I wish I still had a decent camera. Piper is such a cutie-pie and I don't have any pics to post for you. There is definitely a charm to your classic, sweet, mixed breed dog. She definitely has mastered the use of her big brown eyes and she uses it for evil.
Usually around now I have a solid day of nothing but arguing and battling a boarder. Most dogs will put the breaks on and fight me every step of the way. But not Piper. Piper pouts. She gives me this extremely sad puppy dog face and tries to slink away when she thinks she is done working. She acts like I've hurt her feelings. Of course, I'm not fooled. As soon as I use a happy voice she pops back up and plops her butt down next to me. She just gets her little feelings hurt whenever I tell her she got something wrong.
Yesterday we made a good deal of progress. Her "heel/autosit" is pretty much done. Her "implied stay" is getting looking very nice. Her recall is just fine. She comes right up and sits nicely when I call her to me 4 out of 5 times and the 1 time that she doesn't get it right she just absentmindedly walks past me. We are still working on not jumping up when meeting new people. This seems to be a very well established bad habit and one that will need to be strictly monitored if it is going to be fixed for any period of time.
The one sticky point we've had is the "down." She, for some reason, has developed a bit of a block about laying down. Even now, as we work on "Placemat" (which was just introduced today) she has been sitting comfortably on her mat for almost 35 minutes but she hasn't laid down. She has laid down with absolutely no help only 4 or 5 times. With a little bit of help she will lay down just fine and occasionally I need to correct her. Tomorrow we are really going to tackle "down" and get it to where she understands what it is we want.
Other than the "down" she is right where I want her to be. Sweet little pooch.
Usually around now I have a solid day of nothing but arguing and battling a boarder. Most dogs will put the breaks on and fight me every step of the way. But not Piper. Piper pouts. She gives me this extremely sad puppy dog face and tries to slink away when she thinks she is done working. She acts like I've hurt her feelings. Of course, I'm not fooled. As soon as I use a happy voice she pops back up and plops her butt down next to me. She just gets her little feelings hurt whenever I tell her she got something wrong.
Yesterday we made a good deal of progress. Her "heel/autosit" is pretty much done. Her "implied stay" is getting looking very nice. Her recall is just fine. She comes right up and sits nicely when I call her to me 4 out of 5 times and the 1 time that she doesn't get it right she just absentmindedly walks past me. We are still working on not jumping up when meeting new people. This seems to be a very well established bad habit and one that will need to be strictly monitored if it is going to be fixed for any period of time.
The one sticky point we've had is the "down." She, for some reason, has developed a bit of a block about laying down. Even now, as we work on "Placemat" (which was just introduced today) she has been sitting comfortably on her mat for almost 35 minutes but she hasn't laid down. She has laid down with absolutely no help only 4 or 5 times. With a little bit of help she will lay down just fine and occasionally I need to correct her. Tomorrow we are really going to tackle "down" and get it to where she understands what it is we want.
Other than the "down" she is right where I want her to be. Sweet little pooch.
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