March Day Three -- New Horizons

Sia does well responding to my requests when there is not a lot going on but it's a little harder for her if there is a lot going on around her.

We practiced a lot of sits and downs today with a wide variety of distractions. We started out with mild distractions and worked our way up to having several dogs around while she was practicing her commands. In the beginning, I didn't set my expectations high but just rewarded compliance. So maybe it wasn't the fastest sit or maybe she wasn't all the way down on her elbows in her down, but if she complied with all the distractions she got a reward.

As she got better, I set my criteria a little bit higher. She would only get rewarded if her elbows were all the way down or if she responded quickly. I always praised her when she complied but to earn the food reward she had to follow through quickly and more accurately. It's fun to watch her brain work and figure out what she needs to do to get the food reward.

We also worked on "leave it" with food on the counter. She is doing so much better with showing self control when her meal is being prepared but this is just a nice way to reinforce some of that training. She did pretty well with this exercise but what I was really pleased about was how she responded when I verbally interrupted her if she went for the food. Even with the temptation of a treat right in front of her she would still respond to a normal tone of voice to redirect her. It is so nice when you can tell a dog "no" and they respond by happily coming towards you to interact with you.

We're getting lots of practice in with the barking (or lack of barking). Being near a school offers good opportunities for training when a dog barks at people or dogs walking by. Any time she was at the window, I called her to "come." If she barked at all, I responded by saying "ah" and then calling her to come. She would stop mid-bark almost every time. The one time she didn't stop barking I just put her in a quick time-out. She's starting to get the idea that, if she sees someone outside, good things are going to happen (I'm going to call her to come and she's going to get rewarded). We should have plenty of opportunities to practice this throughout the week.