Hank and Scarlet had their first real work days today. We still have them both on prong collars and just did basic Heel/Autosit, Implied Stay and Come commands today. Hank also started Down.
Scarlet did pretty well. Every so often she gets defiant and throws a temper tantrum or she decides to pout before snapping out of it and enjoying training again. She is a pretty tough little girl and she takes a stronger correction than some pups her age. But she is a love sponge and LOVES praise so she is easy to motivate. She is impatient and gets frustrated easily so she learns quickly but she gets bored. Keeping her feeling challenged will be the real trick this week.
Hank seems to know most of the commands I'm giving him. He fought me HARD on down. He is very strong and will lock his elbows if he doesn't want to lay down but he started to understand what I was asking him to do after his second workout today. An issue I've noticed with him is that on top of his eyesight being poor he also seems to forget what he is doing from time to time. His memory might be taxed from his controlled neurological issues but I can't quite tell yet. But I have noticed that on any command that asks him to remember what he is doing for more than a few minutes he does seem to lose himself after a while and he will just wander off. But since he doesn't do anything specific (like he isn't finding a smell or a sound or anything) and is just wandering off absentmindedly I do wonder if he is just getting distracted or if he is actually having trouble remembering what he was doing. He paces a lot inside like he forgets where he was going so maybe this is something he deals with all the time. But he is a special dog and he is working hard. He clearly has a vocabulary already so I do think we will be able to give him a better understanding of his words. I'm glad it is warming up this week. He was a real wimp about the cold today and I felt bad making his shiver outside when we work.
Tomorrow we are doing more of the same, adding commands and complexity for Scarlet and continuing to see if we can expand on what Hank already knows. Both dogs are doing great.
Scarlet did pretty well. Every so often she gets defiant and throws a temper tantrum or she decides to pout before snapping out of it and enjoying training again. She is a pretty tough little girl and she takes a stronger correction than some pups her age. But she is a love sponge and LOVES praise so she is easy to motivate. She is impatient and gets frustrated easily so she learns quickly but she gets bored. Keeping her feeling challenged will be the real trick this week.
Hank seems to know most of the commands I'm giving him. He fought me HARD on down. He is very strong and will lock his elbows if he doesn't want to lay down but he started to understand what I was asking him to do after his second workout today. An issue I've noticed with him is that on top of his eyesight being poor he also seems to forget what he is doing from time to time. His memory might be taxed from his controlled neurological issues but I can't quite tell yet. But I have noticed that on any command that asks him to remember what he is doing for more than a few minutes he does seem to lose himself after a while and he will just wander off. But since he doesn't do anything specific (like he isn't finding a smell or a sound or anything) and is just wandering off absentmindedly I do wonder if he is just getting distracted or if he is actually having trouble remembering what he was doing. He paces a lot inside like he forgets where he was going so maybe this is something he deals with all the time. But he is a special dog and he is working hard. He clearly has a vocabulary already so I do think we will be able to give him a better understanding of his words. I'm glad it is warming up this week. He was a real wimp about the cold today and I felt bad making his shiver outside when we work.
Tomorrow we are doing more of the same, adding commands and complexity for Scarlet and continuing to see if we can expand on what Hank already knows. Both dogs are doing great.
RSS Feed