Some of my training adventures in this new year.

Today I was meeting with Rose and Gabe at Craighead Forrest to work on some social skills, and learning to calmly greet other dogs.  Kona tagged along to play demo dog.  This was actually her first visit out to Craighead.  Excuse her harness it’s falling off her shoulder as she sits there in the sunshine.  This girl has learned to bark at other dogs from her Corgi brother and sister who bark at our neighbor dog and that is something that I am now having to fix so that she can work with me out in public.

Rose and Gabe did very well with learning to settle down and relax.  We were only looking for calm behaviors such as standing squarely on all 4 feet instead of pulling on the leash to get to the other dogs.  We did not expect them to get anywhere near each other and stayed a good 15 feet away but did move in closer than we started so we counted that as a success.  

Miss Dolly Peanut is learning to walk on leash and was working on one of her first field out to a dog friendly store.  We are working with her on learning not to pull so we just stop the walk and wait for her to come back to us, then we continue walking.  Another thing we were working with Dolly was her learning to politely sit for greetings with other people.  She did amazing for her first lesson out and is going to grow up into a well mannered lady.  

Thursday I got go take some friends of mine and go out to one of our local schools and visit with some of the kids.  We were going to be presenting to them about Assistance dogs and helping them learn about Service Dogs and Therapy dogs and the differences between them.  As well as how to approach them and how to act around them.  We talked about the importance of not distracting a Service Dog from doing their job, and I answered a bunch of the kids questions.  It was so wonderful to see how happy the kids were each time we walked into a classroom and how interested they were in the dogs.  

I had two dogs with me, Sam a Golden Retriever who is training to be a Therapy Dog and Scooby an American Staffordshire Bull Terrier who is both a Service Dog that his dad does Therapy visits with as well so that he can an ambassador for his breed.  

I put out a podcast on the visit which can be found here... https://anchor.fm/dogtra/episodes/Assistance-Dogs-and-Kids-eahrl1/a-a18c2s7

Earlier in the week I had a moment when I realized that Yadi has finally come out of his adolescence. He will be 2 in March and he is no long the puppy that grabs anything he can find to try and get me to chase him.  I’m so happy about this, it means that I will only have one puppy in adolescence when Kona goes into it.  Maybe I can get her though it easier with her working though it on a regular basis, better than I did with Yadi.  Here is hoping!!!