July Day Five -- Through the Crowd

I love how Sia will work her way through a crowd to get to me when I call her to come.

She let's nothing get in her way and keeps barreling through.

She passes all the distractions to get to me.

But recalls are fun and exciting. Downs, on the other hand, can be a little less exciting and it takes a little trust in those around you to comply.

It could also be that it's too hard for her to do with that many distractions. So we back out of it a bit and take her to an area with slightly less distractions to see if she can comply.

Ok, still distracted but she is complying!

For things that are a little bit harder for her, like her sit stay, we'll make it a little bit easier and not have other dogs around.

That gives us an opportunity to work on distance (note the treats on the table and not on me -- I have to go to the table to get a treat to reward her so she won't learn to only do things if I have a treat on me).

As she improves, I can go a little bit farther, going back periodically to reward her for staying. Sits may not be the funnest thing in the world to do but they pay off pretty well with periodic rewards!

And now we can start to add in distractions with our distance (and really, at this point, duration as well).

I reward her up high on this particular exercise...

To help prevent her from sliding into a down. A down is a much more comfortable position for most dogs and it doesn't put pressure on their body like a sit does. If I know I'm going to be some where for a while, I'll ask for a down instead of a sit and beat her to the punch. But for now, we will continue to practice our sit stays so she is better with her greetings.

Sia has found a new favorite toy for this visit. Seems like it is a new one each time.

One little trick I do to help alleviate boredom is to rotate toys every couple of days. Suddenly an old toy sparks quite a bit of interest with everyone and it helps keep them focused on the toys rather than what's on your table top or in your shoe closet.

No reason for this photo except that she is just beautiful and very easy on the eyes...