Tuesday, September 25, 2012

In Training: Lulu learns the down command

This is Lulu.

I made it myself. ;)

It is also one of the reasons Lulu started lessons last week with a trainer at PetCo.

It's not that Lulu is a bad dog. She just has some things that make her rough around the edges. She has to meet every dog she sees. She jumps on people to say hello. She sometimes tears into things when she's home alone.

So we are doing four private lessons to smooth out those edges. And it won't be easy.





Lesson One: Down.

My trainer says the goal is once she learns down, we'll add the word "settle." That way when she needs to calm down, I can get her to do so.

Now in the books I've read, you take the treat and bring it down, and the dog eventually follows by the nose. That never worked with Lulu.

Lulu will do anything for a treat. And Lulu is learning with a clicker too. But this wasn't easy.

Lulu needed to follow the treat. The trainer at least got her to understand down. She followed the treat through his legs.





It took all hour to get her to do this.  And she had to be prompted.

But now...



3 comments :

  1. Glad Lulu's getting down, love her blurry wagging tail in all the pics!
    "Sniff all the things!" would make a great t-shirt; it seems to be Maggie & Duke's motto too.

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    Replies
    1. Oh yeah! I got an old iPhone... it's impossible to get her tail nonblurry. That thing never stops!

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  2. Love love love the Sniff All the Things drawing!

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