Training Ani: January 2012

A New Beginning

Blumoon Anticipates A Landslyde!
CH Sunaire Living The Dream x Blumoon Deja Blue Happily Ever After -"Ani" was born on December 8, 2010. She was the last puppy born in a litter of 7, co-bred by me and Kim Lappen. I knew Ani was mine from the moment she was born. She was just THAT puppy. But as time wore on it became evident that she was growing... a lot. We kept hoping that she would stay in size, and holding our breaths. She even went to live with our friend Kathy Ryan, Marco's owner, for some early breed training. Eventually she stopped growing, but pushed the size chart all the way to 16". She is still a very pretty girl.
I didn't spend much, if any time training Ani because I was preoccupied with other things. Tia's health was failing again, I went to grooming school and then worked at finding a job in a new career, I was training Libby in agility. There just never seemed to be time for Ani. In July 2011 I took Ani for a private lesson with Nicole Levesque, thinking that a lesson might jump start me into actually training her. We worked on ideas for overcoming her terrible issue with car sickness and then started with simple exercises such as sit, down, hand touches, regular recalls and restrained recalls. I train exclusively with positive reinforcement and a clicker. Ani understands that a click means something good. Nicole also suggested that I do lots of tug work with our "fur tail", which Ani really enjoys. Unfortunately I really didn't keep up with the exercises. Bad trainer.

Having just lost Tia, my heart dog on January 10, 2012, I decided that my new focus must be on Ani. She is my next "project". About a month ago I spoke with my friend and animal communicator Anne Hassett, who was helping me through my overwhelming ordeal with Tia. Tia always had such a great sense of humor. She asked Anne where that "other" sheltie in the house had come from! She actually sounded disgusted with her! I asked why and she said because "she has no work ethic"! That made me laugh. I hope Tia imparted some words of wisdom to Ani before she left. Ani has some pretty big paws to fill. This blog will document our journey.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Day 2

Ani is definitely learning how to learn, and I am really excited about that! Today we did a short session with a few reps of 'down', some nose touches and then introduced eye contact. She gives me her 'down' and keeps looking at my hands, but I wait until she looks up and makes eye contact with me; then click and treat. She is a happy, eager student so far.

We leave for Maine today, so our next session will be up there. I am going to leave Libby home with Rick so that I have some real one-on-one with Ani for a few days.

Got to Maine pretty late tonight because of bad weather and tough driving conditions. Couldn't even get the car up the driveway, despite multiple try's. The surf is really pounding and I'd love to go down and see it, but the driveway and road are just too slippery. Since I am here all alone with Ani I don't want to chance falling and getting injured when there is nobody else here! So instead I did a short training session with Ani. I introduced a mat, and clicked any time she came close to touching it or looking its way. She eventually got to the point where she was sort of jumping and sitting on it. She really is a fun girlie. We also played tug with the towel I was using to dry her off after going outside. Its something we taught her a long time ago and she things it is great fun. Now she is pooped. I guess it is bed time!

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Off to a good start

Had another 5 minute training session with Ani this afternoon and was pleasantly surprised to see that she remembers what 'down' is! Until now I don't think she has had a clue what learning was about, but I can see the wheels turning in her little head. That's very encouraging. I introduced nose touches which she seemed to catch on to pretty quickly. I'm actually getting excited about this!

Day 1

Before now Ani only knew 2 things; "sit" and "off". I taught her to sit in November and she is expected to do so for her breakfast and dinner. She must sit until I release her with the word "free". Although she seems to understand that she has to sit, she really doesn't get the whole release word thing. We will work on that. Today I taught her how to down. She actually learned it pretty fast!

My goals for Ani are small, at least to start. I would like to improve our working relationship. She is a sweet puppy, but sometimes seems more bonded to the cats and our Golden Retriever Libby. That will need to change if we are to work together. The plan is for short clicker training sessions to learn the basics (sit, down, stay, hand touches, etc.), to actually teach her what learning is all about, and to enjoy working with me.. I look forward to this journey and hope I didn't wait too long to start it!!