Training Session 2 - Old Stuff

Our trainer, Bird from Queer Skies Ahead, came over this weekend to check up on our progress and teach us cool new tricks. We covered so much that I'll be splitting it into two blog posts. This one will just be about the behaviors we've been working on since our first training session.

When Bird came over, we let Badger out of his crate to greet her at the door. He jumped at her a few times, but he quickly decided that a belly rub was what he really wanted.

We had made some good progress with getting Badger and Mushroom to wait for treats (especially Badger), so Bird administered a test for them. Not the bad kind of test - this was the kind of test where they ate a lot of treats and any answer was correct. She tested them to see which of four treat types they preferred by holding a different treat in each hand. Badger's favorite turned out to be salmon treats, while Mushroom preferred Zuke's peanut butter treats.

Trick question - Mushroom loves everything edible

We also worked on making the "Wait" command more difficult by putting treats on the ground in front of the dogs or even putting treats directly on their paws. This one will take a little more work though, since Badger ate the treat right after I snapped the picture, without us releasing him from waiting.

"I thought cruel and unusual punishment was illegal"