New Obedience Class

Max and I are going to a new obedience class (it's just behind my house as it turns out). It is so much more fun than our first class. This time I was smart enough to check out the trainer's philosophy. He doesn't believe in choke collars and works with reward based training. He often uses Max as an example as Max is of course brilliant, and he is ALL about the food reward based training since we are of course trying to starve him to death. He follows the trainer around like the little puppy dog he is.

This guy is quite experienced with dogs as well so after getting a sense of the dogs last week he allowed them to play before and after class this week. To see Max in the middle of a group with a 6 mo Great Dane, a 9 month old Golden, and a Golden Lab about his age is pretty funny. He's all "Don't forget about me guys!" I was watching him play with the Golden before class. It's amazing how dogs adapt. Her mommy said that she regularly takes down their older Golden but she and Max played for about 10 minutes before others got there without touching each other - they chased, they bowed, they rolled - and they surely would have bowled anyone standing in the middle of the room over! It's actually pretty funny seeing Max chase a big dog like that.

I'm always amazed at how eager to please Cav's are. I have to be really careful because Mindy's agility trainer was expressing her amazement at Mindy that at her age she just takes in stride anything I ask of her - it's like she's saying "yeah okay". She's far quicker than I am in learning the things we are doing at agility. The instructor was explaining to me what she was expecting on our teeter exercise yesterday. I'm still trying to process where I should be and where Mindy should be and she just went ahead and did it! She does let me know when she has jumped enough though - so we just go on to other things.

Sounds like lots of fun for you both!

Glad that Max and golden got along so well together!.

Our 3 yr. old golden after first wondering what our tiny cavalier Abigail was up to has been ultra gentle and it 's fun to watch Abigail either attack the golden's nose, try and steal her toy or tease the golden by running around the house with one of the g's toys.

Heather R

Mindy and our Golden got along well but I don't remember them ever all out playing like that. Zeus was about 18 months when we got Mindy and she was 8 months. Mindy has never really played that much. They did used to play tug of war a lot though. I guess as they both aged they played less and it happened so gradually I never really noticed. - Our Golden was ultra gentle too. If Mindy wanted something she just growled at him and he would let her take it and whine. If I was giving treats I had to make sure he got his fair share.

Class is a lot of fun. It's far better than our first one. Max will be starting puppy agility class in May or June with Mindy's trainer. I think Mindy will probably retire after this session of classes as she does seem to tire more easily and I don't think she'll deal well with the heat once we move outdoors.

I loved reading your post. Libby and I also do agility. I know what you mean about figuring out what you should do and having the dog, just do it! I always kid that Libby places ads on craig's list for a new handler depending on how I do at class! It's so cool how you build agility from the ground up!

Fletcher and I are going to classes now. Just finished puppy, doing CGC and hopefully we will be able to get our TDI once he is over one year.

Is TDI Therapy Dog? I always thought Mindy would be awesome at that. I suspect that when Max matures he would be great at it too.

Mindysmom said:

Is TDI Therapy Dog? I always thought Mindy would be awesome at that. I suspect that when Max matures he would be great at it too.

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Yes, TDI is Therapy Dog Inc. There a few places to get certified depending on where you live. That is the one they use here. I am also finding that some places even require their own testing. It never seems to end, but we really enjoy it. I think our new pup Fletcher will really have a good time.