Quince learned to swim! It was the first time I’ve had to teach a dog to swim. As Brian says, she’s a Momma’s girl … she wouldn’t go in unless I waded in with her the first couple of times. Then she’d swim around my legs. I have to admit to feeling two sides to this:
1. I’m worried that she’s too connected to me.
2. There is nothing dearer than a sweet golden swimming around my legs like a river otter.
Q and I are working on FOCUS. Dana taught us that in our new level 2 class. Q is acing it. She’s always had great focus. Though the first few days that I had her, she refused to look me in the eyes. So we had really worked on eye contact. I think it may have been one of the most important things we’ve done. Currently, she can FOCUS for ~10 seconds.
Secondly, we are continuing with her loose leash. She has changed considerably in the last couple of weeks. Much less often does she pull ahead and leap back. But this is likely due to Tara’s instruction to NOT give her a treat immediately after she returns to the prime spot beside me. Tara: it worked!!
I won’t say she’s perfect. But I am very proud of where she is for a 9 month old (well, 9 months in 1 week.) We are almost always hands-free.
Thirdly, we have been instructed by Dana to discontinue STAND. We are resetting it with a walking backwards kind of thing with a treat in my hand under her chin and chest. Q does it well with a treat. We are working on doing it without a treat in my hand. I’m not sure what the next step is.
Fourthly, we started with OVER, but I stopped because I was nervous that she would get confused with ROLL and I wanted official instruction on how to maintain ROLL while teaching OVER.
All of my photos are currently on my phone or in the cloud. I don’t have internet at Trent’s house (where I’m staying now), so I’m currently sitting in my car in the parking lot behind SFU education. Most of her best photos are posted on her facebook page. If you want any of them, I can email at a later date.
Also, this may be a good spot to indicate that her pup profile on PADS is still pointing to Rox’s old twitter page. Q’s new one: www.twitter.com/PADSQuince.
Submitted By: Lydia Stepanovic