Yesterday Chester had his “graduation” from puppy kindergarten. They even have to take a “test”.
The first part of the test was to do a sit-stay for 30 seconds while music was playing, treat them, keep them in the sit-stay while you jumped up once, and then release them.
I wasn’t sure Chester could hold it for 30 seconds, but he did.
The second part of the test was to sit, go to a line on the floor, do one puppy pushup, come back to the starting line, and sit. While several other dogs do it at the same time.
Our group included Chester & two of the largest dogs in our class. Chester finished first, and he finished first by a lot! And that’s from a dog that initially wouldn’t do a down at all at Petsmart; he didn’t like the cold floor.
So I took him to both Petsmart and Petco several times, and we worked on it while in the store. I also had him do his puppy pushups (sit, down, sit) on our patio in the mornings (cold concrete).
The winners from each group (the second group had a tie) had to go again against each other. This time we had to do two puppy pushups. Chester won again, again by a lot! He’s come a long way in 2 months.
Although I know a little bit about training, it was definitely helpful to take a class. I hadn’t heard great things about Petsmart’s classes in general, but it was one of the few places having a puppy kindergarten at this time of year, and I knew that the socialization was really critical at this point in Chester’s life.
I wasn’t completely happy with our trainer, but we did eventually talk to her about what we disliked, and she did improve. It really helped to have structure — each week you had different things to work on. There are so many things we need to teach Chester, that sometimes it’s difficult to know where to start, and the classes really helped with that.
With my cats, I didn’t have anyone to actually show me how to teach things. Chester has learned much quicker than my cats. Is that because of dogs’ need to please, or did observing someone else really help? I think it’s the latter.
We got a certificate, and everyone got the opportunity to take a picture with their dog in a cap. Our trainer even had a little cap & gown for Chester. I do have a picture, but I’m having some computer trouble, so I’ll update this post with the picture later.
Technorati Tags: puppy kindergarten, sit-stay, release, puppy pushup, down, training, socialization
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