On Wednesday we had puppy class, and Brad was able to come! That means we have pictures at the bottom of the post!
We arrived a little bit early and got set up. I decided not to bring my wheelchair since we haven’t yet worked on heeling and I didn’t think we would be working on it. I sit down for most of class on the floor, and it’s a short distance from the parking lot to the pavilion, so I don’t need it.
Felix was really good during class! We spent most of class learning about and practicing paws-up, which is when your dog puts their front paws on something higher than their back paws. Kelly and Erin spread foam boards, balance disks, and a small seesaw around the pavilion, and we rotated around trying them all. Felix was awesome at it!
He was a little hesitant, but with some encouragement was happy to get on and off the items. The seesaw was harder since it made a noise when he first stepped on it that scared him. So from then on, I kept my foot on it to prevent it from tipping.
We also worked on leave-it, even though the trainer recommends using recalls and attention cues and removing distractions instead of the leave-it command. Felix got that one pretty well, even though we had to take a poop break in the middle.
Near the end of class, the facility apparently decided they needed to do some work with the cherry picker. So it was loudly idling, driving back and forth, and having a loud beep beep backup noise for the last 10 minutes of class. It was distracting and scary to all the puppies. I guess it was a good training opportunity, though coming at the end of class when the pups were tired and done training wasn’t ideal. Felix kept looking at it and not taking treats while looking at it.
At the end of class, we tried to practice Felix’s visit command with Kelly, but Felix was too distracted by arriving dogs to do so.
Below are three videos of paws upping and pictures from throughout the class. In them I am wearing a bright pink top and pink, purple, and turquoise leggings. Felix is a sable and white Japanese Chin wearing a purple harness and bowtie. Brad’s wearing a mustard fedora, white-grid black cardigan, and a maroon bow tie.
