mollyandgeoff.com

Daphne’s “levels” classes have wrapped up now, and she’s very nearly a canine good citizen. She had all the behaviors down prior to the test, but on test day the “friendly stranger” was about 11 years old. Daphne doesn’t see too many 11 year-olds, and she loves them. She jumped up to play (which he encouraged…) and then, when she saw him in the walking through the crowd exercise, wanted to play some more. She’ll get to take the test again, though, and that’s a very pleasant way to fail anyway.

This weekend, we adopted a new friend, Lucy. She’s a very sweet 4 month-old Lab mix, also from Lost Dog. She seems to love people and dogs, and will sleep on anyone’s lap who will let her. Daphne likes her a lot, but may be a bit rambunctious for her while she’s settling in.

Pictures to follow, hopefully soon…

The hound surprised us both with the last September class, and graduated from level 3. This means that her stays are confident for at least a minute (even when distracted by another hound) and loose leash walking is the norm. She’s also good at coming when she’s called in the face of minor distractions. Unfortunately, the creek is not a minor distraction… it’s all-consuming and still too much temptation for her. It’s even worse now that some (very foolish) ducks choose to frequent it. What kind of duck likes a creek adjacent to a dog park?! Maybe by next spring she’ll have strong enough recall to enjoy her swims again. All in all, Daphne has become a very pleasant individual to have around the house, bar an annoying penchant for chewing up baseball caps. If you’re in the area, I can’t say enough nice things about All about dogs. They’re definitely worth the hike out to Woodbridge a couple times a week.

The week off for the holiday must have done the hound some good. Though we’re still working to generalize the behavior, especially in the presence of such distractions as other dogs or foolish ducks, Daphne’s completed level 2 of obedience school. This means loose leash walking is the norm (at least in class), sit, down and stay are strong behaviors, and we have rudimentary recall. She even passed the test at a class when she was having a tough time focusing due to an unusually long pre-class car ride caused by 3(!!) accidents on I-95 at rush hour.

The hound went to her first obedience class, and, much to our surprise, graduated level 1 the very first night. She doesn’t seem obedient, but she’s clearly mastered “the name game”, “sit”, and “down”, at least when there aren’t any serious distractions. (Apart from a dozen other potential canine friends in the room…) Needless to say, we’re very proud and anxiously await the mastery of “loose leash walking” and “recall”. Good job Daphne!

I’ve finally cropped and posted a half-dozen photos in a quick and dirty album… Take a look at our funny red friend.