Resq TailsThe trials and triumphs of rescued dogs

Well, it’s possible that I’ve lost my mind completely, but it’s just too early to tell yet. One of my friends that I work with in the all-breed rescue here in town has asked me to come and attempt to teach her three dogs and her three girls some basic behaviors. That would call into question my sanity already, seeing that I’ve only ever trained my own dogs up to this point, but add to that fact, all the girls are under the age of 13. I found out tonight that one of my biggest challenges would not be keeping the dogs attention and focus, it would be keeping the girls focused on the task at hand. Plus, I couldn’t reward their behavior with my treats! LOL

Fortunately, I don’t think that there are any high expectations on my friends’ part, and the kids are easily impressed by very simple skills that Rogue did for them, so maybe it will work out fine. I have to say that Rogue did really well with the girls and the new dogs. I was really proud of her. In fact, when we got ready to leave, she wanted to stay longer.

Two of the three dogs already knew how to “sit”, and they wanted to start to teach them to “stay”. I couldn’t have been happier that the dogs had been on a nice walk before I came and it was hot, so they were pretty mellow. (Big sigh of relief!) We also worked on teaching the dogs a “down” and a “go to your mat” Then we played some games to get the dogs interested in fetching.

One difficulty I ran into was trying to explain why it was important to break behaviors into small pieces when we first teach them. (Wish I could remember that lesson sometimes myself! LOL) Patience is just so hard to learn! I think that they had a good time though, since they asked me if I was coming back tomorrow night. The answer to that question is “No”. I told them it would be a few days before I could come back and to work with their dogs on the things I showed them in the meantime. We’ll see how they do, and I’ll be sure to report on how this adventure unfolds!