[Dailydrool] Perfect dog in ? days

[Elizabeth Lindsey]

> The secret is to  keep training sessions short and varied. Six  
> times of trying to do "sit" will be a disaster, so break it up with  
> other commands. Take it slow and make it fun.

Our Elsinore's dance teacher says that after a dog has followed  
directions and executed a command reasonably well several times in a  
row to STOP. She says it's a common mistake to keep having a dog do a  
new skill over and over. What happens then is that after the dog gets  
it right a few time, it then begins to make mistakes again. You don't  
want to end a training session with the dog not having done something  
right, and you also don't want to be in the position of having to  
really work with a dog for a long time to get it back to the point of  
having a brief successful run of following the command correctly.

Something else Elsinore's dance teacher says is that research has  
shown that it takes dog brains two hours to process and record the  
new skills they're learning. So training session should be kept  
short, and once you've finished you should give your dog at least a  
two-hour break before beginning again so that its neurons can work on  
the new growth you're stimulating.

Elsinore continues to enjoy her dance lessons tremendously. When she  
sees me packing her dance bag, she runs in happy little counter- 
clockwise circles (a dance step known as "twisty") all the way to the  
car and she barks at me if I take too long. The only other time she's  
ever this excited about going somewhere is when she sees me getting  
her pet therapy gear together. Not even a trip to the dog park gets  
her this worked up. So I signed us up for yet more lessons.

Her teacher says Elsinore's considerably further along in learning  
the dance steps than many dogs are at this stage. Her teacher seems  
to love working with Elsinore because she's so attentive and eager to  
learn and catches on to things so quickly. Her teacher calls Elsinore  
her "favorite basset." Elsinore and I love her teacher.

By the way, a perfect dog is probably one who doesn't feel well at all.

Elizabeth