Training Begins

Photo credit goes to my mom for this one!

We began our training with several pleasant surprises. Molly could already sit, and could sometimes “down”, and she’s really smart. I don’t mean just sorta doggy smart, I mean crazy, scary smart. For example, one of the first “games” I started playing with her was getting her to touch a post-it note with her nose. It’s a targeting game that later leads to the retrieve and to being able to push buttons. If they touch their nose to the post-it, then you click a clicker and give them a treat. Molly had it figured out in under five minutes. A week later, at Paul’s house, there was a post-it on a little table in the room we have class in, and she just kept staring at it. When class was over, I let her go over and FINALLY she got to touch it. She was so happy! But it’s not just post-its anymore. My dad wrote something on the back of a receipt for me, and put it on the foot stool thinggy in the living room. Molly jumped up, grabbed it off the foot stool thinggy, and brought it to me, expecting a treat.

Anyway, so we’ve discovered already how smart she is, and got excited and started playing all the training games and doing all the commands we were told to do, and things are going really well.

One of the other games we play is training her to read flashcards. It’s not just a game, because it forces her to really think. The game goes like this: I hold out a flashcard, saying either “sit” or “down” and without saying anything, wait for her to do the action. She pretty much has that figured out too. I’m hoping to get a small video camera, and then I will post some videos of the various games, for your entertainment.