5/o8/ 25

 I couldn’t tell if I was nervous or excited for Moe’s class this evening. We have been working daily on the items he would be tested on.

I enjoy doing this activity with Moe and I think he enjoys the praise he gets (and snacks) when he does a good job.

I had a feeling I knew where he was going to excel and where he would flub up. We have been working hard all week. Our test has to be done with no treats and little verbal command.

We went down from 6 to 3 dogs in class after the second class. I like a smaller group. All three dogs are different in their own ways. Pepper is the bouncing, happy puppy. Moe is the laid back, chill dog…unless he feels he needs to protect, then he turns into a psycho maniac, and Bailey, a mix in between Moe and Pepper.

We each had our dogs in a heel as they were walking. They would have to do a heel sit twice during the walk. They had to navigate their turns correct and match their pace to the handlers, which included speeding up and slowing down.

Moe does well at this for the most part. He got a little lazy and lagged behind me a little bit. He is also a doofus. While a heel-sit-stay is supposed to be the dog sitting in a forward position at your ankles, Moe sits cock-eyed with legs sprawled like a mangled animal. He does it but his form is not desirable. Oh well. He is still a good boy.

We did figure 8’s with heel-sit-stays and the 1 minute sit and 3 minute down. Something was happening in the parking lot during this test. Moe was on edge and was growling. He did NOT like it. While he has successfully duplicated these commands multiple times, today he didn’t do well. 

Either way, he did well enough to graduate on to the next phase of training. We won’t be participating in that, as we want the freedom to travel to camp whenever we want with minimal scheduling

On the way home, Moe sat in the back seat looking out the window. I rolled the window down a bit so he could smell the world as it passed by. He was totally pumped and stuck his head out the window. What a goof ball!

Moe enjoys the breeze!