Even the dog is gifted!

Let me just start out by saying that the headline is a joke.

When I signed Nova up for doggie school, I had no idea that it would be so much like getting my kids through school. We had our first class last week and I had no idea what to expect. I mean, I think Nova is a pretty cool dog. I've done my best to socialize her around other dogs and people so that she can go into the class with the best attitude her genes will allow. I even began doing some basic puppy training with her hoping that we wouldn't go in there as the most ignorant and out of control puppy/owner pair in the history of Pawsitive Pet Solutions. Short of signing her up for the most elite puppy pre-k on before we even adopted her, I thought we were pretty well prepared.

Well, her first day of puppy school was very embarrassing. The class consists of 5 dogs; an older spaniel who is shy and very attached to her two elderly owners, a nervous beagle and his single, professional, divorcee owner, an adorable, unflappable, 6-month old bloodhound, and a very nervous black husky/Shepherd/lab mix who was recently rescued and is handled alternately (but never together) by a young unmarried couple. In the latter case, it is clear that the dog is the young woman's, but this week, the young man had to bring her. I suppose it is better than getting pregnant, but I worry about this couple. They don't seem particularly communicative.

Nova is kind of nervous, but she is such a happy dog that she gets over it quickly and moves on. She's not much interested in the calm spaniel, the beagle's owner is very rigid and seems to be protecting her dog from my big oaf, the blood hound's owner's are very nice, but we all try to keep them apart in class because anyone could see that 2 large 6-month old puppies would produce a big bang in class. Nova seems to constantly try to make friends withe the nervous husky mix. No doubt she is a beautiful dog, and the two of them together make a great looking pair. But her owners are so young, and nervous, and shut down and the dog is nervous too.

Anyway, Nova is clearly the extrovert in the crowd. And she already knows sit. The clicker was a novelty though and she found it very interesting. In fact, she found everyone's clicker to be interesting. Not knowing I should not feed her before class, she went there a little less interested in treats than she should have been and she spent the night turning for every click in the room and wondering what treats the other dogs were getting. She just wasn't interested in working with me at all. Although when the instructor would come over to demo on her, she was just good as gold. Curiosity can do that.

So last night, I didn't feed her before class. I got some really strong smelling treats to use with her and we dutifully practiced our sits and watches and name responses all week.

Starvation will make a big difference in a dog's willingness to work. You could tell that when we went over the lessons from last week, though, that she was only humoring me. Until we started on down. The teacher asked if Nova knew the command and if we had a hand signal. She knows it well. You can't have a large dog without teaching it down very early. Especially when you don't use a crate. So she demonstrated how to mold the down command by luring the dog with a treat using Nova. She likes to show it on large dogs because it takes them longer to get their bellies down so it is like doing it in slow motion. And then she showed how to add in the hand signal. Nova was perfect for the whole thing. The star of the show. With ears perked up and eyes firmly on the treat, she laid down just as asked, and as soon as the instructor used the hand signal, she popped down and wagged her tail.

So the instructor said we could move on to teach her how to sit from down. I've never done this before. So it was new for me too. Nova loved it. She didn't take her eyes off me the whole time. She didn't go check on the nervous dog or wander off to smell things. She just laid down as asked and then popped into the most perfect sit; repeatedly. It was so much fun. She was obviously having fun. I was so proud of her.

Maybe she was just bored last week and at the beginning of class. Maybe, like gifted kids, she needs a challenge to keep on track and stay out of trouble. Ya. We'll go with that.