Last week we attended our first session of Puppy Kindergarten, led by the deeply experienced trainer/author Sarah Hodgson. See her site at www.dogperfect.com. Before we go to our second session this evening, I thought I'd review what we learned last week:
Puppies can't multitask.
Instead of crying, they nip.
German shepherds are bossy.
Josie can hold her own in a growl-fest with a bulldog-mix.
She can also squash a lhasa-poo under one foot and the lhasa-poo will bounce back.
"Lhasa-poo" is an amazingly silly name for a breed.
Puppies can be taught certain words to help them learn what they need: e.g., food, water, outside, mat, under (your legs).
Different kinds of leashes can be used for different kinds of training (Sarah's site has an area with examples of these different leashes.)
Distraction is better than constant correction: When Josie stole a sock yesterday and was cavorting through the house with it, Peter didn't chase her, he offered her one of her chew toys in exchange. And she took it!
Children should not sit on the floor in room where six puppies are romping with each other.
Greyhounds are less aggressive than German shepherds or lhasa-poos.
Josie's German ancestry (the monks get a lot of their breeding stock from Germany) shows in her relatively wide body and generally healthy proportions.
If the children make treat boxes (plastic salad cups with a hole cut in the lid and filled with Cheerios), we can teach Josie to find them wherever they are.
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