To See Other Entries
To See Next Entry (March 6)

We show up for the first class and we've got a great set of dogs that get along really well with each other. The instructor is friendly, supportive, and laid back — pretty much the complete opposite of Panda's puppy kindergarten instructor. We fill out forms, get our clickers and spread out. The lesson for today's class: "Watch Me." By holding food in front of Panda and then moving it up to the side of my face, Panda's eyes will track the food. When his eyes make eye contact with mine, click/treat. Now this isn't much of a challenge for Panda. He's already pretty much trained to look at me when I say his name, so a few "Panda, watch me" trials and he's in the game. After a while, we stop using the bait and just raise our hand up and say "watch me." Piece of cake for Panda. After they seem to have it, withhold the hand signal and just use the command "watch me." No problem. Panda's a pro, the star of the class in fact — but he had a bit of an advantage. Homework: do at least one session a day consisting of at least 15 "watch me" repetitions.

Now, I have only one question. Karen Pryor's work on clicker training says you should not command your dog around. The verbal cue should not be given until the behavior is well in place, then you build in the verbal command. As I mentioned earlier, this was really hard for me to do, so I was curious as to why the instructor deviated from this technique. She said this was perhaps only 1 of 3 points in which she disagreed with Karen Pryor. Honestly, I didn't quite understand why she thought it was okay to give the command right off the bat but I'm more comfortable with it, so I'm happy. Especially with a cross-over dog who is used to receiving commands (and I'm used to commanding), it seems easier. Maybe I'll do my own experiment and command some early and let the behavior develop first for others.

The rest of the class was more social than work. We'll see how this goes as we progress. Heel will be dealt with in a few weeks and that's the one I'm really looking forward too. The class is hard to evaluate at this point. I appreciate that the instructor doesn't dominate half the class time by lecturing us, however, it seems we could have done more with our time. Perhaps she's taking it slowly to get people used to the clickers. After all, some people have never used these before. I guess I'm just a little bored and with next week's class being spent on commands Panda is well trained in (sit and stand), I just want to move forward. She has been very helpful with any questions and even responds to email during the week!

As for my homework, I've been very good at meeting the minimum requirement, however, I feel I should be working with Panda on other commands and I'm not. I finished reading Jean Donaldson's The Culture Clash last night and it helped keep me inspired. So my pledge to myself (and my dog) is to begin work on "stay." This is a command that Panda seems to understand but we've been fairly lax in developing it. He needs a lot more work on all three D's — duration, distance, and distraction. So while the class is working on sit and stand, I'll make the focus of this week's effort. Obviously, training a reliable stay over a long duration at a distance in the midst of distraction takes longer than a week, but I have to start somewhere! Oh yes, my other pledge... start reading Karen Pryor's Don't Shoot the Dog — something I should have read last fall when I began clicker training.

To See Other Entries
To See Next Entry (March 6)