Day 2 of Training!

Rafi in his "down" command

Still in "down"

Training is hard work!!!

Today I (Christina/Mom) attended Day 2 of training by myself.  It turns out that Alec was extremely upset that Rafi wasn't staying at our hotel yet!  So, when Daddy picked me up at 4:00, I brought Alec in to 4 Paws to say hello to Rafi and give him some treats!  Alec was so happy to see him and vice-versa :)  Looks like although Alec may not be able to attend a lot of the training, we are getting some great ideas on how to get the pair to bond, especially when we bring Rafi back to our hotel tomorrow (Wednesday) night.  Happy and hopeful!

Dayna had a playdate with another 4 Paws sibling, Juliette, and was successfully distracted playing with her new friend!  Another win!  Thank you Kalis family for adopting her for the day!

Tomorrow, we will all start out at training and if Bill needs to take Alec back to the hotel, he can do that.  Once Rafi is back at the hotel, I can catch Bill up with all the training I have learned.  Bill has lots of experience with dogs since he used to work at a Vet Hospital, and even though we've had dogs in our family, I need lots of practice as a handler and being "respected" by Rafi as we transfer handlers from 4 Paws staff to the Stearns family :)

What have we learned on Day 2?  We continued practicing the following commands: Sit, Down, and Free.  We then practiced keeping the dogs in the down position while their favorite treats were dropped on the floor around them, and tennis balls were bounced as well :)  I am so proud of Rafi for keeping his down command the whole time!  Toward the end, we learned the command Heel to have the dogs walk in position they need to hold in public as they are working.

What else?  These dogs know many "tricks" so that they can interact socially with their children.  We learned Shake/Gimme Five/High Five.  Rafi is skilled in all :)  There are more tricks but we ran out of time...lol.

SUCCESSFUL DAY #2!