Cody's Personalized Curriculum

After the post yesterday, I decided to take the matter in my own hands and do customized lessons for Cody. This is what we practiced in the last day:

1) Park Control

• We practiced heeling from the car to the dog park entrance. It took forever since he was impatient and would immediately start pulling once I started walking again, but I was insistent and he understood that I needed him to heel (when I stopped, I didn't even need to command him to heel)
• At the entrance to the dog park, I made him sit at the gate until he was calm. For awhile he would sit for a second, and stand up again in anticipation, but I kept on making him sit until he waited for me to open the gate - and not before.
  

2) Tennis Anyone?

• In the tennis court, we practiced off-leash fetch.
  
• After fetching, I would switch to making him heel since he normally feels like the tennis court is his place to run around. I wanted to make sure he still understood that I was in charge.
• After he mastered the intermittent heeling, I made him sit and wait as I threw the ball. Only after I said "off the hook" or "go get it" was he allowed to fetch the ball.

3) Let's Walk

• We just did heeled walks before and after the tennis court. We met a friend walking her dog so we walked with them for awhile.

4) Agility pre-training

• Since our walk was VERY early this morning, the playground was empty. I walked him up the stairs and across bridges and down slides. He was a little bit afraid at first, but he got used to it (though he loves hopping through the sand more).
  
• I had tried to sign Cody up for agility classes a few months ago, but the trainer wanted Cody to have some re-call ability. Now that I think he has a little, I'm going to contact her again.