Training Tuesday: Double Trouble

Meet Stormy:

Stormy is a 12-week-old corgi-aussie mix from Aussie Rescue of Minnesota. No, she's not mine- her foster mom was busy on Sunday, so she ended up spending the day with us. If I were in the market for a puppy, though, I would be very tempted by this one. She’s sweet and affiliative with people and spent an hour napping in my lap. She was soft and appropriate with my existing pets (well, until she got tired). She’s good in a crate, and she didn’t have a single accident in my house. She’s both food and toy motivated, and very, very smart.

Oh, of course I did some training with her. Nothing big, just playing around, really. We lured some sits and downs and even a roll over (she’s so ridiculously clumsy right now it’s sort of amazing she could do this). By the end of the afternoon, she had sit on a hand signal, and was deliberately offering downs once in awhile.

Here is an entirely too long video of the puppy. I meant to edit it down, but, well… how do you cut out the cuteness?? Answer: you don’t. So, sorry. I don’t expect you to watch the whole thing, but here is ten minutes of adorableness:



I didn’t really post this to pick apart my training skills, but goodness do my luring techniques ever need work (and so do my play skills for that matter)! And, in case you’re wondering- I stopped using the clicker on purpose. Her foster mom had noticed that Stormy was scared of the box clicker. Since I use the softer i-click, I was hoping she’d be okay with it. She wasn’t- you can see her ears briefly pin every time it goes off.

But that, too, is not the point of this video. No, I wanted to show off Maisy’s lovely mat work. Maisy is not terribly good at waiting her turn. She’s kind of pushy, and tends to resource guard me/my treats from other dogs. Having a puppy in the house was the perfect opportunity to work on Maisy’s impulse control and patience! I thought Maisy did a very nice job, too.

If you’re in the Minnesota area and are interested in adopting Stormy, please contact the Aussie Rescue of Minnesota.