The Obedience Adventure

Simi started her obedience class ... hmm, 4 weeks ago, I believe? I haven't written about it yet because it's really been nothing special. She's been a puppy with a short attention span in a room full of other puppies also with short attention spans. So really, nothing to write home about.

She's been rather stressed out in classes, even. She just prefers to sit and watch the class and take in what everyone is doing. She has had a little bark fit, one night, at the Shar-pei puppy who was staring her down as well as the Bernese Mountain Dog that was trying to come in on her space. Both of these were the same night, and it was the week before last. Last week she had no issues with any of the dogs and was doing a lot better with looking back at me.

In the slow spots of the class I've been allowing Simi to watch the other dogs, but I've only been rewarding for looking back at me and lots of it, at that! She did really well with this last week.

Eye contact has been fun with her. She does really well with it, but she's still kind of stressed out so I wasn't getting long periods of it. Last week at class though, she was doing really well. Even going so far as to make eye contact with me through the mirror, SEVERAL times. We were in the spot beside the floor length mirror and don't get me wrong, Simi has seen her reflection before, but she thought it was a lot of fun to look into the mirror, find my eyes through the mirror and maintain eye contact that way for as long as I've ever seen her do it. She did this several times throughout the night. It was tricky; I didn't know if I should be rewarding that or not, and I had to stop myself from busting out laughing several times. She's too smart sometimes.

We also started perch work in class and she did pretty well with that, but at one point was laying down with her from paws on the stool. *rolls eyes* We need to do lots more shaping sessions.

Our trainer would like to see me enter her in competitive obedience someday, so that's a sort-of goal for us. Even though I don't think it would be very fun. And agility will always be our main sport.

And just to make this thread worth reading, here's my big girl: