Training

I am of course a fully trained Entlebucher dog but I'm starting to draw the conclusions that my humans are not very good at teaching me the rest of the stuff I need to know when living in a big city.

Take lead work for example. My humans told me it would be fine if I walked ahead of them as long as I didn't pull the lead. This meant I could sniff and 'read' the 'dog newspaper' on all the lamp posts in my own time. Happy dog and happy humans trotting along towards the park I thought. Then in the park I was having fun playing with the other dogs until it was time to go home.

Then my humans called the dog trainer and along she came. Armed with hotdogs, clicker and lots of ideas she has now told my humans a thing or two. The first thing she said is that I'm a genius and that of course didn't surprise me at all. Then she told them I could benefit from some herding dog games (to get rid of some of my energy doing something I was designed to do) and improved lead work and control in the park. Sounded fair enough and I though I already knew most of this stuff from before.

Then it turns out that dogs should walk next to their humans, close to their leg, at all times until let off the lead. Of corse I wasn't at all happy with this to begin with and used my Entlebucher strength to pull as hard as I could to extend the lead (did you know we were partly bred to pull milk carts, so we're really strong?). This wasn't very comfortable for either humans or dog so bribes and threats were soon exchanged and I received sausages for every step I took without pulling, and if I still mistakenly pulled they would turn direction. That made the effort worthwhile and I'm now trotting along quite happily without pulling. Of course the threat of a nose collar helped to make my mind up too!

Then, the trainer took us to the park to show me the sheep dog game. The idea was to herd the balls instead of sheep, which seemed simple enough. But then it transpired that my humans have taught me the wrong thing again and I thought it was more fun retrieving the balls than herding them. In short I had no real herding instinct, at least not for balls.

All in all its been a busy two weeks since we last saw the dog trainer - here's a list of all the things they make me do now:

1. 'Take', and 'drop' - what's the point of toys if you have to give them back?
2. 'Come' when they call for me or whistle - this is good because I get sausages and I like running, it makes my ears go all crazy.
3. 'Sit', 'Down' & 'Stand' - this is kindergarten stuff of course, but you wouldn't believe how difficult this can get when you have other dogs around
4. 'This way' - means I'm running the wrong way and should turn around. This is also good so I don't get too far away from the hot dog supply in the human's pockets.
5. 'Stay' - they make me do this so they can go and hide my toys for me to find. Its a good game as I can show off how good my nose is.
6. 'Find' - that's the word they use when they're done hiding my toy and its time for me to find it.
7. Fetch - a bit like find but I get to see where they throw the toy.
8. 'Hello' - means high five, and means I can shake paws with anyone. Good for parties.
9. 'Look' - I'm not sure about this one. I'm supposed to look the human in the eye until they click and give me hot dogs. Sometimes there is just more interesting stuff around, like other dogs, horses or joggers.
10. 'Parking' - this means the humans put their foot on my lead so I can't jump on visitors or other nice people. I don't like it one bit.

So as you can tell I'm a busy puppy learning lots of things. But not even the dog trainer could foresee the problem at the vets this morning. I was supposed to have a blood test so they can give me my pet passport, but my humans hadn't trained me to sit still so it all turned into a wrestling match. I'm quite proud to say they needed two humans to hold me down while the vet tried to take my blood and a fourth human fed me sausages to keep my howling muzzle away.

They should have understood that a dog who doesn't like being brushed and having his claws cut probably wouldn't be keen on a blood test or having his fur shaved off either. Especially not if they give me a pink girly band aid to finish it off! The humans now talk about building this into the training routine as well. I hope they at least leave out the shaving, I'm not keen on going bold at five months of age.