Training class for Caitey

Experts recommend training a dog before the 16th week, so things get registered in their little brains early and properly. We signed her up for puppy training at PetsMart. The trainer recommends using a clicker which you should use to click every time a puppy does something good as a positive reinforcement, so you don't have to give it a treat every time.

There are 6 puppies in the class, and 3 of them are yellow Labrador Retrievers. I always thought with golden's beautiful furry hair and cute looks, it should be more popular than the lab but apparently it is not the case. I mean you see goldens in the magazines and on TV all the time. A mom of a yellow lab also commented how Caitey looked like one of those commercial dogs, which I hear quite often from people walking by Caitey. One thing that I did notice is how much more active labs are. They also bark more, while Caitey barely makes a sound.

The 1st time a male lab tried to bully her and she did not like it, so there was a little fight going on in the room and got us all nervous.

The 2nd session went OK with more trainings on sitting and heeling.

Today is her 3rd class for commands like "leave it" and "take it".

Here we have a little problem. Caitey is ALWAYS food/treats hungry. Once she sees something, I mean ANYTHING, from a tree leaf to a tissue, she has to get that in her mouth. Needless to say that we are having quite a bit of challenge for the "leave it" part.

The next problem we have with her is jumping on people. You see we live in a neighbourhood that has a lot of kids around, I mean for adults you can explain that the puppy is in training and they will cooperate with you to work your puppy not to get overly excited, but what can you do with the kids? They will jump up and down more exuberantly than the dog does and get Caitey hyped at the same time.

The 3rd one is something that I have a hard time to comprehend. I mean goldens are active dogs, they are supposed to like playing outside, but not Caitey. Every time I have to drag the leash and pull her away from the house. I got so tired of dragging her and at the same time worried about choking her, so I changed the collar leash to a chest harness which worked a little better but not that much.

The funny thing is that no matter how many turns I have made on the road to confuse Caitey, once I utter the word "home", she will jump up and drag me all the way back with the leash like I was a dog!

Why she prefers coming back than going out? Maybe she is a little timid as a female puppy? It does not make sense because she is not afraid of bigger dogs. Our neighbour has a big 6-year old black lab Shadow, but Caitey chased and scared Shadow back home quite a few times.

I also noticed that at the end of the training session when the trainer asks every dog to be released for them to socialize with each other, other dogs would busily play with each other but Caitey will quietly grab a toy and run back to the side to play with the toy herself, but not with other dogs.

Incidentally, we named Caitey after her 2nd sister Caitlin, who was a very shy girl at younger age and preferred not to socialize with other kids as well.

I sure hope Caitey does not grow up to be a solitaire golden wolf.