Getting better every day

Good progress this week on sit! In fact, Trixie’s trainer thinks she pretty much has it. As with any command, repetition is the key. At this point in the session, not all the commands will be mastered, but now her trainer can add sit to the thrice daily run-through of all the commands. For example, she’ll lay down on a dog bed when he gives the bed command, but she spends a few seconds sniffing it and might try to get up before he says “release.” This is the kind of refinement that the upcoming weeks will take care of.

This week, all the dogs will start working on the jump command. The point of this one is to teach them how to hop into a car or SUV, so they’ll practice on something that’s about the same height as a truck tailgate.

This is all the fun part, the process and small successes. A few special words from Trixie’s trainer:

“On the outside, I had one of ‘those jobs.’ The kind you’d be hard-pressed to explain to your kids what exactly you do, without boring them to sleep. Many of you out there know what I’m talking about. To find joy in something like that is to understand the intricacies in a way that others do not. To produce something, however small, that was not there before (in this case, getting a dog to perform a sit), is thrilling. So for me, this program is a true taste of freedom!”