Obedience training

Having trouble controlling Cinnamon at her agility class, I remembered about Cookie's obedience training when he was young.

Cookie is generally calm and quiet now. He might sometimes bark when Cinnamon starts barking loudly at other dogs on the street, but he soon stops barking after one or two barks and just waits patiently until Cinnamon stops barking as well.

However, actually he too used to be a very naughty puppy. The biggest problem was his biting, or more specifically biting me!! He didn't bite any other people. I loved him. I wanted to have a lot of time with him, but sometimes I couldn't because of his biting problem. I had many bruises from his biting.

Being desperate, I asked a dog behaviourist, Flip Calkoen, for help (It was before Flip opened his school at Ellerslie Racecourse). His training was expensive but worked very well. After a series of private sessions with him, Cookie stopped biting me and his general behaviour changed gradually, and now I have a good calm adult beagle.

Cookie at All Breeds Dog Training Club

It was not Cookie's only obedience training experience. We attended classes at All Breeds Dog Training Club before that, and also, after the sessions with Flip, we went to obedience class in my neighbourhood, which was taught by a former police dog trainer. At the last one, Cookie performed very well. He was one of the best in the class when the course finished, or at least that's how it looked to me.

Cinnamon at Obedience Class

Comparing to the efforts I put for training Cookie, I haven't made serious attempts to train Cinnamon perhaps, partly because Cinnamon has always listened to me better than Cookie did. Although I attended obedience class in my neighbourhood with Cinnamon, obedience training is a continuous learning process, so I will have to keep trying to teach Cinnamon how to behave as well as learning how to guide my dogs myself. The incident at this week's agility class was sort of a reminder about that.