It is always so much fun to get to work with my puppy preschool graduates. Helo is doubley fun because he is also my puppy-nephew! He is here for the on-leash to off-leash transition and some behavior modification. Coming to us from Denver he now holds the record for longest distance traveled to come to Free State K-9.
Like I said, Helo was trained as a young dog in on-leash obedience and now his owners (hi sis!) would like to transition him to off-leash so that he can be reliable off leash on hiking trails and at dog parks. His biggest issue is that he has very little self-restraint when it comes to other dogs. Helo knows no strangers and wants to befriend every dog he sees. Some dogs on the trails don't want to be his best friend and some hikers don't know how to react to a 90lb dog bounding towards them.
Today I just wanted to see how well he had retained his on-leash obedience. After a shaky start he soon was doing all his commands smoothly (Heel/Autosit, Down at the side and from the front, Implied Stay, Recall, Sit, and Place). In fact, afterwards while I was working another dog who is here for training Helo followed us and was copy-cating all the commands I asked the other dog to do!
I think the transition will be smooth and the difficult part will be putting him in situations similar to the ones he will encounter at home. We have hiking trails here but there is almost no dog traffic on them. The dog park is a definite possibility but first we must get him reliable in a low distraction area.
Tomorrow we are going to start the off leash transition!
Like I said, Helo was trained as a young dog in on-leash obedience and now his owners (hi sis!) would like to transition him to off-leash so that he can be reliable off leash on hiking trails and at dog parks. His biggest issue is that he has very little self-restraint when it comes to other dogs. Helo knows no strangers and wants to befriend every dog he sees. Some dogs on the trails don't want to be his best friend and some hikers don't know how to react to a 90lb dog bounding towards them.
Today I just wanted to see how well he had retained his on-leash obedience. After a shaky start he soon was doing all his commands smoothly (Heel/Autosit, Down at the side and from the front, Implied Stay, Recall, Sit, and Place). In fact, afterwards while I was working another dog who is here for training Helo followed us and was copy-cating all the commands I asked the other dog to do!
I think the transition will be smooth and the difficult part will be putting him in situations similar to the ones he will encounter at home. We have hiking trails here but there is almost no dog traffic on them. The dog park is a definite possibility but first we must get him reliable in a low distraction area.
Tomorrow we are going to start the off leash transition!
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