After only about a minute or two of saying hello, Cinder than crashed! I swear she did not move from this spot all night!
I also recieved her evaluation from the trainers. It basically said every thing I knew about her already, Such as she is high energy, very food motivated, has problems with counter surfing. The only thing I am confused on is they said she is a little bit harness sensitive! I really don't know how she is or the signs that would show this. Oh and they loved her heel! Otherwise they are looking at her for a breeder! So all in all it was a good evaluation! Unfortunatly we only have another 2 to 4 months with her.
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Thought I'd give you a little more info about "harness sensitivity"
ReplyDeleteThe "ideal" for us is the dog who has the cape (same type as the puppy cape) put on and just doesn't seem any different that she was without the harness. When dogs do react, we tend to see is that dogs go one of two directions - either inhibited or activated - in their response. The inhibited dogs will vary from very slight compression ("camel dogs" since they all the sudden have a hump to their back) to an extreme of total freezing and inability to move with the cape on. Other dogs go the other way and respond in a more externalized activated fashion, but in a directionless manner lacking purpose - these dogs start pacing in circles or figure 8s (often also while hunching their backs and/or seeming to walk "on tip toes"). At an extreme, they're not interruptible and if a cliff suddenly appeared in their path, I doubt they'd notice until they fell off of it.
During the evaluation, we first get a baseline on obedience - just a simple routine of 3 sits, and 3 downs (each correct response is clicked/treated). We then allow the dog to sniff the harness, and use a few treats to lure the head through, then buckle the harness and adjust the straps on each side of the chest so that they are fitted, but not too snug. The dog then has 30 seconds to do as it wishes. If the dog hasn't moved after 30 seconds, the tester will coax the dog to move. After the 30 seconds, the tester asks the dog to do the same simple routine of 3 sits and 3 downs, to see whether the baseline changes. For some dogs, there's no change. Other dogs show a drop-off in performance, while some who were 6/6 can no longer get any correct. Most dogs don't fall on the extreme ends of things (thankfully!), and it can be fairly subtle, but it's something we look for and can spot pretty quickly. We've found a fairly strong genetic component, in that breeding stock who react in an undesirable way tend strongly to produce puppies who show the same traits.
This help explain things a bit?