8 State Hurricane Kate

Last night we went to Cay’s 3rd week of obedience school. We had been practicing at home, especially on the stationary exercises. Even after running with the boys for 1/2 hour before going to class, Cay doesn’t like to sit still. She is a champ at heeling and sits promptly at my side when I halt. But she doesn’t usually sit for long. She gets distracted by all of the activity around her and gets ADD when it’s time to sit still. At first she didn’t want to sit at all last night. I don’t think this was because she didn’t want to sit, but because she was too busy taking it all in to really HEAR me. The instructor showed me how to apply pressure to her collar (a soft martingale design) so that when Cay made the choice to sit, I could relieve the pressure right away. This worked well and Cay caught on right away. When she sat, I relieved the pressure immediately. Still, she didn’t sit still for long.

At home, I have been teaching Cay the sit stay and also to sit and wait while I go through a doorway, then call her through. At school, I first had trouble getting Cay to sit by the door, then was able to get her to sit and wait while I went through the doorway ahead of her. It is really hard for her to sit still while I’m moving, so we need to keep working on this. But she is smart and usually catches on quickly. Sometimes she just doesn’t retain it for long. And she seems to have a lot of herding instinct and/or prey drive, which makes her want to follow me without waiting. She has learned to sit and wait quietly by the door at home to get me to open it. She learned this from the other dogs, but I don’t usually go out ahead of them. I’ll start doing that and see if it helps. Learning by listening to my voice and following my body language is harder for her than just watching the other dogs and imitating them. Following my body language is next easiest and taking a verbal cue from me is the least natural for her. But she is starting to listen when required because she really wants those treats.

Next we worked on the silent down, luring the dog into a down from a sit without giving the “down” command yet. Cay took a while to catch on to this, although she has had to lie down for her dinner ever since she’s been at our house. It was out of context with all the distractions, and without the bowl of food (haha!). Just about the time the instructor was ready to start the next exercise, Cay caught on to the down and starting laying down every time she caught my eye. I had created a “down monster”. Boy, when she catches on, there is no stopping her! But now I was supposed to be teaching her to back up. I had to position my lure well to get her to back up without doing a down from her.

Cay is very food motivated and going to class in the evening before she has had her supper means that food lures work very well. I just had to make sure she knew that she needed to sit whether I had food or not. She started looking for the food in my hand before doing the sit. Uh oh, I’m not going to let her train me that she won’t follow through if I don’t have a treat in my hand!

Interspersed with the stationary exercises, we did some heeling and added the “call to front” in which the handler backs up and calls the dog to come to a sit in front. Cay was pretty good at that. She had learned from Chase to come on a whistle while running out in the field. Once she learned that he got a treat for his recall, she came running from across the field and skidded into a sit in front of me, racing him to get there. So doing this in class was pretty easy for her. She just didn’t want to sit still for long.

One of the hardest exercises last night was calling her away from a stranger with a cookie. One of the instructors stood out in front of me and invited Cay over. She had a cookie in her hand and let Cay sniff it, but didn’t give it to her. I was to say Cay’s name and, once I had her attention, call her over to me. Cay has been pretty good at the name game, looking at me when I say her name. But the stranger with the cookie was so tempting that I had to say her name a few times before she thought to look at me. Then she came easily when called. We need to work on the name game with bigger distractions and temptations.

Overall, class went well last night and we have our homework cut out for us in the next week. Working with Cay individually, away from Bandit and Chase, is adding a new dimension to our relationship. I can see the wheels turning behind those chocolate brown eyes. She really wants to please me. Good girl Cay! That silly little girl who wouldn’t come out of her crate in April has come a very long way.