Michael & Liz are Bloggable

Two Saturdays ago I started obedience classes with Gryffin. I know everyone is thinking, he's a perfect dog, why obedience class? Well believe it or not he has flaws. He's supposed to be Gryffindor, but sometimes he's a little Slytherin.

His main behavior issue is that he gets CRAZY around other dogs in the neighborhood. When we take him for walks, and he sees another dog, he goes absolutely ballistic. He runs his feet like a sled dog, and squeals, growls, and barks at the other dog. It is flat out EMBARRASSING. He doesn't do it as much around just people, but we need to teach him that this isn't acceptable behavior.

This is a secondary issue, but he goes nuts when people come in the house. He doesn't get aggressive, but he jumps up and just becomes generally unruly.

So the first class was just a meet and greet with the owners. The teacher lectured for an hour about dog behavior, training philosophies, and things we should work on during the first week. The exercises for week 1 were pretty straight forward:

• Solidify his own name. Say his name, if he turns, give him a treat. You'd be surprised at the number of dogs who don't know their own name the first class.
  
• A marker word. Whenever you give him a treat say a marker word. We started out trying to use "Yes!", since that was the teacher's suggestion, but he didn't learn it that quickly. We switched before week 2 to using "Good Boy!" and since he hears it so much already, it was a smooth transition. He knows exactly what "Good Boy" means now.
  
• Sit. This is self explanatory.
  

The second class was much more entertaining since the dogs were now invited to attend. 6 dogs were signed up for the class, only 4 came during week 2. All the dogs had concentration issues with everyone there. We needed barriers set up between them. After those were set up, Gryffin become one of the best dogs in the class. We spent a good 15 minutes practicing week 1 skills and just nailing them easy. Then the rest of the time trying to incorporate week 2 skills. Week 2 skills are:

• Continue to work on sit.
  
• Watch. Hold a treat to your face, repeat "watch" many times while they stare at you, then reward them. Teaches the dog to focus on you when you say "watch".
  
• Come. This is self explanatory.
• A release word. When you ask him to sit, he can get up if you say the release word. Ours is "OK!"
• Down. Teaching him to lay down. Gryffin is not great at this command. He actually thinks he needs to gravel at my feet when I say "down" and point to the ground. Because every time I say it, he crawls forward to my feet and then hunches down. It's cute but not correct.
  

So I feel like Gryffin is well on his way for week 2. He knows the commands pretty well already.

The downside of the week 2 class was that I got into an argument with the teacher. At one point I said "Gryffin" and he didn't turn to me because he was pulling to try and go over to another dog. I said "Gryffin!" again louder and he still didn't turn. Gryffin is the kind of dog that just turns everything off when he sees another dog. It's like his blinders go on and nothing else matters.

The teacher saw me doing this and said "Don't say his name more than once. If you say it more than once and he doesn't turn, it means he doesn't know his name." I was a little offended she just outright said that because part of the reason we loved the name Gryffin was because he immediately ran to us when we said it 2 YEARS AGO! I said "Oh no, I know he knows his name, he just gets distracted and isn't listening." She then responded, "He's listening, he just doesn't know his name." I got frustrated and said "I promise you, he knows his name, he just doesn't care right now cuz he's more intrigued with that boxer." She continued on and asserted her authority as teacher and I relented since I'm supposed to be the student. I hate to say she's wrong, but I just said "Gryffin", guess who came running into the room? Ok, I'll say it, she's wrong.

This weekend there is no class since it's a holiday weekend. That means we get two weeks to practice. I'm going to try and make sure my boy is the best one there next week.