We rode our bikes to three open houses, one in our neighborhood, one on the Pinellas Trail, and one near Hammock Park.
Then we rode downtown and to the marina. We rode down Victoria Drive on the way home and watched the sailboats in the sound.
Downtown and the marina were in full swing.
After 7 weeks of training, Toby finally got into a full down position and stayed there. The other dogs did this the first week, ALL of them, naturally, without being told.
Our trainer welcomed Toby and the others to Middle School. We worked on “down,” “look” for 5 seconds, and “heel.” It was thoroughly exhausting for everyone. We’ve practiced heel for months, so he did really well with that. Except, today he did it in the aisles at Petsmart with tons of distractions.
“Heel” involves having him sit in front of you, lead him in a circle so that he’s sitting behind your left heel (hence, “heel”). Then taking a few steps with him staying beside you and then sitting. Then walking. Repeat. It’s exhausting and unnatural for the dog to being paying attention to you instead of his environment.
We have so much homework! The trainer tries to make it fun with a bingo game, where we practice commands with increasing distractions, diversity, distance, and duration.
We heard lots of useful information, such as not to introduce him to dogs we don’t know because he can easily lose his good behavior if the encounters don’t go well. We encountered a dog this morning that we hadn’t met before. He and his owner came up to Toby who was lying down, and when Toby got up to greet him, the dog snarled, lunged, and barked. Our trainer said that was a no no to put Toby in that situation. Now we know to distract Toby with treats instead of allowing him to lie down and entice an unknown dog to say hi. (He can still do this with his friends.)
The trainer again told us that we need to put our “big girl” pants on. (I liked it better when she told us we needed to “man up.”) She means that we have to convince Toby we are in charge and he can trust us, so he doesn’t have to be in charge. She says we’re too nice, use too many words, and our tone is not serious. And we have to start wearing tennis shoes to training! No more flip flops. It’s too dangerous, she says.
She has a good demeanor about it and I trust her. She’s been doing this for a long time with lots of different dogs and people. She tells great stories about her experiences, and is very self-effacing.
Toby’s got the middle school blues. Last week he was tops in his class, and this week everything is so much more difficult. He’s slept most of the afternoon.
Just changing positions every now and then.
We rewarded ourselves with a spinach and onion calzone from Julian’s Little Italy.
Today’s bike route to open houses, downtown, and the marina
Miles walked: 6.5
Miles biked: 9.46
I was exhausted reading all the training commands. So much to remember. You and John are doing the right thing. It will pay off. I like your instructor. I know the open houses were fun. Thanks for sharing.
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