Fourth Day of Class

This morning, we were all excited for class to start, knowing that we would be having our first night at "home" in our dorm rooms with our pre-matches. I had already put my shoes away as Ginza ate the top part of one Sorel boot when she first got matched with me.

Today we had several very informative lectures on Canine Health, and Canine Communication. I am really learning a lot here.

We did a lot of training practices, mostly working with the timer and getting the dogs to respond to us in different situations. Just before lunch we did a quick walk so they could do their business if needed. Then we came back inside and practiced with us holding empty plates with our dogs on leash, in preparation for our field trip tomorrow to a buffet place. 

Once we got the hang of handling plates and dogs on leashes, we tried again during our lunch with actual food on plates, holding the dogs' leashes, and walking with them to the table. We had a nice lunch, chicken salad on croissants provided by the "voluncheers".

After lunch we did another walk then we had another class lecture (the one on Communication). Then we went back to doing soundwork with the timers but making it more challenging for the dogs to push them a little bit. 

One dog did not want to do the soundwork. She actually refused to respond to the timer, so one of the trainers thought maybe she was upset about her new collar. So they tried to get the dog to have another go at responding to the timer, but this dog just tucked her tail in between her legs and ran to her crate, and nosed the door open so she could enter the crate. When the door opened, she jumped at the sound of the door slamming into the crate next to her own crate, then she got inside her crate, and managed to pull shut the door to her crate! 

So the trainer said, "get her outside". Yep, that was the problem. She had to go and apparently she didn't want to try to practice as she may have been afraid of having an accident, bless her heart. Once she came back from outside, she was fine and did a great job on the soundwork. Smart girl!

At the end of the day we had another lecture, which was about taking our dogs "home" tonight to our dorm rooms for the first time. They covered everything in the lecture, and it was an excellent lecture, so I felt confident in taking my pre-match "home" tonight. My pre-match is behaving very well, and is asleep next to me, but it was still good to hear what to do in certain examples, just in case.

Edited to add after Graduation:

First night at "home" in the dorm