Training Journal

Shana C.

Shana is a yellow lab puppy, her owner goes to the animal clinic that i work at as a tech.  When I first started my certification for training, she brought in Shana as a little puppy.  Shana was taken away from her mother early and was unable to be taught by her, so she has some mild dominancy issues.  So the first thing that I worked with was those issues.  I started by having her owner work on these issues.  Shana has also already learned a good bit: sit, lay, come, release, and a little bit of stay. 

First Week - May 30th

Shana has been doing much better, she's had some other people helping with her as well.  I started this week by working on her stays.  I had her sit, then told her to stay and then I walked a little ways away and then released her, she did very well and came to get her treat.  I worked on this for a while, with a few problems from time to time.  But in the end I had her staying for a good 5-10 seconds.

Second Week - June 6th

Shana was a little rambunctious this week, but did well none the less.  It was also very hot this week so I didn't get to teach her all that I wanted to.  But we did work on a good bit of sit-stays with time and distance.  She did very well, I was able to get her to sit and stay on onside of the room while I went into the kitchen.  I had her stay for at least 10 seconds before I released her.  She did very well.

Third Week - June 13th

Shana started the session off a little rough today.  She was very wild and obnoxious, but after the initial wildness, she calmed down nicely.  We worked on "loose-leash" walking today.  I placed a leash on her and we walked down the road.  I started her in the heel position on my left side.  From there I told her to "heel," and she began to walk.  She stayed on my left side and every time she began to pull or wandered off to my right side, I made her "heel" again on my left side.  Then we began again.  We walked for about 30 minutes and she did very well.  Then we worked on "shake."  It took a couple tries before she began to get the hang of it, but by the time she did she was bringing her paw up almost everytime.

Fourth Week - June 20th

This week I didn't really go in with anything to teach.  So we just worked on a couple things that Shana's owner wanted done.  We worked on some sit-stays, roll over, shake, walking in the "heel" position off a leash.  She did well for all of these things, but she was a bit tired going into the training session so she didn't last long before she just wanted to lay down.  So we finished the session up a little early and let her rest.  Next week we may actually try something.