Cheers had her first day of group class at 9 1/2 weeks old. This is the ideal time to start working on life skills and build a good foundation for a future performance dog. While I've always taught my puppies the basics such as sit and down, I've never held a standard for the mechanics of it. Cheers's mom, Gemma is extremely intelligent; she is a wonderful pet however not a great working dog. I know that this is because I didn't set the bar high for how she performed as long as she got the job done. I want to be sure that Cheers has a better work ethic than her mother.
This puppy class is by "invite only" and consists of my Cheers, Nancy's golden puppy Reason, a frenchie owned by Karen Carlin, and a Bernese Mountain Dog owned by Alise Burbridge. Nancy's pup is the oldest, just one day older than Cheers.
We worked on several basics...
- Puppy play
- I'm really trying to build the pup's toy drive so that I don't have to rely on food for reward. She loves "octopus" sheepskin toy I got from clean run. It's probably one of the best puppy tug toys available: http://www.cleanrun.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=822&ParentCat=276. It's easy for her to catch and fun to tug. As she's tugging I gently make it flap around in her face to simulate a bird.
- Sphinx down
- I taught this to her about a week or so ago. I no longer need to lure her with a treat and have begun to use the down command. She really gets this. I am working on having her stay in a down until released (to a touch).
- Tuck up sit
- I have a feeling we're going to have trouble with this one. Of course she can sit...but she doesn't automatically tuck her feet under her. I keep having to fix it. Once she is in position and I pull the lure forward, she will keep her feet tucked for the most part. This will be a work in progress.
- Name recognition
- I'm not sure if she quite knows her name yet, however she is very responsive to my tone, so I'm sure she will catch on quickly.
- Puppy recalls
- Poor girl was all confused. Karen held her as I ran backwards making noises and getting her jazzed up. When I called her and Karen released her, she just stood there looking around. So we moved in much closer, legs legnth apart, and I she came charging.