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Canine training: Week 2
Jan. 30th, 2011 03:39 amThis week we finished up the last of our written exams. From now on we will just be working with the dogs. That includes everything from feeding them to cleaning their kennels, grooming them, taking them for walks, and of course practicing bag sniffing.
It just so happens that a group of supervisors is here for a two week training course, including my own supervisor from SF. On Friday, all of them had a chance to come in and watch us practice with the dogs for a few minutes. We did reasonably well during the observation, particularly considering that we've only been working the dogs for a week.
One of the students is having the problem that the dogs don't respect her, so they ignore whatever she tells them. She tends to "request" rather than "command," so the dogs feel that they can get away with disobeying. Our instructor is trying to coach her on how to be more authoritative and not to give in when the dogs act stubborn.
We were assigned our primary dogs on Friday, and I did get Benny. As long as everything goes okay, I'll get to keep him as my partner. If anything goes wrong (for example, if he gets injured somehow), I'll have to switch to a backup dog.
I got myself a slow cooker on sale last weekend, and I've been having fun experimenting with what I can make in it. (I've already had people ask me, "What can you possibly use it for if you don't eat meat?") Yesterday I made a loaf of steamed brown bread that was quite tasty. However, it does drive home the fact that, unlike Japan, it's hard to buy ingredients for single servings of anything here. I can't buy just one or two cups of flour if that's all I need; the smallest portion at the store is a five pound bag. Anyway, today I'm hoping to try making an enchilada casserole.
It just so happens that a group of supervisors is here for a two week training course, including my own supervisor from SF. On Friday, all of them had a chance to come in and watch us practice with the dogs for a few minutes. We did reasonably well during the observation, particularly considering that we've only been working the dogs for a week.
One of the students is having the problem that the dogs don't respect her, so they ignore whatever she tells them. She tends to "request" rather than "command," so the dogs feel that they can get away with disobeying. Our instructor is trying to coach her on how to be more authoritative and not to give in when the dogs act stubborn.
We were assigned our primary dogs on Friday, and I did get Benny. As long as everything goes okay, I'll get to keep him as my partner. If anything goes wrong (for example, if he gets injured somehow), I'll have to switch to a backup dog.
I got myself a slow cooker on sale last weekend, and I've been having fun experimenting with what I can make in it. (I've already had people ask me, "What can you possibly use it for if you don't eat meat?") Yesterday I made a loaf of steamed brown bread that was quite tasty. However, it does drive home the fact that, unlike Japan, it's hard to buy ingredients for single servings of anything here. I can't buy just one or two cups of flour if that's all I need; the smallest portion at the store is a five pound bag. Anyway, today I'm hoping to try making an enchilada casserole.
