session 03

yesterday we went to a park and did off leash training. we practiced 3 things:

down now means down stay

hide and seek

heel

to practice down he had to stay down and i had to walk away and return. suzanne also did this where she would walk around him in a 15 ft radius. he screwed up once when i was walking away and then he got it after she gave him a slight audio correction ('uh uh uhhh').

for hide and seek we went into an area surrounded by birds, hidden squirrels, and palm trees. So while Suzanne would distract him I would leave and hide. I would then call him. At first i wasn't calling him loud enough. His first reaction when he heard my voice was to look at Suzanne. I think he doesn't understand that i'm calling him from afar. Eventually he would get it and run to me. I've actually been practicing this today with him.

the heel command was surprisingly easy. I wasn't sure if he knew to heel when I was walking. He already knows to run around my back and heel left. So basically I start walking and tell him heel and tap my side twice. Walk a little and hand him a treat when he heels. Then walk further. When he starts to wander off tell him "uh uh uhh" and grab his leash and pull him (not agressively) to the heel position and tell him "good boy".

Ck and I actually tried some off leash heeling with him today in the park. We had no treats and he did fantastic. He wandered off a little 2x but did a really good job of heeling.

We also practiced down in the middle of a play ground. There was people on bikes and people around us. They weren't that close though. I told him down and then walked around the playground. He stayed down the entire time.

So my homework this time was to continue hand signals, the down stay, come here when hidden, and heeling.