Linus is such a sweet boy. Smart, sensitive, young, and full of energy. All of these positive attributes make him slightly more difficult to train than the average dog. He learns very well when he keeps focus. He picked up Place in about 3 minutes. However, he is sensitive and in a sense his feelings get hurt when I have to correct him. When he makes a mistake he is very easy to over-correct and if he is over-corrected it takes a while to build him back up to feeling good. To efficiently get him to learn AND keep it fun for him (he sure can get a fit of the sullens if he gets corrected too often) I am being careful to be very encouraging to him. He gets positive feedback in the form of a happy voice and leg pats to keep him moving and happy and when he gets the right answer he gets praise that is a bit over the top. I atribute some of this sensitivity to homesickness. I am a stranger and this is a semi-new environment but today we had a good play session and he is acting a bit less scared of me.
His Heel/Autosit is doing well unless something (like a large donkey braying at him) scares him. His Down is so-so as is his Implied Stay. He liked learning Placemat but I had to make sure not to make it a game of hopping on and hopping off and then back on again. I am battling a painfully short attention span. But he also has a willingness to figure out what it is that I want so if I can keep him focussed he enjoys learning. I think that as he settles in here and I better find out how he learns
RSS Feed