Nik
Well-Known Member
We have started at a formal training school with Kahlua to challenge her more. She already knows her basics as we have been doing NILF and home training from day one but we wanted to take her training to the next level so we signed up for a new local school we hadn't been to yet.
This past weekend I was surprised to learn that Kahlua is actually shaky on commands when delivered with voice only. She can easily do any command with hand gesture only and is great with hand and voice combined. But, when only voice is used for even the simplest commands she automatically looks to my hands and waits for my gesture. So now our new trainer wants us to work on getting her just as solid on all her commands with voice alone. I hadn't even realized we were relying so heavily on hand gestures though I have always made a point of training them solid on hand gestures alone so when we are in public I can command them without having to speak if I need to be quiet.
Our new school also does a lot of agility work. He has the most extensive agility course we have ever worked with and it is turning out great for Kahlua. It is very challenging for her as she gets nervous and apprehensive of new situations, new sounds etc. We took her on one portion of the course and she was so scared of it two go arounds that we barely got her through it and she was too nervous to even care about the reward. But, by the time we got to round #4 on the same course she was running through it on her own with perfect form and looking to me for her reward after. I am so excited to continue some of the more challenging work.
He also does scent work training and he thinks that Kahlua will be very well suited to the scent work (which I agree with). I am really looking forward to all the training in our future.
Next week we are bringing Diesel along also so he can try the new agility course (Diesel adores agility work and this course will be more challenging for him which is great).
This past weekend I was surprised to learn that Kahlua is actually shaky on commands when delivered with voice only. She can easily do any command with hand gesture only and is great with hand and voice combined. But, when only voice is used for even the simplest commands she automatically looks to my hands and waits for my gesture. So now our new trainer wants us to work on getting her just as solid on all her commands with voice alone. I hadn't even realized we were relying so heavily on hand gestures though I have always made a point of training them solid on hand gestures alone so when we are in public I can command them without having to speak if I need to be quiet.
Our new school also does a lot of agility work. He has the most extensive agility course we have ever worked with and it is turning out great for Kahlua. It is very challenging for her as she gets nervous and apprehensive of new situations, new sounds etc. We took her on one portion of the course and she was so scared of it two go arounds that we barely got her through it and she was too nervous to even care about the reward. But, by the time we got to round #4 on the same course she was running through it on her own with perfect form and looking to me for her reward after. I am so excited to continue some of the more challenging work.
He also does scent work training and he thinks that Kahlua will be very well suited to the scent work (which I agree with). I am really looking forward to all the training in our future.
Next week we are bringing Diesel along also so he can try the new agility course (Diesel adores agility work and this course will be more challenging for him which is great).