Beginner class #2

Today was a particularly fun class for me as we learned how to teach something I've wanted to do for a while but never had any clue how to do.

But first, these are the signs we covered today:

• Right turn
  
• About turn - right
  
• 270 degree right
  
• 360 degree right
  
• Straight figure 8

Lucy didn't have any trouble with these, doing nice tight turns. What a good dog.

We ran a couple of little mini courses practicing the signs we've learned so far. The instructor complemented Lucy's near-constant eye contact. I always think it's funny when someone complements Lucy's focus on me because really, it's only because she knows I might give her a kibble at any moment. She just happens to be good at begging in motion. :-)

In running these mini courses, I find I'm going to need to get used to spacing things so as not to run myself or my dog into the signs. Lucy will also need to get used to the signs as she gave some of them a look. "Oh what's that, is it edible? No? Darn." Oh boy, can't wait until we get to the advanced signs of heeling off-leash past food! heh.

Oh yeah so the thing I've really wanted to learn is how to teach a dog to "tuck in". For example, if your dog sits or stands too far from you, you can cue them to tuck themselves into heel position and they'll scooch in with their back end. The skill was introduced today as a foundation exercise for left turns, which will be covered next week.

About a zillion different ways to teach this were described/demo'd with the instructor's beautiful Leonberger (who does a lovely job of demonstrating all of the new skills in class). So I don't forget them, here they are in shorthand: (1) lure; (2) leash around knees; (3) around chair; (4) backup/wall; (5) turning in tight circle; (6) darn, I think sure there were a a few more, but I've since forgotten them.

First I tried the lure method, using the outside hand to lure her head away from me, the idea being once she moves her rear end, C&T. Well, this method wasn't quite working for us as this is pretty much the same cue/lure I do for stretching. Lucy did a lovely job of curving her body around to her hip without moving her back feet an inch. Ok, so what were those other methods again?

So, the instructor suggested we try the leash behind the knees method. What do you know, within a few minutes we were starting to figure it out. Very cool! This is definitely what we'll focus on this week.

Homework: "Tuck in" using leash behind knees