Puppy Training Week 4: Come and Stay
Well, we are halfway through puppy training and I am feeling pretty good about our progress. Although she still sometimes struggles with loose leash, she consistently follows the other commands that she has learned. Last night she got a hold of a washcloth that had dropped on the floor. She dropped it immediately on command. Later when she threw up pieces of semi-digested washcloth, she immediately obeyed the command to leave it. I figured that those were unfortunate but realistic tests of her ability to understand and follow the commands.
In class today, she was the star of the stay command. While other dog owners struggled to get their dogs to stay even 10 seconds, Ebony was quite content to just sit and stay. To train the puppies to stay, we instructed them to sit and they held our hands out and gave the command to stay. They received a treat right after the command and 15 seconds were given a release command. Although we weren’t supposed to walk away from them at this stage, Ebony seemed bored. She had no difficulty staying while I walked away to the end of the leash length. Everytime, she stayed until I released her. Again, I was praised on my selection of Ebony as a service dog. She was totally focused on me and awaiting my command.
The come command was another story. Jennifer the trainer, would hold the puppies while the owners got them excited about a treat in their hand. Then the owner was supposed to go to the end of the training arena and call their dog enthusiastically. The puppy was to get abundant and exhuberant praise when they followed the command. Jennifer encouraged us to use a word or phrase other than come to prevent confusion at dog parks etc. Every other dog bounded to their owner when Jennifer released their leash. Ebony would continue sitting and look at me quizzically. When she would decide to come check me and the treat out, she walked slowly and seemed to be wondering what all the fuss was about. We moved out to the store aisles. Every other puppy would run pell mell to their owners the entire length of the store aisle but not my Goldendoodle puppy. She would come when called, albeit slowly, if I less than 10 feet away. If I was farther away, she would stay sitting at Jennifer’s feet. She wouldn’t take her eyes off of me but she wouldn’t come to me either. Frustrating and confusing. We have work to do!
