Three month update
From Service Dog Training
3 month update: Since school starts for me on Wednesday, I figured I'd give an update on the dog now.
-Escalators have been fairly well mastered, and I've had him on ones besides the one I trained him on without any problems. He absolutely loves going up them, but doesn't much like going down, though he doesn't give any trouble.
-Down stay is coming along well, and unless he's very uncomfortable or something extremely startling happens, he's pretty good about maintaining the stay as long as I'm nearby. We're still working on staying if I need to wander off to go do something. I want to work pretty intensely on this because I'd like to be able to use the climbing tower and pool at the rec center without having to worry about him wandering off. I've had him in the rec center to get him used to the environment (he'd never seen a swimming pool before) and it doesn't seem to bother him, so hopefully it won't be that horribly hard.
-Sit stay. He hates sit. He'd much rather be in a down stay. Very typical Pyr. I'm not really sure what to do about that, but honestly, I haven't needed sit much, so for now that's going to be on a back burner.
-He's doing better on heel, but still wants to be just a few inches ahead of where I want him to be. He's learning to stop if I drop the leash, which is a good thing. His "leave it" is almost there as well, including with squirrels.
-As far as service tasks go, the backpack is still working out well, and I think the load will be a bit lighter for him this semester. He's gained a decent amount of girth over break, so the pack is fitting better.
-He learned brace like he's known it all his life. No trouble there. This is especially nice since he has much better footing on the ice than any person without spiked shoes ever could. He's kept me upright more than once in the past few days.
-Retrieval tasks: Yeah...ummm....this is going to take a while. I almost have him to the point where he will reliable touch his nose to an object with a "take" command. I'm guessing this task will take a few months given his total lack of any motivation at all to retrieve anything that isn't small and furry.
So overall I'm pretty happy with how we're coming. Hopefully the dog training center will be open in the next month or so and I can do some formal obedience work with him. I've let all my profs know that he'll be in class with me, and all have been very welcoming. Also, I'm arranging a "play time" with his old foster sister and her new foster brother so he can play with some dogs that don't want to murder him. It seems that he brings out the worst in most dogs simply by existing. Almost every dog we've come across has instantly thrown itself snarling in his face. That usually gets a startled bark out of him and then he hides behind me. Nice to know he doesn't have a mean protective streak in him. :)
The main new challenge I'm worried about this semester is flying. End of March the Eta Sigma Phi officers (including me) will be flying to Philly for a conference. I'm pretty sure that my dog can fit in front of a bulkhead seat without spilling over too much, but I'm not sure how he'll react. He's not very noise sensitive, but it's going to be a lot of new stuff. I'm wondering if I should fork over the $100 to take a flight with him from Columbia to Kansas City and back just as a training/test flight. Those are much less likely to be crowded, though they are smaller aircraft. Any thoughts?
