Harper is maturing

I don't know if I mentioned in my last post, but I pulled Harper from the last Advanced Beginner obedience class we were in, and we're starting a new Advanced Beginner's class this coming Tuesday. It's with a new trainer, and I'm anticipating that we'll have a better chance at actually learning something. I really didn't like the other trainer's method and I felt like he was sucking the fun out of the training process, so I chose to stop going. He forbade us using positive reinforcement and I don't want Harper thinking that training is a thankless chore.

Harper and I didn't get to go to the herding clinic because it was cancelled. Ah well! Perhaps next time. Sometime this week Nancy will hopefully cut Harper's toe nails and we'll try to fluff up her white parts. We leave out for Michigan on Friday night.

Harper did something super cool this Saturday while we were "park hopping" and I am really excited about it: she's teaching herself scent discrimination.

I''ve always known Harper was bright, but this takes the cake for me.

We were in the park and playing fetch with a stick I found that was just perfect! Not to heavy, not too small, not too big, not too short and not too long! ;-)

One of the times I accidentally threw the stick near an area where there were many sticks.

I expected her to just grab any old stick and bring it back, not thinking that she would actually use her nose to find the exact stick we were using. But, she did!

The reason I know that is that the stick we used I had found originally in another park, and its of a different kind of wood then trees at that park. It's a less dense kind of wood and the bark is peeling off of it.

Thinking that maybe that was just a fluke, I did the same thing again, but threw the stick in a different area that was equally populated with sticks, and low and behold she did it again!

I would really like to start encouraging this behavior in her. It will be tough to do that inside the house, because my scent is everywhere. I wonder if I can somehow get her to recognize a scent and then try to find it.

Perhaps I can get a stinky piece of cheese and let her smell it, then hide it somewhere in the house with out her watching me. That way I can make the behavior self-enforcing.