I took Mercy and Anastasia to have their Christmas photo taken with Santa last night. There were a lot of dogs at the store, but the person from the humane society thought that Mercy is so sweet and pretty and calm and so good with other dogs. And she was very good staying right next to Santa's feet when they were taking the pictures. The humane society did have a Halloween picture event also, but it was on the day that Anastasia and I were in Atlanta last month.
Friday, October 29, 2004
It rained all day yesterday again, so we went to Petco. We spent about ten minutes in the toys aisle, and Mercy likes this Mallard toy very much, so we brought it home. Now this has become Mercy's favorite toy, and she spent several hours last night biting it to make the duck whistle inside squeak.
We went to the CGC class on Saturday. When we got to the training school and getting ready to pay for the class, several dogs came through the cash register area and sniffed Mercy, and Mercy barked at them. The trainers was concerned that Mercy might be vicious and bite other dogs, so they insisted that I use their Gentle Leader on Mercy, just in case she wanted to bite another dog, than I would be able to control her more easily. Mercy did not like the Gentle Leader at first. She kept pawing at the doggie halter, but after about twenty minutes, she finally gave up. There were twelve other dogs in the class, and I don�t think Mercy had never seen so many dogs in a small room in her life. There were two Goldens, two Boxers, three Labs, one Old English Sheepdog, one German Shepard, one Brittany, and another sheepdog. The owner of the sheepdog was very nice and showed me where they keep the treats, so I got some and used them to distract Mercy from pawing her Gentle Leader a little bit. After class, the owner of the sheepdog even asked me to email her some info about Mercy so she could ask around to see if anybody would like to adopt her. Mercy did very well with all the exercises of mock test, and I even think she was among the top five of the best dogs in class. About half of the dogs in the class are actually puppies (less than one year old), so several of them were very hyper in class. The trainer suggested that we exercise our dogs at a nearby park right before the final class when we take the actual test next Saturday.
I finally reached the trainer in Atlanta about taking the CGC test (she�s from Dog School 101, where Anastasia and I took our Delta Society Pet Partners test). She said I could bring Mercy over this Saturday mornings for their final class for $35 to meet the other dogs and then take the test next Saturday for another $35. I also emailed about 30 CGC evaluators on AKC website about taking the test, and about 12 people emailed back. Most of them are really nice about it and want to help a rescue dog. About five of them even said they are willing to set up special testing dates just for the foster dog. And a few said they have scheduled test dates in December that Mercy and I are welcome to go, but none of them are before Dog School 101�s test date.
I called the trainer who does classes at the Lee County Humane Society, and she's also a certified CGC evaluator, but she's not doing any testing until the spring. However she said we could go to their group class this Wednesday for $10.
My pet sitter also co-owns a pet supply store (the only one in town that does not sell animals), and I asked her if we can take a group class that she holds in her store this week (tonight's class wasn't taught by her, but Penelope and I had taken several of her classes before), and she said we can take it for free. So tonight we were at the class. There were three other dogs there (one Weimaraner, one Golden, one Min Pin), and it's their next to last class (so we did all the commands). Mercy did get distracted a couple times, but considering that she never had any formal training and that she's never been to a group class before, I think she did pretty well, because I think she was the second best dog there tonight (after the Golden). She got along with all the dogs and humans there tonight. The trainer isn't a certified CGC evaluator, but two of her three dogs are certified CGC, and she thinks Mercy's good enough to pass.
Thursday, November 4, 2004
Well, we didn't get to go to the class at the Humane Society last night, because it was raining, and the class is held outdoors. But when we stopped by the pet supply store to pick up some food, the pet sitter invited us to join their Wednesday night class (held indoors). There were six other dogs in the class, two terriers, one Husky, two Labs, and the trainer's own Golden. The class was taught by an ex-Army drill sergeant, and he admits that he teaches the dogs pretty much the same way as he did with his soldiers. Near the end the class, he was throwing chains and yanking choke collars with the other dogs. Two dogs whimpered while the trainer was working with them, and Mercy got scared. She hid behind me and even shivered for about 30 seconds. But he seemed to understand that I didn't train Mercy that way (Penelope was trained with choke collars, but after she died, I promised myself that I would do things right with any dogs I would take care of from then on, and I would only use positive reinforcement from now on to train obedience) and that Mercy was scared, so he didn't have us do any exercises, and he even came over to pet Mercy for several minutes while other dogs practiced. After class, everybody let their dogs loose to play. I didn't let Mercy loose, but she did get to sniff other dogs while we were trying to walk out of the door. She got along pretty well with the other dogs. Several people also petted her and said she was beautiful and her fur is so soft.
Friday, November 5, 2004
I got Mercy a rubber bone from Old Navy when I went shopping for business clothes. She chews on it sometimes, but it�s not one of her favorite toys.
