Adler Had Me Running

Last Saturday at training class at Call of the Wild, we had a substitute teacher who also happened to be the owner of the company. She was great. Really strict with the dogs and even let them off-leash which I love. I think the teacher really liked Adler because she was always complimenting how well she did most things. That is until the end of the class.

We were supposed to walk at different paces and using only a hand signal and no words touch the ground for our dogs to lay completely down on the ground. Of course, Adler mastered the down command and the hand signal for down since she was a young pup, but unfortunately it wasn't the same hand signal that we were now doing (yet another reason why you should continue training when your puppies are young). Anyway, Adler could not get the hand signal, and the teacher decided to make a spectacle of us for 10 minutes with me running around the room touching the ground. I think I got more of a workout than she did! Halfway through our exercise, well at least my exercise, Adler decided it was time to play and snatched hold of the leash to play tug of war. This went over real well with the rest of the class as they burst out laughing.

Finally as I was just about out of breath, Adler laid down. Determined not to let this happen again next week, we went home and practiced this command all day. Needless to say, she's an expert now at laying down no matter what hand signal or words are used.