Week 4

I've come to the conclusion that Oz is the smartest dog in the
class. He's just hindered by, as we say in the computer biz,
Operator Error. They had us doing for the first time a left
u-turn on heel. I thought I understood what they wanted,
but they said "you're turning too wide". So we try again. Uh nope,
still wrong. Had me stop and watch everybody else. Lightbulb!
We nailed it then. I also noticed that when we're doing official
heeling, Oz is always just a lil' ahead of me and the other dogs
are in the heel position better. However, when we're just
casually walking around, he's the only dog that doesn't pull.
Just walks real nicely beside me. I dunno my body language
or something must be different, when we're under the gun to
perform.

As usual, he was the only dog that enthusiatically jumped up,
when the trainers came over to greet him. The one said to
me that she's never seen such an exhuberant personality in
a Collie. Hummmmm. I'm not sure if that was a compliment
or not, but guess there are worse things then having a dog
that loves people so much as him.

Then we worked on how well he responds to his name with
distractions. By this time I was somewhat flustered, so he didn't
respond at all and I realized I was saying his name differently,
when under the microscope of the trainer. Again, operator error.

Sit Stay went amazingly well, but I'd been working this week
with Oz to stay still, while I tried that balancing a treat on his
nose trick. I think that really helped.

Finally we get to some stuff Oz excels at. We nailed Come, even
finishing with a Sit in front of me. Then Oz really shined, when
we did "Twist". The other dogs were having to be slowly led
with a treat to turn in a circle. I'd just have to say "Twist" and
twirl my finger above him in the direction I wanted him to turn
and he spun lightening quick. He was also the only dog that
was already able to turn in the opposite direction. We really
didn't get that to work on, until this week. We actually got some
major praise from the trainers for the first time. Man if we could
just stick to tricks, where I'm more relaxed, we'd be killin'em.

New command this week was "Give". They gave us a rawhide
treat for this. The whole time they're giving instructions on,
putting the rawhide in the dog's mouth then saying "Give"
and having the dog drop it, Oz is barking and going nuts trying
to get the rawhide from me. Buuutttt when we finally try it
ourselves, he takes it in his mouth once and after that refuses
to have anything to do with it. So I couldn't work on "Give",
because I couldn't get him to "Take It". Argh!

Ah well, lots of things to work on for next week.

Par...