Two Days of Training

While patrolling the grocery store on Monday, Cooper was lagging behind unless intrigued by the rolling wheel of the shopping cart.  It took all of our energy to keep him moving and finish our shopping in a reasonable amount of time.  The only bursts of excitement were when he spied or heard a child.  Once home he did manage to jump up on the sofa by himself, for the first time.  He received a surprised and immediate correction.  He doesn't understand why Monte can now spend the entire day up on our bed.

The following evening we attended training at The Dog Den.  He was full of life and attentive to our every command.  The only differences were being surrounded by a pack of excited young puppies and my pocket was full of kibble. As the instructor gave her opening remarks, Cooper stared intently at my face willing me to offer a reward for his devotion, which I did.  Then the puppies played and we lured them away from the mob to practice SIT and DOWN with canine distractions.  All the puppies performed wonderfully.  Cooper even remembered the TOUCH command although we had not worked on it since last week's class.  Our class concluded with two dog recalls and "Pass the Puppy" where, obviously, puppies were passed from owner to owner to check for separation anxiety and acceptance.

We took both dogs to Custom Canines training tonight.  Monte attended to practice his STAYs and to acclimate to the training environment.  He was much better tonight, but still had lazy SITs and expressed his boredom by whining.  While I worked with Monte, Lisa and Cooper were working on CGC commands and a started working on a few added skills: PLACE, UNDER.  Cooper also got his nails trimmed (appreciate the help) before returning home for his Bordetella nasal spray ($5.50 at F&F).