Never too late to teach an old dog.

Crystal and I have recently started to foster for Gulf Coast Cocker Spaniel Rescue .  Our first foster is Cali a 6 plus year old Red/Buff girl who had all sorts of medical issues.  I am proud to report that she is doing excellent in the health department!!  So now that we have that out of the way we have decided to start doing some basic obedience training with her.  Cali is a really good dog; she is not aggressive, she minds her manners for the most part, and she is house broken; but why not try and improve an already good thing! 

Our version of Basic Obedience includes the following:

• Focus/Name Recognition
• Sit
• Off
• Down
• Stay
• Stay w/more distance
• Come
• Come w/mild distraction
• Wait
• Leave It
• Settle
• Touch

So you may be wondering how Cali is doing....Fantastic of course!  This past Tuesday was our first formal session (6:30 pm in the Garage)  We started with Sit, something that she already understands but wasn't very consistent with.  Well with a little food motivation she was all over "Sit"!! So we quickly moved on the down, this proved to be a little bit more challenging for her.  With the help of the trusty treat and some fancy coxing I had her down in no time.  We repeated the exercise several times with great success, she needed the coxing each time but she will learn the verbal command soon enough.

The next session was last night, Thursday.  We repeated Tuesday's exercises...she was on it.  Sit....no problem.  Down.....you bet!  (still coxing but much faster response)  So then we moved on to Sit Stay, this was rather challenging for Cali, as soon as I moved she wanted to follow; but with a little bit of patients she soon learned that if she wanted the treat she needed to stay put!  We also worked on Leave it.  To test her on this I dropped a big ole piece of treat on the floor and told her "Leave It"  if she went for it I simply blocked her with my body.  Every time she stopped looking at the treat and looked at me she got a treat reward.  Soon she was no longer interested in the treat on the floor and would "Leave It" with no issues.  We also discovered (entirely by accident) that Cali could "Take a Bow".  While trying to get her to "down" I put the treat back between her front paws, instead of lying down she lowered her front and kept her butt in the air like she was "taking a bow"  So she officially has a trick!!!  Good Girl.....see you can teach an old dog new tricks!  And it is NEVER too late!