Photo Friday!

I just have to say I had such a great night of training with Scout last night. We were up at Green Acres and participating in the Canine Good Citizen Class and we were on! I teach a puppy class before the CGC one and we have 5 puppies and one exuberant outcast who is very friendly but the other dogs find him a bit much. So I pulled Scout into class during the puppy play time and separated him and the happy puppy from the rest. He played so nicely with the puppy, Stan, and Stan was doing so good with his calming signals to Scout. A lot of groveling, play bows, tongue flicks, it was adorable. Scout also did a lot of self handicapping. This is when a dog that has an advantage, in this case size, doesn't use his full strength or ability. So when Scout was playing tug with the puppy he really only held the rope and didn't whip him around like he could have and a couple times he laid right down and rolled on his back and let the puppy climb over him. Puppy class I think set us up for a good training class that followed.

In the CGC we do a lot of walking politely! Everything stems around it really. We do dog/handler greetings where we approach, ask our dogs to sit and then shake the other persons hand. This is the area that Scout needs the most work in but he still does quite well. We did two rounds of recalls. The first was Scout recalling past the other dogs on leash. He was like a bullet, straight to me and fast!! The second we did two dogs to a time and in the class is Scout's best friend Romie and we were paired together. So when cued to call our dogs Tracy got the jump on me on calling so Scout was about half way to me and drifted to Romie and Tracy. I kept it positive and exciting and continued to call Scout and he came! I apparently go blind in these moments because I was just trying to figure out something exciting to get Scout to come but I was told after he did a great recall away from Romie because everyone said they were around to start playing. My positive reinforcement for the night was my instructor telling me it was actually probably better practice to call him off of Romie than it would have been if he came straight to me!

Each week Scout also seems more relaxed at class. The first class he wouldn't lay down on his own during "down" time. Last night if we weren't moving but listening or having a discussion he chose to lay down in a relaxed down and observe! He makes his Momma proud!