Training Day 3: Superstar Sobe!!

Today was packed full of new things!! First, we started with distractions. There will be distractions everywhere for Sobe, especially out in public... people wanting to pet her, food, crazy sounds, other animals and it is crucial that she's able to keep "working" and not distracted by these things. So part of training Sobe is to create distractions around her and see how well she obeys and make sure she stays in her command (sit, down... whatever it may be). I knew these dogs would be awesome, I guess I just didn't realize how awesome! We took two of their favorite things, Pup peroni treats and tennis balls and tempted the heck out of these dogs!! Sobe was a superstar!! 

Here's Sobe being tempted with Pup peroni: (the videos won't play on iphones so you have to get on a computer!!)

And here she is being tempted with tennis balls: (video below)

Tonight was the first night we got to take Sobe back to the hotel with us!!! She was super nervous in the van. She is usually always in a kennel while in the car so it was her first time without one. She did pretty good though for something completely new! 

We took her into the hotel for dinner tonight and again she was a champ! 

We also received Mutt Matts today. What the heck is a Mutt Matt? Below, Sobe is laying on hers. This is a matt that when we tell Sobe to "place" she will go to her matt and stay there until we "free" her. The purpose is to keep her in one spot for long periods of time. She only has to keep two paws on the matt, She can lay down, sit, stretch or whatever she wants. This will be great for our airplane ride home and the matts are also used at school quite a bit. 

Toward the end of the day, Jennifer (Sobe's trainer) came in and took the three families that have mobility trained dogs into another room. Here we learned how "retrieval" is going to work. There's actually three different steps that we will work on with Sobe and as she gets more comfortable with us and then we will combine them all. 
First we practice "take it".  Ben throws an object and Sobe will retrieve it. If Ben tells her to "Bring" then Sobe will take the object back to him. If Ben asks Sobe, "Where's your boy?", Sobe will take the object to Benjamin. Sobe already has the "take it" and "bring" down. What we have to work on is transferring the "where's your boy" to Benjamin. They used a trainer for training Sobe for this task and it will take a little practice and some treats to get "where's your boy" to mean Benjamin and not the trainer. We practiced tonight at the hotel with two of Sobe's toys and then we tried Benjamin's Ninja turtle hat! Sobe did great bringing it back to Ben! 

Here's the video: 

Time for bed!! We've been trying really hard to stay rested up and feeling good so we can get the most out of each training day!! So far, we're thinking that we'll keep Sobe in her kennel tonight. I think eventually we'll have her sleep in B's room, but right now we want to keep an eye on Sobe and Benjamin. Not because of Sobe, she's an angel, but we're not sure how Benjamin will act all the time and we want to keep their relationship all good!!