Our first class together

Halo went to her first class at Fidelco on July 9, but I was flying back from South Carolina so I wasn't with her. That made yesterday our first training day as a team, and we rocked!

Until Halo is about 6 months old, we have to attend class three Saturdays a month. The class is made up of only puppies from her litter, the "H" litter. All of the dogs have names that begin with H: Harper, Hugo, Harpo, and Hunter are some of her littermates. We bring the dogs fifteen minutes before class begins to give them a chance to play together (and get busy) before the work begins. While they play, all of the foster families get a chance to chat, and check to see if everyone else is having the same issues! I found out that most of this litter:

• likes to bark!
• likes the same heat-beating activities (see yesterday's blog entry)
• are play biting a lot
• have a black marking on their tails about 1/3 of the way from their rear ends.

Seeing them all in the fenced area playing was like watching sextuplets -- it was hard to tell them apart! They ran, tumbled, sniffed each other, and got reacquainted. Then it was time for class.

Halo was a star! The trainers reiterated that, at this point, we are still supposed to be "luring" behaviors. This means that we position a treat in such a way that the dog will do the behavior we want, then we "mark" it as soon as they do the behavior by saying, "Good (sit, down, touch, or whatever the behavior is" and giving the treat. This reinforces the behavior with food, positive/excited voice, and helps the puppy start to attach a word to a behavior. We spread out around the room to go through the puppies' repertoire, which gave me the chance to speak with one of the trainers. I told her that Halo is already obeying spoken commands without a treat and from a distance. She seemed happily surprised and said that it is ok for me to stop luring and use the words! My puppy is obviously gifted. We also practiced walking on the leash using the gentle leader with the pup walking in the right area (next to us on the left, making eye contact every few steps), and Halo did almost perfectly with that, too! We even got some praise from the trainer for a perfect "recall," which is the fancy word for calling the puppy to you and having her actually come! Halo came right to me, I grabbed her collar, and she sat and made eye contact exactly the way she is supposed to. I feel like a proud mom.

I also overcame a huge hurdle yesterday. I am scared to clip dogs' nails. I once clipped my shepherd/golden mix Butterscotch's nails so short they seemed to bleed forever. I literally had to use clumped cornstarch to stop the bleeding (I had to call the vet to get that trick). I have never cut doggie nails since; and that was about 10 years ago! Yesterday, the very first activity was....you guessed it, nail clipping. I immediately asked for help. Don't be misled -- it wasn't Halo that was the problem! Part of our daily body handling activity is for me to touch her paws, extend her nails, touch between the nails and pads, etc. to get her used to being handled. No problem on her end! But the sight of nail clippers led to instant anxiety on my end, which is not something I want to share with my baby girl Halo! A volunteer came over to hold Halo still for me (not a problem there...) while I just clipped the very tip of her nails. I'm proud to say that I cut four nails on one paw without a single drop of blood. Or drama. Mission successful. I even came home and did 2 more nails from another paw last night. All by myself. I'm a big girl now.

First class: A+. I have the smartest dog in the class.