I've achieved something today training wise
Zena is a nightmare with callers when the doorbell goes, and although I've managed to get her to stay in the kitchen, be quiet, whilst I go out and deal with it, coz my gates are quite a way from the back door where all visitors arrive. Nobody comes in the front coz the gate is always locked. When I come back in with the post or something, she's quiet, but if I come back in with a visitor, then we have a little ritual to go through with the cheese in the bootroom, sometimes there's lots of barking, sometimes not, depending on how good my visitor is with my instructions and the cheese lol!
Anyhoo, I've been concentrating on my sit/stays for a couple of weeks now out in the garden each afternoon, and I'm up to a good 5 mins, her just sitting there, watching me as I walk around the garden, I can even come indoors, go out of sight and she has never broken it during the past week at least, fantastic achievement for me anyway, with a dog who doesn't like me going out of sight.
Anyhoo, out of the blue today, a face appeared then a knock, at my
front window
just as I was sitting here at the puter, thankfully it was the garden man who had been fertilising the lawn (he'd let himself in coz I'd unlocked the gate, and I'd forgotten about that!). Zena went ballistic as you can imagine, being a gsd, so rather than open the top of the stable door and frighten him to death, I opted for the window to get his invoice with Zena going berserk at it and barking profusely. So there I am sitting in front of said window with my back to him, with Zena barking like crazy at him trying to get to him, whilst I'm trying to write a cheque on my lap. Hmmm, I thought, I'm going to use this situation to try out all my hard work, so I asked for a sit, she sat, she got up again barking. I urged her away from me (gently) with both hands on her chest, and quietly told her to sit/stay, blimey it worked, she stopped barking, she sat and she stayed
This man was still standing there, but it was ME Zena was watching now
I wrote the cheque and it looked normal! She got her good girl, good girl, as I slowly rose up, turned around, opened the window again, but NO barking
all was quiet as I handed him the cheque, I felt no fur anywhere near me - blimey
, I even managed to hold a conversation with him without her barking in the background
That's never happened in this house, neither has it ever happened that somebody has appeared like that at a window
I closed the window, turned around, and where was Zena????? Sat sitting there all quiet
Oh Lordy, perseverence really DOES pay off over time!!!
As I released her we both went ballistic over what a good girl she had been, so she ran and got her ball coz I had nothing iin my pockets!!!!
I'm winning ya know!