Obedience training

Today i asked our local dog trainer to come by our house 9:30and teach me how to work with Claire. Dodo sensei trained with British dog trainer John Uncle, and I always meet him on morning walks.

Let me just say CACI trained Claire perfectly. Dodo sensei praised her highly, saying there was really nothing she needed to improve, she doesn't bark madly and chase people away at the door, but alerts and then waits for me. She readily enters her cage on command and sits quietly when she has to stay home alone, and during mealtimes she waits there patiently too. She'll sit for treats, and walk heel when you demand it and all! In a word, perfect, with a great temperament as well- he was amazed such a great dog would be abandoned, which speaks volumes for the work and love CACI put into her. THANK YOU!
This Setter Mum here wants to get more educated, that's what it is...to be able to give Claire clearer commands, and use hand signals and the like...so today, I learned signals for sit, down and stay. Claire never seemed to understand down before with me, although her sit and stay are near perfect, when she was on the leash with her collar she immediately understood it was a training session, and worked intently. Dodo sensei got her to down a couple of times, and now I think she's getting the hang of it. He asked me to give commands only once and then give the dog time to think, rather than bawling the same command at it over and over...makes sense, when you think about it...I really enjoyed the session, and I'm going to try and practice every day around 9:30 or so.
Talking about hand signals, the sit signal is pretty much like the way i throw an underhand ball, so it must be really confusing for Claire, I'm telling her to go off and get that ball and sit down at the same time. I guess I'll have to use an overhand pitch for throwing toys....