Happy Graduation, Dash!

Dash just rocked out on his final exam for obedience class.  He did an awesome job (as if there was any doubt my smartypants would do anything less than impress!).  Dash was enrolled in a basic obedience class at Paw Law, a very awesome facility for all kinds of dog activities including daycare, obedience, agility, flyball and dockdiving.

Here's some of the agility equipment they have.  It's all put away over here, but we got to let the dogs play with a lot of it the second to last week of class, but I forgot to bring the camera.  D'oh!

you can see the teeter totter, A-frame, lots of jumps, a tunnel chute and lots more

We learned how to use a clicker to train Dash in this class.  I knew that clicker training was supposed to be one of the most effective ways of training a dog but hadn't tried it yet.  I have to say that it's pretty amazing how quickly you can train your dog using this method!  Dash and the rest of the dogs in the class were all able to pick up on their new tricks really quickly.  It's so fun to watch the gears cranking in their heads trying to figure out what they just did to get you to click and then watching them actually do it.

In the class we covered loose leash walking, sit, down, stand, stay, come, place and leave it.  That's a lot of learning in just 8 weeks!  Our instructor, Ed, was great.  She explained everything really well and made teaching our dogs easy while also keeping it fun.  Plus she always had great advice for us on any problems that came up.

For the dogs' final exam Ed set up what was essentially an obstacle course where we had to take our dogs to different stations and make them do one of the skills they had learned.  So at one cone they had to do sit, down and stand, while at another they had to sit and stay for 30 seconds and so on.  I didn't take any pictures of the dogs doing their exams because I didn't want to distract them (at the very least I know Dash tends to find a camera extremely distracting and he immediately stops whatever he's doing and comes to check it out if he notices).

 waiting patiently for his turn

Here's Dash showing off the trick we taught him for his final exam.  He's taking a bow (in case you couldn't tell because of the weird angle).

Everyone in the class passed with flying colors (woohoo!).  Each dog got a stuffed star (they're all stars in our eyes, right?) and a certificate of completion that I fully intend on framing.

Ed has their full attention when passing out prizes!

Thomas and Dash with Dash's diploma and star

Afterward the dogs all got to celebrate with a little off leash play time.  The pictures turned out a little blurry since it wasn't super bright in the room and the dogs were moving pretty fast, but you can totally see how much fun they're all having!  Dexter is the brown brindle mix, Molly is the white birddog and Archie is the mostly black beagle mix.

Molly and Dexter going at it

Dash and Dexter getting feisty

Dash, Dexter and Molly goofing around

if you looks carefully you can see Archie making her way over!

Dash, Dexter and Archie having a blast

all together now!

water break!

Archie even brought pupcakes for everyone to celebrate!  Thanks, Archie! 

 Dash showing off his ability to down, wait and leave it.

How cute is that pupcake?!

Congrats to all the dogs (and their parents) in our class!