Obedience?

We went off to official obedience training last Monday night. The venue was a large gymnasium called the "field house" with a divider down the middle. Two groups were in session. That's a lot of dogs! Our group was ten, mostly excited puppies. Distractions were all around us as we tried to keep Blarney at a "heel" or "stay". He did very well for Joan but was all over the place for Dave until we discovered Dave's commercial treats weren't as appealing as the homemade ones Joan was using. Seems there's a nose-leading, irresistible smell offing from the homemade liver treats.

We've been practicing heel, stay, down and sit from a distance and both on and off the leash. Blarney is excellent! A video will be part of our next post. We've begun using pieces of the evening meal as training treats. It draws out feeding time. Left alone with his food portion, Blarney can down it in under a minute. We keep telling him to "slow down" but he doesn't heed our advice.