Molly and I are works in progress for sure. We’re practicing but not quite passing every test each week.
And now for a word on those gremlins that are guaranteed to rear their ugly heads at some point. We had a good one pop up this morning. I was working on the down with Molly. She has had issues with the down in the past. She uses her teeth to express how much she does not like that particular command. It was a problem when she was a puppy but Roxanne helped straighten her out. She has not bared her teeth since then...until this morning. While out on a hike we stopped to practice some stays which went okay. It’s when it came to the downs. Molly obviously was not happy about it. As I was putting her into a down she showed me her teeth then she used them. She snagged the back of my hand. It wasn’t pretty. Needless to say, appropriate correction was made and we moved on. We tried again a little while later and it was okay. No drama, thankfully.
I know that’s not the last time we’ll run into a snag. It takes patience and calmness to deal with these issues as they arise. Also, a good pair of gloves to protect the hands is a must!
It was quite a bit of drama, but you handled it exactly correctly and appropriately Mary.
ReplyDeleteRoxanne