Cobalt: An Exhausting Week, Part 2

The other big thing this week was training. "Sit", "Give", and "Leave it" are good. We've made some progress with "Come". "Stay" is still pretty weak, though. And she's also started doing tricks!

Roll Over


Roll Over in the style of Marcel Duchamp


Shake-a-Paw

We're also taking her to a "preschool" for agility training. Agility training is that obstacle-course stuff for dogs -- running up stairs, over teeter boards, through tunnels, etc. Energetic dogs like Aussies love that sort of thing.

The preschool consists of getting used to the basic equipment: very low jumps, short tunnels, a tip board instead of a teeter board, and so on.

The training technique for getting the dog to go through the tunnel is to wait at the other end and wave a tug-o-war toy at the opening. Dogs like Aussies (and Jack Russells, of which there's a very noisy one in the class) love tug toys, and will zoom through the tunnel for it.

Just for the fun of it, I tried getting her to go through a tube on one of the cat trees. It's off the ground, and smaller than the tunnels we tried at the preschool, so I wasn't sure she'd go for it. She didn't go through for the treat I offered, but L came by and waved the tug toy, and she was through in an instant!

Still more to come, including other off-leash parks and doggy daycare.