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Piano
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Exit Course Completion VIDEO!
We have spent the week reinforcing the commands we have taught him over the entirety of his stay here. Piano is one of those rare dogs that truly wants to learn more. He has an easy time engaging with his handler and has fun while he is learning, and this attitude of his has made this process so easy and fun for us all here. His obedience is certainly above and beyond what we had planned when he got here, but we have been blessed with a dog like Piano.
Fast moving objects and things make Piano’s prey drive instinct come out. We knew this from the beginning and have tried to keep that part of his mind satisfied by throwing balls for him to chase, letting him play with other dogs at least 3 times a day, and letting him enjoy his freedom when we are not training. We hoped that would give him enough energy release to allow us time to set boundaries for him that were appropriate, and we were mostly right. The most important thing for anyone to understand about Piano is his nature. Someone cannot keep this dog in a house all day long and expect him to be a good boy, he needs to run and chase and play often. When his body has a way to burn energy appropriately, it makes it so much easier to talk to his mind.
Piano is such a great dog. He is so smart. He loves his people and bonds pretty easily. Piano will love your family and protect your home, he will play with you, go on adventures with you, and he will listen to you. Piano is one of the rare dogs that has everything that someone could hope for in a dog. We hope he finds the best home that he could. Just make sure he gets plenty of space to follow his nature.
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Rudy
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At this point in his training, Rudy knows all the basic commands we teach here. Our focus this week has been reinforcing the things he knows, as well as generalization.
Reinforcement consists of making sure that he is in the correct position for all his commands when they are given, as well as increasing the distance at which commands are recognized and obeyed, and increasing his duration (the amount of time that he will maintain a position after he is commanded).
Generalization means obedience in any environment, with any handler. We have begun having handlers that aren’t on Rudy’s team run him during training circles to see how he does with relative strangers handling him. So far, he seems to do exceptionally well. This week we will also be doing some training circles in the facility parking lot rather than the rec yard, to test the “any environment” component of generalization. Rudy can get excited by new things, but he also responds well when his handlers solicit his attention after he’s been distracted, so I imagine that overall he’ll do well.
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Lobo
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LOBO
As we finish up our fifth week with Lobo, the weather continues to get hotter and hotter so we have been working lots more inside. Lobo is a dog that enjoys the heat for about five minutes and after that he is only interested in making his way back indoors or finding a shady spot to lay down and sleep for a while. This week we didn’t have many opportunities to do circles as a program due to the high temperatures so our training in that setting was very little this week. Indoors, we have been working on heeling through crowds with lots of distractions and people, distance and duration commands in the hallways, walking Lobo all around while people play pool, eat food, play cards, listen to music, and lift weights. Lobo stays very engaged in his handler during these times and doesn’t ever seem too intrigued to go and check out what others are doing. His distraction around people and food could use some more work due to the fact he then wants to make everybody his best friend when they have yummy dinners. We have also been giving Lobo lots of social time with different people around the facility. During these interactions we encourage people to let Lobo check them out first and if he is content and his energy seems normal, we will then have people get down on Lobo’s level and interact with him by feeding him kibble, giving him soft pets, and maybe even playing with him a little bit depending on Lobo’s energy and how packed the environment is. Lobo has not had a poor reaction to another person since he has been here, but as the weeks go on and our bond continues to strengthen I have noticed that Lobo becomes territorial of me and will be on guard around certain people and locations. In these situations I will softly correct the behavior and be more engaging and inviting with the people he seems to have negative energy towards and after a while of my interactions with them, I will have them introduce themselves to Lobo by first being smelt and completely ignoring them and after a little while they will get down on his level and feed him kibble as they slowly pet him under his chin. Once they have gone through the kibble I provided them I will then have them stand up, shake my hand, and walk away ending the introduction on a short and successful note.
FOR MORE INFO ON LOBO, CLICK HERE.