Week 8

It's been three days since my last session at the dog training session. What with all the workload since Sunday, it slipped my mind to write down what we completed and what we need to work on.
Met with John and Hazel at La Vista, tested her on sits and downs. The wily little canine seemed to have lost any interest doing a sit, but her downs were spot on. She still walks John instead of the other way around, so we had to talk to JI about this. We played puppy pingpong until she got tired and plopped down. We should have only done a couple of rounds while she was interested.
JI didn't teach us anything new, but wanted to see how we were doing as a group, so we brought in three dogs at a time, working on the basics. I took Putol (now known as Jack, as he has recently been adopted) in for a round of lessons, but he was not in the mood at all. No sits, just lay down on his side; he was more than typically distracted and couldn't seem to concentrate. I felt like a total failure as a dog trainer on Sunday.
The only highlight was when Smart let me work with her (her usual trainer was on leave that day), so we did a good set of three sits, three downs (with some luring, but she did the position properly), and her Heeling is so lovely to watch. I suggested the new trainer give her a go, since it would be easier to work with a dog with some proficiency, even though Smart can be a real wise-ass at times, not to mention she dislikes being touched on the ruff.
JI gave me a ride out of the village and we chatted about his plans for the team. He does want to get us to learn advanced training and get the dogs into a Good Citizen program, but we need a home with doors.
While it was a difficult day with my two dogs (both adopted! Does that count in my record?) on Sunday, I felt inspired to think about long term plans. Maybe I'll ask JI if I could be an apprentice so I could learn how to work with other dogs, purebreed and rescued.