last night was a decent night, she did very well at the excercises, but was a bit more jumpy than she was last week. We started working on 'Leave it' and loose leash walking. 'Leave it' is going swimmingly so far. But the loose leash pulling is going to be a challenge! We haven't put a command to the 'leave it' behavior yet, all we're doing is holding a peice of food in a closed fist and holding it right in her face. Let her lick your hand, paw at it, anything, and as soon as she stops paying attention to it, for even a second, we click and treat. Cookie did excellent and by the end of the session she was totally purposely ignoring the treat. Then we stepped it up and only clicked if she looks at us and ignored our hand. It's shaping to teach them that whenever you say "Leave it" they stop whatever it is there doing and look at you, so the command won't be for just dropping an object they have in their mouth, but it will stop them from barking out the window or digging in the yard or sniffing another dogs poop, etc.
Loose leash walking is going to be tough. The trainer said some of us may not make it past the front of the house for a couple of weeks. It's just click and treat whenever she is by our side, and change directions as soon as she gets ahead of us. We're going to work on this a lot.
Thats really it for this week! We continued working on Stay and Settle and she did ok. For some reason she seemed a bit more distracted than last week, and come to think of it, so did the other dogs. It was a hot night and maybe that made them more irritable.
Wish us luck for next week! 
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Fourth Class
Replies (7)
Well done and good luck for next week! It sounds like Cookie is doing just great!!
Hey Jessie,
Sounds like Cookie is doing great. It took a long time for Mya to become a loose leash walker.
I forgot to mention that Mya lately has been walking behind me. I think she is getting old. 
How old is she now? And why the sad face? I don't think getting old is sad, it just happens and we shouldn't dwell on it in my opinion. Rather cherish the time you had and the time you will have. Mya has a lot of spunk in her yet!
Glad to hear that you both are learning & having a good time. Are you going to attend more classes?
(just read other forum about Cookie's incontnence, so sorry, but she is lucky to have you to understand & get her the help she needs)
It sounds like she's doing really well I really like that idea of the leave it command and how you're training her for it. When we got Kaiser he already sort of knew it, when we said it he would walk away (most of the time) but it would be really great to have him look at me.. I'm really happy for you guys that she's learning so well. I know what you mean about the leash pulling being very difficult. I'm fast learning it's going to be a long, long time before Kaiser will be able to go on a real walk again.. I'm glad that I'm at my parents' house for the summer so that I can still let him go in the yard for exercise while we're training for walks. Have you guys found a way to exercise Cookie while all this training is going on? If you have I'd love to hear about it, I'm going to need it when I move back home and don't have a fenced yard anymore..
Man is this going to be HARD! Even working on it in the yard is too much of a distraction for her. She is just not interested in treats at all when we're outside. But she is doing well with it in the house so we're just gonna go slow and if she isn't great at it in class next time, so what. I don't want to rush her. Actually, we have to miss tomorrow nights class. We have to make ANOTHER trip to the vet. But I will post more about that on the health board. But yes, this is going to be a long slow process. As for excercise, we're lucky that Jax is right across the street and we can go play with him. I haven't tried it yet, we just got back from our cabin in Maine, but I am hoping we can make it 30 feet without her pulling. And she has her 30 ft leash in our back yard and I spend about an hour and a half out there with her after work. I'm thinking about getting her a treadmill. jk
Thanks for all the compliments! Hopefully missing tomorrows class won't impact her progress too much. I am going to have the trainer fax us the homework. Thanks again!
