Finals Week!

Odie and I are preparing for his final session this weekend. Last time we did this was in November during Pet Centrics' Puppy Foundations Class, and Odie won a Kong for that! Hooray for a happy puppy and a happy tiger mom!

I decided to lie low these past few weeks and take less videos. It's really hard to just have the two of us do homework! It's also a bit disappointing that I can't work with anyone here at home when some of the homework exercises need another human to act as assistant. Did I mention I've been shooting the videos alone? And for this class, I'm single-handedly editing them too. During puppy class, my sister took charge of video editing. Oh, life. I'm just quite lucky that Odie is responding pretty well to recall! I've read a lot about beagles having attention issues because of their scenting skills, so it really means a lot to me to see him excitedly coming to me when I call him.

I can't help but realize that all this dog training has quite a lot of theatrics involved. I didn't know I could use my university degree to interact with my baby boy! All the energy, the excitement, and encouraging Odie to follow what I say is basically one big objective exercise. It seems to be working well though because I've been getting my message across even if I don't speak dog and he doesn't speak English. Validation!

Some of the videos here have already been uploaded on my Vimeo two weeks ago, but they haven't been included in my blogs yet. So, sit back, relax, and hit PLAY!

This video was taken in our bedroom a few weeks back. I love how he just pounces towards my hand when I give him the go signal! He's been taking treats more gently now though. As for the ones on the floor, we were given an alternative exercise because my hand can't go farther than a few inches away from the treat. This puppy is FAST!

Impulse Control - Bedroom 2 from Pauline Gaerlan on Vimeo.

This was also taken and edited a few weeks ago, so we weren't as careful with having Odie keep the position until the release word was given.

Transitions - Garage from Pauline Gaerlan on Vimeo.

Again, taken in our room. Lighting is pretty bad. Meh! I actually have a lot of stock videos I still haven't edited, so I'm thinking I have to edit everything first before shooting new ones. And they're all due tomorrow night. Oh, my life!

Sit, Down, Stand - Bedroom 1 from Pauline Gaerlan on Vimeo.

This was taken only this Monday when Odie went to Robinsons Magnolia and Eastwood. I was actually surprised that he was able to follow commands in those places so I took a video when I noticed that he was following quite well. I just gave random commands though as I didn't have the complete list of homework exercises. It was just amazing that Odie could handle a great set of distractions such as being in a new environment, which was a public place, with lots of people and dogs passing by, and even with music playing in Eastwood! He got really startled though when the music started playing (the bass was very loud at first) but learned to adjust to it quickly. Good boy!

Odie in the Great Outdoors from Pauline Gaerlan on Vimeo.

And that's it for homework so far. Tiger mom becomes a zombie tonight. Welp!

If anyone with a 10-18 week old puppy gets to read this, do go to Pet Centrics' Puppy Class Free Orientation happening THIS SATURDAY, February 2, 11am! It's the same class Odie started with, and I'm really happy to see how much he's grown since that first orientation. Like I've been saying in my previous entries, Pet Centrics uses a reward system for training, so it's training the dogs and the humans to happily interact with each other. There's no room for choke chains, shock collars, basically no room for negativity and punishment. It teaches dogs that learning is fun, and teaches humans that training your dog is a lot easier than you think!