Week 9

Some of the major points that we covered today included Consistency and the use of silence (or as JI said "Shut up and train"). A few of us, including me, were working with dogs that were normally trained by someone else. I took over Smart today, Hazel and Jon arrived late. Other than having to lure her to go Down, Smart was in good shape for training today, although my left hand feels like raw steak, her teeth are like jagged edges, and she bites down on my hand for the treat. One of the other trainers took over Mitch, who is normally run by K. Mitch is one of the dogs that had previous training, and she can typically plop down into a Sit or a Down with ease. But B couldn't get her to do the positions properly; we figured out that Mitch was not sure what was going on and it was as if her inner mind had decided to shut down after getting her signals crossed. Since B is a chattier trainer, it was also important to learn not to speak too much while getting a dog to do the command. Luring the dog to the proper position first until it is able to do the command properly, then using the command to affirm the position is what JI wants us to learn. We have to stop talking too much to our dogs, we're messing up with their auditory senses.
It was a long training day, even though we left the park at 1 pm, earlier than normal. But intense sessions with our dogs left most of us braindead at the end of the day. I needed cold sustenance and a large glass of sago gulaman was all I needed to pick me up from the floor.