Dog Training

We have a puppy. A puppy who is growing like crazy-45 pounds and 8 months old. She is adorable, especially right after a nap. She is very smart. However, she is stubborn and likes to do things her way. We started a puppy obedience class last Wednesday and will be working on it for the next 7 weeks. The first week she seemed to catch onto commands quickly, until she was bored with our treats, spit them out onto the floor and laid down to watch the other puppies. That was fun. ;) However, the instructor had string cheese with her, and when she took Morgan to show her as an example, Morgan was enamored with the cheese. So, I have purchased string cheese, cut it up and have been keeping in my pocket-it has already improved her walking. She still has bad habits-it hasn't been that long... During the class, I was getting frustrated that she wasn't learning and the instructor said, "Remember, class, these are puppies! They aren't going to learn these commands in two minutes. They may, but then they may not follow through with them next week!" That was good for me to hear.

The instructor gave us the link to this video, explaining the method of training we are using. It is an hour long, no dogs are in it, and it is just a person talking... However, it was informative! It is Michael Ellis's Philosophy of Dog Training.

I also have been so lazy in training Morgan on our invisible fence. She is a puppy, so we would still have to keep a close eye on her-she would very likely eat things and get into things without supervision-but to have to keep her on the leash is a pain sometimes. She would really benefit from a good run around the yard! So, I have debated paying the Invisible Fence people to come out and train her (the lazy way to train her, as the harder way is to do it myself...) I also considered the cost and began to search for Invisible Fence Training videos. I found an actual Invisible Fence video online, but it kept saying it was illegal to copy or distribute, so I'm not copying the link here. ;) I did find this one which also seemed like a good resource.

Glad to be blogging again. :)