NEW CHALLENGES DAILY

It was almost cool at park this morning at 5:45. It did warm up by this afternoon, but trinity and I have enjoyed the cooler weather. They say it is short lived though.

My partner and I had some extra time after breakfast while our trainer took the other two students on the bus to Madison and back on the train. When it was our turn to go, 10:00, we worked on country roads.

These are tedious for me. In this case, there were curbs to easily locate the edge of the road. The idea is for the dogs to keep us close to the left edge. We check this by stopping every twenty steps or so (the tedious part) and using either our right foot in front of the dog or the left foot behind the dog to probe for the curb or edge of the road. The dog is to follow the edge of the road around each corner so that we don’t just blow past it. As we feel the change in direction, and sense that we are past the turn, we stop, check the edge as described, turn 90 degrees to the right and line our heels up with the curb or edge. We then give the dog the “Forward” command to cross the side street we have indented. Once we find the other side. We direct the dog to turn right again and resume following the turn in the road until we are passed the corner and continuing along the original direction. If, for example we were to want to turn right, we would indent each leg of the intersection (another tedious part) until we are going in the direction we want to travel. I try to avoid places where there are no sidewalks in my daily activities.

This afternoon, the four of us all went to the lounge down town with our instructor. Two of us waited with our dogs as the other two went on another mini solo. When it was our turn, our instructor gave us verbal instructions to the coffee place where we have gone before, but the directions to it involved a somewhat different route. Each team of two could discuss matters along the way, but our trainer tried not to give input. My partner and I did have to ask passers by to locate the entrance.

After dinner, those of us who chose to do clicker training had a lecture on the technique we have been doing one-on-one as an optional addition to the regular class work. The plan is to use this to teach the dogs to locate specific things that we will want the dog to target once we are home. Now, we are working on having them target our chair in the dining room. Our seating arrangement was changed again for the evening meal today. Trinity learned last evening to take me to the previous place. Now we will work on going to the new place tomorrow.

During park after feeding the dogs, my trainer reviewed application of the topical flea control. I must say that, with his instructions, I was able to do it without the mess on her hair. Good for me.