Today we attended a two hour meeting in a Jewish deli. Oh, those wonderful smells!!! Where Lily usually curls up into a ball and sleeps the time away, today instead it was two hours of up and down and up and down again. The "down" 9 times out of 10 was at my request.
What was I thinking?
Sue admonishes, "Once is a mistake. Twice is a trend. Three times is a problem."
Houston. We had a problem.
And the problem was mine.
The first time I had to remind Lily to again "down" I should have mentally excused myself as a participant at the meeting and put on my trainer's hat. And duct taped my mouth.
No more cues. Let the clicker do the talking. I missed a wonderful opportunity to train Go to Mat (under) for 2 solid hours! For a SDIT every foray into a public place is a training session first and foremost.
What did I just say in yesterday's post? "It is not my job to control my dog. It is her job to control herself."
Duh! Lily forgot what her job was so I did the work for her.
After all her exercise in the deli, Lily slept in the car for the ride home and then, once home, napped for another couple of hours.
What did this tell me? First and foremost, for whatever reason,
for 2 hours this morning Lily was not comfortable being tucked into that corner in the deli.
So we will spend a lot of time the next few weeks reminding Lily of her job.... settling quietly in public places. We will eat many meals out. Read books at the library. Take in a movie. Take my computer for an afternoon at Starbucks. All those things that had become "ho hum" and done with ever increasing confidence when we were actively training vested public behavior have been forgotten in the last months staying closer to home. (I avoid holiday crowds like the plague!)
There has been talk on the TrainingLevels list lately about duration behaviors in "real life". We need a little refresher.
On the other hand, Lily's service dog walk loose leash and position were exemplary. I was easily able to wear the leash over my shoulder and hands free.
