Different Dogs have different personalities!

Day 3 we learned about how different dogs have different personalities, and it effects how you praise your dog.  Some dogs that are more energetic are often more self-motivated.  As such they need less enthusiastic praise when they complete a task.  This is our May.  She if full of endless energy and responds very easily to a calm even a quiet voice, it does not take much to make her happy, she wants to please us as she loves her treats (which are mostly just her food).  When she is happy she wags her tail and her mouth is open, she is happy most of the time.

Today we practiced distractions.  Each service dog is different and unique and fine some things more motivating, and as such more distracting than others.  May is very motivated and can become distracted by tennis balls or any ball type toy.  Other things that can be distracting include food, toys, other dogs/animals and people.  We practiced distractions in both a sit and down command, trainers threw treats on the floor, rolled tennis balls on the floor, other dogs were let loose in the room, and believe it or not May stayed in her sit or down command the whole entire time!  See us practicing below.

The next command we worked on was Jump.  We practiced having May jump onto a platform, this was in preparation to bring her home, so we give a command to jump into our vehicle, or jump on the bed.  We can also give the command Off to get out of the vehicle or off other things we do not want her on. 

Then we worked on the command under.  To place May under a table when we are in a public.  It's just from a Heel, you point under the table and command Under.  She immediately goes under the table turns around to face us and goes to a down position without another command.

Believe it or not as much energy as May has today was the first day she fell asleep in class for a few minutes... not long but she did, see below.

We also received a Mutt Matt today, this is May's Place.  Place is a command used to tell May to go stay on the Matt.  We just say the command and the first few times we may need to point or walk her to the Matt and then she will just go there on command.  She can move around anywhere on her mat just like being in a kennel with no walls.  It's amazing how well she does all of these things.

Below are pictures of May and Joe bonding while we were given instructions for taking our dogs back to the hotel for the first night.

Here's a picture Joe took of her on the way back to the hotel.

Right now Joe and May are running around the Motel room...good thing it's a suite. Joe fed her supper and they are playing together like they have been together forever already.  May follows Joe everywhere, jumps up on the bed with him, and constantly watches where he is, she truly is an amazing dog, high energy and all, she still know exactly what she is suppose to do. We have also started "marking" behaviors that we want May to disrupt.  The marking process helps her identify exactly what we want to stop or change. She is catching on so fast.  Long day, and it's time to take May outside for a walk, while Joe goes swimming, they both need to burn off some energy.