This meeting one of the trainers came up to see how everyone was doing and go over some training techniques. Luxor was the first to go out and play with Cathey. Oooooo you have food! He is a very very food motivated dog LOL
The game was get on the mat, or bed whatever you want to call it. The "word" was "nice" and when they got on the mat she would say "nice" and give them a kibble. It took Luxor about 3 repetitions and he got it, he had done it before, but he was clicker trained, not voice trained, he still got it really quick LOL
See how focused he is, he knows when he sits on the mat he gets food.
And she worked with a little puppy too. isnt this just the cutest face! You can see her brass tag here, there is also a big brass plate on the collar, with the puppy's number and Guide Dogs info on it, every puppy is also tattooed in both ears with its own number. They keep very detailed records on these dogs. This is Ardella.
Or maybe this is the cutest face LOL look at that intensity, she started to figure out the game pretty quickly, she had never done it before.
She was figuring out that going to the mat was getting "paid" as the trainer said.
And one more older puppy to do the exercise. She took awhile longer to figure it out, plus she is a more anxious type of personality so she was more distracted and not a real food motivated dog.
And it was puppy trading night, Meghan got to bring home this little cutey, 10mo old Marimba.
We take her back tomorrow and get Luxor back. She is about half the size of Luxor, and not very well behaved in some respects, although she did really well at school and at Safeway today. She has some jumping and licking issues.
But she sure is cute too.
But she sure is cute too. This weekend, Sunday, the High School Equestrian Team is doing a demonstration ride with some equitation class demos and drill and gaming demos, should be fun! I will take lots of pics.
I do find it interesting that Labs are often used as guide dogs. We found it very difficult to train our Lab until he reached the age of 8 and finally settled down. He would throw himself at a solid wood gate until he broke it down, and then he'd run around the neighborhood terrorizing other people's animals. If someone opened the front door, he'd plow them down in order to escape. All this was after we had him snipped, but dogs in heat still attracted him. I took him to dog obedience school twice, and all the other people who had Labs admitted that they were a handful for them too.
ReplyDeleteHey NM,
ReplyDeleteThe labs in the Guide Dogs program are exceptional almost all of them, and if they dont pass certain standards, mentaly and physicaly, they dont go back into the gene pool. Every litter is selected and their breeding program is exceptional too, I know the kind of labs you are talking about. In the GD program you can get some that are brats, but it is usually the raisers fault I hate to say, some people in the program are not strict enough with the dog. All labs are smart, but the GDs are exceptionaly so, our puppy Luxor is so smart and that is not to say he is still a dog and has his moments, but when he has his puppy jacket and halti on he is a gentleman. Luxor is probably going back to be a breeder, as he is 15 mos old and GD has not fixed him yet, he is just now figuring out he is a male, which distracts him a bit at times. I guess what I am trying to say is it is all in the breeding, hunting dogs tend to have a much higher prey drive thus the running, chewing, destroying problems, but Guide Dogs are bred specificaly for this, they are wonderful, even the "bad" ones. Luxor will go for his formal training after he leaves us, and if he does good he will be sent as a daddy dog, I hope he does, he is so good, and has been since he was a pup. Sorry this is long LOL I am very proud to be part of this program, and these dogs never cease to amaze me.