March 2012 -- Day One

Yea! Sia's back!! She was very excited when she got here. In fact, that excitement didn't die down until late tonight. Not to worry though, Sia, the feeling is mutual and we are very excited to have you here. Walking the short distance between my car and the gate to my yard proved to be a challenge. She was so excited to see everyone which made it hard for her to remember how to walk nicely on the leash. Perfect opportunity for a lesson! Every time she got ahead of me on the leash, we turned around. The only time we moved forward was when the leash was loose and she was walking by my side. I didn't use treats to keep her in position, instead I used the goal of the gate as her reward. When she walked nicely with me, her reward was reaching the gate.

Real life lessons can be challenging. It took us about five minutes to make it the short distance to my back gate. To make it easier next time, we can set up some practice sessions. Sia loves the rubber artichoke toy so we can use that as our goal to walk towards.

There are several lessons tied into this one exercise. First, Sia practices her stays while I place the toy on the ground. This is a big distraction for her because she loves the artichoke. It takes several attempts before I can successfully put the artichoke down on the ground. Now we can move away from the artichoke and start the walking portion of the exercise.

Just like with the gate, her key to moving forward is the nice, loose leash. If she gets ahead of me at all, I stop. She needs to return to me and walk nicely beside me to get me to move forward.

 The nice "J" in the leash tells me I can move forward. Talking to her and praising her throughout helps and extra praise when I get nice eye contact like in the photo above. It doesn't take her long to figure out what she needs to do to get closer to the artichoke.

Once she gets up to the artichoke and is still walking nicely beside me, I release her so she can get the artichoke. She worked hard for that!

And then we can practice the last portion of the exercise which is "drop." Each trial she gets better and better and soon it doesn't take us any time at all to walk towards the artichoke.

All that thinking wears a girl out! It's not often the labs are the ones that are awake and ready to play and Sia is the one asleep. It didn't last long though. In no time Sia was ready to play and work again. It's so nice to have her back!