Today we had our first obedience lesson. We learned to walk properly, sit, and down. Walking Marley was pretty easy but the trainer's technique was pretty good. it was actually something that I had tried earlier that morning but wasn't quite sure about. To master the walk she told us to walk in random directions. it forces the dog to pay attention to you, otherwise he/she gets a correction. I think Marley knows how to follow the human. The trainer said shy dogs like him really don't want to be a leader. I also didn't need to focus on getting him behind me. Besides me was good already. It's very enlightening watching him as the gf walked him. he was looking at her quite often actually.
The sit command with lots of distractions was good to learn... obviously. tell the dog to sit and if he doesn't obey, you walk up to him and slowly pull up on his collar. Position of his leash collar has to be high up on the neck. this is causing some issue as in order for Marley's leash collar to be that high, it has to be tighter... which makes it more difficult to put on. they also gave us martingale collars but I already bought one from them earlier.
the down command was pretty difficult. first off dogs don't want to lie down in front of other dogs. it's too submissive. we also had to use food as a lure. i'm still having some trouble with getting him down. you basically want to lure him down and then give him the treat when his head is up. mastering the down command was our homework. i practiced with Marley on our night walk. He's not fast but he gets it. He was even able to do it in front of 2 huge barking dogs.
We also learned that dogs tend to be aggressive to dogs who are not fixed. dogs who aren't fixed are sort of showing off and dogs don't like that behavior. so there was a 6 month old rotty... and Marley barked at him and the rot backed away. that's 90 lbs vs 17 lbs. haw haw!
We also tried exercising his anal glands. Not successful yet. He's beginning to stink!
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