Dog wondering who is this guy at the end of my leash?

Tonight I am summing up two days because I just was too tired last night to write anything. I have to be honest that I am surprised how tired I am after each day. We haven’t done that much. Yesterday we continued working with our dogs on leash to practice healing and sitting. Now we have our dogs doing the stairs mostly calmly and patiently. I actually have a couple of bugs to work out. Last night Bogart wouldn’t heal up the stairs. I asked the trainer about this today and told her what I did to handle it. When he stopped and wouldn’t come I took him back to the landing, said heal, brought him to the stairs where he puts his paws up on the stairs and we tried again. My trainer told me that every time I went back he won. She did notice today that while she was watching us his collar had ridden up which might have been the issue as well. Today, with lots of praising and a treat at the top, he came up pretty nicely. He is still rushing the stairs towards the end but I am working on this by going down the stairs extremely slowly to try and get him to go at my pace.

Yesterday afternoon we got to go to an off leash fenced park. Do I have to tell you how much the dogs loved this? Bogart got a good run and he did come back to me fairly often. This was helped by the odd treat for this behaviour. Apparently he saw when I offered a treat to one of my class mates to use with his dog since he didn’t have any. Bogart was on him immediately to tell him that those are my masters treats and they are for when I do good things, not for that panting lab. Bogart then pointed out to the lab owner that poodles finished second on the doggie IQ test and they couldn’t get a test result from labs because they kept eating the test. 

So last night was pretty mellow with me working on my computer and Bogart laying at my feet. We both went to bed early and slept extremely well.

Today, Friday, We had a day that involved a lot of sitting around and waiting. We were getting fitted for our harnesses. In the morning we did walks in the halls with our trainer learning what the main commands are while the dog is in harness. We then had our dogs fit and tried to find the right fit for our handles. We are getting our new harnesses tomorrow from a new supplier so the one Bogart had on today wasn’t a perfect fit. Poodles apparently take extra small harnesses. I am happy that the new harnesses will have a back pack like clip rather than the current buckle style. They are getting quick release handles as well but they won’t be ready for our class. I will buy one as soon as they are out since I think the dog will be much more comfy at work if he doesn’t have to have the harness handle on his back.

Bogart, as with most of the dogs today, wouldn’t get into his harness for me but he did a lot of good things today for me. While we were about to get him to walk into the harness for me, the program director who had interviewed me showed up. Bogart was very happy to see him. However I was able to wisely get him to sit and wait while all this commotion was going on around him. Pretty good compared to yesterday. The funniest thing he did today was in our lounge. I was calling him back to me when I noticed the leash seemed to be higher than normal. It was higher than normal because he had put his front feet up on the coffee table to get a better sniff of a persons food on the other side. Pretty funny but I certainly put an end to that little show. 

Right now we are back in the room hanging out getting ready to watch game 4 of the Vancouver canucks / Chicago Blackhawks playoff hockey game. Bogart has just walked over and into his kennel. He got a little sick after supper so I don’t think he’s feeling totally with it. I’m sure this is all just as tiring and stressful for him as it is for me. However, we are having many more good moments than yesterday. I now have him sitting at the door from my room and waiting until I say we can go. His healing still involves a lot of pulling but he is getting better at listening.

Tomorrow we should get outside in harness for the first time if it doesn’t rain cats and dogs. (hmm, that is not really the most appropriate statement is it?)

It felt very different than I thought it would doing a short fitting harness walk in the hallway so I’m curious to see what the out door walk will feel like.

Until the next time.