Friday, September 18, 2009

Dog In Training.......

Like most dog owners, we think our dog Cooper is  special...., and cute......and smart.  Pretty much perfect!  It's the "pretty much" that we needed to work on.

At 10 months Cooper is 75 pounds. A dog this size really needs basic manners to live indoors and be around people.   A little 20 pound dog can jump on company all it wants, who cares, it only comes up to your knees.  Cooper, on the other hand, can look company eye to eye with his paws on their shoulders.


Wanting to keep our friends,  we started looking into dog training, so Cooper could learn things like, heal, sit, down, place, and not to nap on the good furniture.

We've always attempted to train our dogs.   Books, DVDs, classes, you name it we tried it.  We had one dog that would do anything for a treat, but if you didn't have a treat in your hand you were out of luck to make that dog obey the most simple command.

When I started researching dog training in our area I ran across a young man with an interesting approach to dog training.  He thinks it's hard to train people and dogs at the same time, but once you get the dog trained, the people can then be trained to work with the dog. Turns out he was right.  He trained Cooper 3 days a week for 6 weeks.  Cooper stayed with the trainer from 9 am to 4 pm.  After 6 weeks Cooper was trained and the trainer started working with Cooper and I together.  Now we just meet the trainer twice a week for an hour.  It has been a huge time commitment but it has really paid off, we are all so much happier.  I think Cooper and I are just about ready to graduate.

Today, when the trainer came to meet us for our training, he was wearing a purse, a gray fleece purse.  Now our trainer is a tattoo, biker kind of guy, not a metrosexual purse kind of guy, so me being me I naturally said, "Hey, what' s in the purse?" kind of on the snarky side.  The trainer says, "a Kangaroo". I say, "no really, what's in your bag".  I thought maybe treats for Cooper or a leash or something and he said, "No really, a kangaroo".    He wasn't kidding, he DID have a kangaroo in his purse!!!

Meet Gabriella, the newest member of my trainer's family!  

6 comments:

  1. Oh my gosh, I have never seen anything so cute in my life! A kangaroo? What will he do with it once it doesn't fit in the purse anymore?
    I wish I could find a trainer like that for my dogs. Take 'em away and teach them, then bring them back and show me how to do what you do.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have met Cooper, and he is extraordinarily well-behaved, especially considering he is still a puppy! But then, I have learned to expect nothing less than the best from my friend, Thelma!

    AND who else could find A Dog Whisperer in this part of the world? Is he as cute as Cesar?

    You could have asked him (your dog trainer), "Are you happy to see me or is that a kangaroo in your pocket?"

    ReplyDelete
  3. Who has a baby kangaroo? How weird, what's the story behind her?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sara,

    It's a wedding present from his Fiance'. He had one in the past but it died at just 3 years. They aren't very hardy animals, they get sick easily. He has to carry it in this bag for 3 months and bottle feed it by hand. Once it's out of the bag it will live in their backyard!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hope that trainer has a big backyard, if not, the kangaroo might go hop, hop, over the fence. Love your dog, he certainly has got long legs.

    ReplyDelete

I try to respond to all my comments but sometimes I just don't get the job done. Please know that I am reading your comments and appreciate you taking the time to add a little of yourself to my blog.