We've done some domestic training this week. Ellie is now a lot better at going in the car, but as she is getting bigger and more confident generally, she tends to jump out the minute the tailgate of the car is opened. So I thought I would spend a bit of time teaching her to wait for a command before jumping out. She cottoned on to this really quickly. All I did was open the tailgate - catch her collar (to prevent her jumping out) - said "wait" and fed her titbits whilst we waited. Then I said "out you come" and helped her gently out. It only took 3 goes at this before she anticipated the titbits in the back of the car before the "jumping out" bit. We will need to keep reinforcing the wait by feeding titbits before she is allowed out. Eventually we will be able to fade out the titbits, but we'll keep going with that for now.

We also went on a couple of long walks (the children were off school for half term) and the added excitement of having children running around made Ellie pull madly on the lead. So we need to teach lead walking as well. See my article on "pulling".

Ellie continues to test the boundaries with the other dogs and Bradley is very good at putting her in her place. He is never overtly aggressive but he puts his point across in a subtle way!!!

The jumping on the chair thing is going to have to stop and Ellie is encouraged to "get off" whenever she climbs up. She has now well and truly discovered the stairs so we have to stop her trying to fly up and down (we don't need damage to her shoulders at this age). The children have to remember to close their bedroom doors or the Barbie's and Action Men will lose their extremities!!!

On the obedience front we are working on our stays. I do this by luring a sit and feeding Ellie in that position very slowly. I start to move around a little, always returning before she has time to move. I have now been able to step away about 3 paces and count to 5 before returning, feeding then having a mad game.

Our retrieve is a bit of a problem as I have lost the toy I was using and decided to try a dumbell instead. But, although Ellie will pick up the dumbell I think it is really too big and she isn't as keen as with the toy. I don't want to put her off so I need to go back to a soft, lightweight toy (I think)!

This page was updated on 21st February 2004