You can teach a new dog old tricks

Guess who graduated from puppy school? Yes siree bob, no obedience school drop outs here! Finley completed his basic obedience course and passed with flying colors. He is actually fairly well behaved and quite eager to please. His biggest downfall is jumping all over people like a maniac, which was the main thing we set out to correct.

The course had 7 "students" and 2 instructors and covered all the basic commands, plus any specific issues anyone was having. The instructors have a great approach to training and have taught us some invaluable lessons about how to establish control and respect and how to let Finley know that we are the "alpha". They even encourage growling at your dog when they do something wrong, Cesar Millan-style, which is slightly embarrassing the first couple of times, but hey, it works.

Unfortunately, we often found ourselves the class example of what NOT to do. The instructor would get ready to demonstrate a new exercise. "Who looks like they might have trouble with this exercise?" Her eyes slowly scanned the crowd, stopping on Finley. "You! Big bouncy guy!" Sure enough, Finley did not disappoint - he ran away during the stay exercise, pulled ahead during heal and jumped up excitedly during the greeting a visitor exercise.

Despite all this, he looked forward to class every Monday night. It was the highlight of his week. Dayven would always give him a pep talk before we went to class, "Ok buddy, time to get your game face on..." He is such a friendly and happy guy that he quickly endeared himself to both his classmates and their humans. He even made a girlfriend, Nella, a miniature Golden Doodle. All the dogs were small breeds or mini doodle mixes of some kind. He may not have been the most well-behaved in the class, but he was definitely the biggest. That's something, right?

Finley is showing great promise. After plastering a huge sign to the front door that reads "Please ignore the dog until he calms down.", we set out to correct his jumping and the techniques we learned are actually working. He is now quite well behaved when visitors come into the house and if the excitement proves too much for him to handle and he jumps up, he either gets a knee in the chest or a jerk on his collar. Works for us!

We've also started taking Finley to doggy daycare. Not every day, just for a special treat once in a while. It's quite a good business endeavor actually. Many of the dogs are regulars whose "parents" drop them off on their way to work and pick them up on the way home. It's basically a giant warehouse with dogs ranging in size from Jack Russell Terriers to Great Danes. There were about 45 dogs in all the last time Finley went, playing peacefully together. After just one visit, they knew him by name, which is more than I can say for Wyatt's daycare.