Practice makes perfect

In the two weeks since G’s arrival, my Paws trainer Connie has been here three times in addition to when she first brought the dog. Each time, I fill out a progress report to talk about G’s health, what we’ve been working on, what he’s doing well consistently, and what commands he’s struggling with.

He still gets very excited to see her but no longer stands at the door and whines when she leaves. Every time she comes over, Connie adds some new commands for us to work on. In addition to Come, Sit, Stay, and Wait, we are now working on Take, Hold, Give, Leave It, and Heel. 

With “Take,” “Hold,” and “Give,” I offer G different kinds of objects for him to take from my hand, hold in his mouth, and then give it back to me when I command him to. This is getting him ready to retrieve dropped items for me, which will be a big part of his responsibilities down the road. I practice with him daily using a wide variety of objects such as a wallet, an envelope, a magazine, a checkbook, a small box, a spatula, a metal spoon, a dishcloth, and my injection pen. Eventually, we’ll work on smaller items like a credit card and heavier items like my set of keys. G is an absolute rock star when it comes to this part of his training, demonstrating so much exuberance and excitement to perform these tasks. You can actually tell he looks forward to showing how good he is at this.

“Heel” is a command that we are working on, which tells him to go to my left side as we stand or walk. We’ve been practicing it while he’s on-leash as I use my walker. I’ve been learning how to hold the leash in such a way that I can instantly drop it if he starts to lunge or pull so that I don’t get thrown off-balance. He’s been doing great with this command, as well as with “Leave It,” which is to get him to leave any food or something else that may have fallen on the floor alone, rather than instantly gobble it up. I don’t want him to accidentally swallow one of my medications if I drop it, so this specific command is really important. It’s been fun to see the progress made in this training after only one day, as I can now put a treat on the floor right in front of him, and he won’t eat it until I tell him he can.

“Stay” remains the biggest challenge for us. In an obvious training scenario, my boy G definitely knows how to perform. I can get him to Stay, walk clear across the house, then give him the “Free” command, and he will behave absolutely perfectly. I can put him in a Stay command, have Eric or Aidan knock on the door, or try some other distracting action, and G dog will just know it’s part of training and do exactly what he’s supposed to do to get his reward. But the second it’s a real-life situation, say a delivery person unexpectedly comes to the door or the cat walks by—all bets are off.

Connie assures me that this is a normal part of the process and that we did not get ourselves a service dog who flunked out of the program. She says that getting G to stay focused and to not be overly excited by new people will be the thing that will be the most difficult to overcome and what we will have to work on the longest. When it comes to perfecting the Stay command, she says there are three “D’s” we need to work on—Distraction, Duration, and Distance. Anyone who has ever seen the Disney Pixar film Up will understand just how hard overcoming the distraction part will be. “Squirrel!”

I’m not really known for my patience, but I do have complete faith in what she’s telling me, so we will just have to keep on keeping on.