The Dog Whisperer

My friend Isa lent me The Dog Whisperer by Owens and Eckroate as I had been attempting to train Papa Suresh's pups. A couple of weeks ago I began teaching them to sit. Hiro has turned out to be the smartest and quickest of the lot. Momo, bless his tummy, is kinda clueless on the matter. What I did was pat the floor with my hand while I said "Sit [pup's name], sit!", and held a treat in my hand. Hiro got it right away. In fact, he understood it so well that he would just sit there and would not stand anymore, the smart aleck. Micah took quite a while but she got it during our second session that day. Momo? Entirely clueless. He'd look at me expectantly, and when I wouldn't give him a treat, he'd turn away. A few times he went way back behind the pups, tired, and began to sit. I'd go, "Aha! That will do, puede na `yan!" and proceed to give him his reward. (That's successive approximations for `ya!) It happened a few times - Momo got treats by accident, unintentionally. *sigh*

`Course all that was before I had read The Dog Whisperer chapter on sitting, which states that one should hold the treat over the dog's nose so that he tilts his head and looks up. This will make his back end go down, so presto, he's sitting! (It also said the word "Sit" should be introduced after the dog already knows how to do so.) I tried this trick the following week (I get to see the pups only on weekends), and like before, Hiro totally got it. Micah would sometimes stand on her hind legs (she loves doing that, such a show-off) but she knew that didn't earn her a crunchie. Momo? *sigh* Still getting her crunchies by chance. And I thought it would be easy to get him to rest on his behind, it being heavy and all. *sigh*

A couple of pics to remember our training session by (click to enlarge if you can't read the text):

Micah was unavailable for a photograph. She was probably somewhere burying her secret stash - which consists of stuff that aren't always edible, silly girl.