I am very happy to say that Bran successfully passed his Silver test in January, despite a rather determined kitten trying to put him off on the "road walk" and the car not starting in the "car behaviour"!
By some miracle, about this time, Bran's body suddenly remembered how to gain weight and he started to steadily gain. Although, for every ounce of weight he put on, he also gained a little more energy and a little more naughtiness, so training became LOTS more fun as I tried to rein him in. Luckily, his classmates have seen him when he has been very poorly so were all thrilled to have him playbowing and wuffing at the most inappropriate moments!
On one memorable occasion, we were practising the 'stop' command and all owners and dogs were waiting in a line with the dogs practising just holding position on their beds whilst waiting for their turn at the exercise. We were then taking our dog out, placing them in a 'sit-stay' with their backs to the waiting people and dogs, walking away from them, then turning and recalling but asking for a 'stop' when they were part of the way to us. So our turn came, I walked up, put Bran in a 'sit-stay', turned my back on him and walked away. I stopped when I heard lots of laughter, not really sure of what to expect. I turn around and find that Bran has decided the 'stop' exercise is rubbish and he's taken himself back to his bed in the line!!!
Eventually, the time came for us to take our gold test. There were only 4 of us taking it and, somehow, we were one of the two who passed! It has to be noted that Bran did the whole thing with a twinkle in his eyes, his ears cocked and a wag in his tail that all told me that he could have taken flight at any moment.
Our lovely friends Emma and Sam sent Bran his gold KC citizen tag so that he now has a full set :o)
I have to say that Bran is most definitely nothing like any of the gold citizen dogs that I've ever met before. They have all been very well behaved, mild mannered creatures and that is NOT Bran! In the space of the week following his test he:
1. ran off down my mum's (very quiet cul de sac) street after a strange cat;
2. refused to follow me up to the house from the car until the lady walking towards us (who we didn't know) had stopped and made a fuss of him;
3. was barking at the lounge window, then turned his nose up at me and/or ignored me when I told him to stop;
4. created his own commands - for example, if I said "Bran stop barking in that window and come here" he was clearly hearing "run out into the hallway and continue your barking there";
5. had been having mad hoolies round the house, up and down the stairs (yes, he does still have terrible elbows) and over the sofas with the puppies yapping at his heels every hour or so;
6. had been encouraging the puppies to take toys upstairs and to either leave him in precarious positions on the stairs or hide them in my bedroom;
7. attempted to steal a whole jam doughnut from my hand whilst I was talking and only stopped when I caught him with his mouth open and hovering right over it - one bite and it would have been gone, probably with several of my fingers too;
8. discovered that plastic bottles can now go in our recycling box, so believes that he now has an outside toy box whilst leaving chewed up plastic bottles all over the garden;
9. had been coming up with more and more clever ways to steal Sophie's sofa spot!
Thankfully, I attended this year's Crufts and took some time to watch the KC Gold Citizen display team and they almost all played up at some point or another, so I felt MUCH better after that! LOL!
We attended one more training class after passing our test and have now had a break of 5 weeks as Jo is creating a platinum class for those dogs who have been training for gold for some time now. We should be learning all sorts of exciting things like clicker training, scent work, tracking, etc and I'm really looking forward to a complete change from the obedience work. Our first class will be on Wednesday 4th and we'll both enjoy getting back to "work" :o)
However, before platinum class we are enrolled on a 4 week clicker workshop which is an advancement on the course that we did some months ago. Jacob and Casey are also going to be attending.
Now before I go any further, remember that I have already told you that Bran is currently this pile of naughtiness....
Our first clicker class was tonight.
It started with Bran being ridiculously over-excited to be back in class and to see Jo which involved LOTS of bouncing and wuffing and rolling on his back and rarrrrring.
The first exercise was to teach our dogs a default behaviour - a behaviour that will not be put on a cue and that they could offer when they have been told that training is about to start but have not yet been asked to do anything.
Bran was called up to demonstrate with Jo. He proceeded to bounce on the end of his lead, jump up at her and try to roll on his back. Joy. However, he did start to focus and Jo started to click and treat him for sitting calmly in front of her and looking at her.
We then took over and Bran might never have been up doing the exercise with Jo as, with me, he bounced on his lead and rolled on his back again!! As before, his brain eventually kicked in and he was quickly offering lovely steady sits with held eye contact :o)
The next exercise was to start teaching a one paw touch on a target. We are eventually going to teach them 'left paw', 'right paw' and 'wave', but tonight we just focussed on getting them to use one paw repeatedly to tap a target. Both Bran and Casey found this really hard as all the targetting they've done in the past has been with their noses. Casey quickly worked out what Jacob was asking of her and shone. Bran really didn't get it at all, although we had a lightweight wooden box as a target and he managed to scrunch it up in his teeth then rip it apart with really heavy paw "tapping". We're supposed to continue practising with the same targets at home, but we'll be starting from scratch with something a bit sturdier!
We were supposed to be teaching this exercise with the dogs in either a 'sit' or 'stand' as a starting position, but Bran kept offering a 'down'. I'm not sure if that's because he finds it difficult to 'sit' or 'stand' whilst balancing on just one front leg because of the elbow wreckage or if he's just being difficult, so I'll give it another go at home and see if he does it any differently.
The final exercise was supposed to be building up to teaching the dogs to 'roll over'. Seeing as both Bran and Casey are dogs who love to spend a lot of time on their backs, I had a feeling this was going to go well! Jo called Bran up to demonstrate again and he absolutely LOVED it. Within just a few clicks, he was already quickly rolling over. When I took over, I just ended up in giggles as Bran was SO excited about performing this "trick". I had to give up when his excitement got out of control and every time I tried to lure him into a roll he just wiggled on his back and RARRRRRRRRRRed! LOL!
Ah well. It can only be better next week.........
Brilliant! LOL. Loving Bran's new energy and giddiness ;) and lad to hear you all had such a good time. I'd like to teach Sam the rollover but I don't think he'll be so keen...
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