Thor's New Year Resolutions, Round II
Posted 01-29-2010 at 11:07 PM by QuickSilver
Wow, has it been a year?? I can't believe it. When I look back, I see how much work Thor has done and how much he has learned.
Thor's accomplishments include:
* Daily adorableness.
* Fully house trained. He will even pee / poop on command!
* Very strong Stay: I can go out of his eyeline and/or walk very far away from him for over a minute. Inside, he can do about a two minute Stay.
* Lots of fun tricks: Sit, Down, Up, Spin, Shake, High Five, Roll Over, Bang!, Speak, Watch Me, Drop It, Leave It, Come, By Me, All Done, and my current favorite, Whisper. AND, I think he's finally learned his name!
* Learning to Fetch.
* Good leash manners.
* More comfortable with grooming - cleaning eyes, ears, tooth brushing, hair brushing, and nail clipping.
Of course, being the ambitious dog that he is, Thor is always hungry to achieve more. What can I say? The dog wants what he wants. Here is a list of goals for 2010:
1. Lose fear of skateboards. This is a carry over from last year, and while he's gotten much much better, he still gets very angry about the whole thing.
2. Lose fear of paper & plastic bags. Okay, this one is for Mommy. It's really tough to run errands with a dog who is afraid of groceries.
3. At least one real play session in front of Mommy. His daycare says he has started to play a bit with one of the other dogs. I am DYING to see this for myself.
4. A doggie buddy. At some point, I'd love for Thor to get a brother or sister, but not until he can bear the sight of another dog.
5. Five minute, out of sight Stay. I think we should be able to get this pretty easily, since he's already got a great Stay.
6. At least one obedience class. I'm very interested to get other trainers' input on my technique. Also, I think Rally could be fun for us.
7. Long Distance Sit. This command will actually keep your dog safer than Come, but it is harder to teach. Thor definitely responds to hand signals better than verbal commands, so this is a good long term goal.
8. "Back". Neat trick - teach your dog to back up. Thor kind of knows this already, but he generally sits after a couple steps.
9. "Stop". He will need this skill if we ever try Rally.
10. "Grumble". Thor makes SUCH cute noises, and I would love to be able to cue them all. The goal here is to get a bark (Speak), a soundless bark (Whisper), and the hilarious sound he makes between the two (Grumble).
11. Learn how to catch a frisbee! This is going to be our "impossible" goal for the year. There are lots of challenges here, not least that Thor does not consider plastic things toys, and therefore refuses to pick them up. Also, given how small Thor is, we have to work with really, really, really small frisbees, which are really, really, really hard to throw. However, if we DO get this down, it would be a lot of fun, and get Thor better exercise then just chasing a ball.
12. Generally improve ability to pass other dogs on the street without inappropriate aggression. Self-explanatory.
I'm looking forward to training Thor this year and to see how successful we'll be with this list! Either way, I see a fun year ahead.
Thor's accomplishments include:
* Daily adorableness.
* Fully house trained. He will even pee / poop on command!
* Very strong Stay: I can go out of his eyeline and/or walk very far away from him for over a minute. Inside, he can do about a two minute Stay.
* Lots of fun tricks: Sit, Down, Up, Spin, Shake, High Five, Roll Over, Bang!, Speak, Watch Me, Drop It, Leave It, Come, By Me, All Done, and my current favorite, Whisper. AND, I think he's finally learned his name!
* Learning to Fetch.
* Good leash manners.
* More comfortable with grooming - cleaning eyes, ears, tooth brushing, hair brushing, and nail clipping.
Of course, being the ambitious dog that he is, Thor is always hungry to achieve more. What can I say? The dog wants what he wants. Here is a list of goals for 2010:
1. Lose fear of skateboards. This is a carry over from last year, and while he's gotten much much better, he still gets very angry about the whole thing.
2. Lose fear of paper & plastic bags. Okay, this one is for Mommy. It's really tough to run errands with a dog who is afraid of groceries.
3. At least one real play session in front of Mommy. His daycare says he has started to play a bit with one of the other dogs. I am DYING to see this for myself.
4. A doggie buddy. At some point, I'd love for Thor to get a brother or sister, but not until he can bear the sight of another dog.
5. Five minute, out of sight Stay. I think we should be able to get this pretty easily, since he's already got a great Stay.
6. At least one obedience class. I'm very interested to get other trainers' input on my technique. Also, I think Rally could be fun for us.
7. Long Distance Sit. This command will actually keep your dog safer than Come, but it is harder to teach. Thor definitely responds to hand signals better than verbal commands, so this is a good long term goal.
8. "Back". Neat trick - teach your dog to back up. Thor kind of knows this already, but he generally sits after a couple steps.
9. "Stop". He will need this skill if we ever try Rally.
10. "Grumble". Thor makes SUCH cute noises, and I would love to be able to cue them all. The goal here is to get a bark (Speak), a soundless bark (Whisper), and the hilarious sound he makes between the two (Grumble).
11. Learn how to catch a frisbee! This is going to be our "impossible" goal for the year. There are lots of challenges here, not least that Thor does not consider plastic things toys, and therefore refuses to pick them up. Also, given how small Thor is, we have to work with really, really, really small frisbees, which are really, really, really hard to throw. However, if we DO get this down, it would be a lot of fun, and get Thor better exercise then just chasing a ball.
12. Generally improve ability to pass other dogs on the street without inappropriate aggression. Self-explanatory.
I'm looking forward to training Thor this year and to see how successful we'll be with this list! Either way, I see a fun year ahead.
Comments 2
Total Comments 2
Comments
 |  Wow! You need to post videos of Thor's skills! He sounds amazing. Great goals too! I gave up on the Frisbee  so I'm rooting for you. Have you tried a soft one? |
  |
| |  how did you train thor to do all these things? did you do it yourself or take him to classes? |
| |
