Netherwood 'love Cat of Marakesh is a Gordon Setter, whelped October 4, 2011. She is training to be a Service Dog and figured there might be one or two humans browsing the interwebs who would be interested in her progress.
Neko's favorite friend in the Magnuson Park Off-Leash Area is Mic' the Beagle. They are really cute together and seem to gravitate toward each other because of their long ears.
I love this video because Neko waits too long and the people coming down the trail actually flush the bird. She set it though and is so fun to watch!
Every time I doubt her she pulls through! I think I should learn something from this: trust Neko and don't ever doubt what she's capable of! A very intelligent friend of mine spun it differently: keep doubting her because she'll inevitably impress you and do what you want. Either way, my Gordon Setter passed Intermediate Obedience at 6 months of age! It was an off-leash obstacle course: "finish" to start, heel in figure-8s around cones, auto-sit, "go to your bed/rug", heel up a ramp, "wait" at the top, come down the ramp, sit/stay, come through/over a hoop, heel to a stand/stay inside a hula hoop, switch to a different hula hoop for down/stay! She "broke" during the stand/stay (or she would have but I "cheated" and released her 6 seconds early), but that was the only task she failed. I am so incredibly proud of my little Lady!
Sorry for the blur on the right - I took this while she was practicing on the ramp during play-time.
We're still planning to re-take Intermediate because I want to build her confidence (and mine, apparently)! My goal is to complete the class entirely off-leash this time. Hopefully during this course, Mary will offer some task- or trick- training courses and we can get Neko restarted on her service dog path! She's definitely well on her way to Canine Good Citizen - we'll be looking for AKC Obedience Trials come Fall.
Neko and I have maintained a great routine the past few weeks and I think it's really helping her "settle" (my favorite command to date - it's like "bunk" for service dogs, but I didn't like the word so I changed it: basically means go find a place to lie down and be quiet for a while). We get up (early) and go for a run. Don't worry - I'm not abusing her puppy-bones! Since I can't run far enough to do any damage to her, I'm the perfect running companion. Then she (and I) have a little breakfast and head to work. She's now able to maintain a calm, settled affect for most of the work day (with only an occasional visit to "time out" in her office crate).
Every day at lunch rain- (I take her alone) or -shine (my coworker @cspringer3 helps out a lot) I take her for a walk/run in the field at SCC. She loves chasing birds and I usually bring a ball or something to work on retrieving. Really it's just a chance for her to run it all out so she can be a good girl in the afternoon.
Then, after work, it's off to the park! Again, I've been taking her rain-or-shine. It just makes life at home so much better if she gets a chance to run and be a dog for at least 30 mins in the afternoons. I've also been taking her to the "big park" at Magnusen to try to get her used to the water (I'm still hopeful that she'll learn to swim and love to swim this summer). Usually she finds a few fellow Sporting Dogs to play with and we work on some long recalls and "watch me" while at the park. She's really been doing well with the recall. I'm still impressed by how trainable and attentive my Gordon Setter puppy is!
One day a week, after park-time, we go to school. Neko's service dog trainer had a family emergency so she's been taking Intermediate Obedience from Sound Animal and they're great with her! Her test is next week and I don't think she's going to pass (because it's an off-leash obstacle course and she's just too distractible...you never know, stay tuned for the full report) so I preemptively re-enrolled her in Intermediate again. I figure that once Mary is back, Neko could potentially be taking some task training or "party tricks" from her and remain in Obedience with Jeff - can't hurt to go to school 2 nights per week! Personally, I love school nights - I come home with a tired, thoughtful puppy who just wants dinner and her bed. It rocks.
