Dog Training 101

Last night was a bad night to begin our Nande training classes but it didn't make any sense to wait for the next go around again, in like three months.

Why was it a bad night? The full moon had already frayed my nerves, P was in the same state, Graydon was fussy and then we took our pup into a room with a couple of dozen other dogs in varied ranges of training and obedience.

It was tiresome at first and I was pretty truly in a foul mood.

But once we got our paperwork taken care of, got to our group and started working with the dogs a little bit. My shitty mood floated off to pester someone else and we had a good time starting down the structured training trail.

Nande was pointed out not once but twice as being the example dog, once because she was flopped on her side at my side with her belly exposed to me so I could rub it and then again during the first training as she was sitting perfectly still right next to me.

The really good thing about the class (aside from the fact that there are seven more) is that I've learned a few things we've been doing wrong and things we can do better to strengthen the bond and trust between Nande and me. Things like, anytime she comes up to me and makes eye contact, no matter what I'm doing she is to get praised for doing it. I also learned that the walks down in the slough on the long retractable leash aren't conducive to helping her learn to behave properly. So now I'm not supposed to take her out for those walks, I can play with her in the backyard or throw the ball for her for exercise but were are not ready for long leash walking yet (which sucks because we've been doing it for like 7 months now).

I was also told that she shouldn't be off leash on the beach but I think we'll be breaking that rule so she can get her ya-ya's out good.

And a side note, I'm contemplating kicking all of the political posts onto one of my other blogs, they take up too much space, there aren't really Intellectual Poison's main fare and I think they detract from the rest of the blog. But I am often compelled to post or respond or whatever so they're not going all the way away, just probably into the Feeds on the right there.