(the picture is unrelated, but this is the funniest Victor picture I have on my computer.)
Victor had his first doggie training class yesterday. We went to Wicked Good Dog for our training, because we get up to 16 one hour classes and he can pass from level to level as he and we progress.
Because the class is drop in style, there were two other dogs there. One of them had apparently dropped back a little bit from the previous class and the other was super excited and had to go to puppy time out a lot. Despite all of the distractions, Victor was a shining star and we have all leveled up to level 2.
A level 1 dog can sit and down for another, and can be walked loose leash to the middle of the room and sit for the owner. We proved that Victor can do that in the first five minutes and worked on other things, games to get him more engaged and to work off some of his energy in the meantime.
The best of these games is the ping pong game. I don't think I can push Victor's food back that far, but we might be able to do a bit of that in the back yard and in parts of the house. In the ping pong game, each person has treats (or in the case of feeding, half of the meal's kibble) and take turns calling the dog to them. So, I would call Victor and give him a piece of kibble and then Chris would do the same, gradually increasing the distance Victor has to go for his food. It's a good way to practice recall and make it easier to get him inside if we practice it in and out of the back door.
The other thing we practiced a bit near the end was the go to place. In five minutes, Victor was able to go to a blanket on the floor. Smart boy!
