So here we are at 4 months. We are working on the basic stuff sitting, staying and healing. Sitting is something that Mason does very well with and it is a command that I use to get Mason focused, for example when he gets real excited and I need him to heal I make him sit first. The reason for this is that sitting is a real basic command that he does well and focuses him. It is easy to understand, one could say that sitting is a concrete command. He is either sitting or he is not sitting. The handler has an easy time judging it wether it is done or not done. One can say either he is sitting or he is not sitting.

Stay is also rather concrete in that he is either staying or not staying. Although there are some amounts of gray, an example of grey area of stay is,  if he is laying down and rolls over but does not get up, is he still staying? I am not asking the question I am merely stating that when training a dog there are shades of gray.

Getting a dog to heal is not concrete because it is made up of several other tasks or components, heal is comprised of a ton of grey area. The command has several components, such as staying on the correct side, staying next to the handler, not getting to far ahead, too far behind or too far to the side. Those of you who are attempting this basic command know that it is a command that is made of other commands. Mason and I are still working on this command. He demonstrates difficulty keeping pace and distance. Usually when we start out he has the tendancy to start out way up front and wait to be reeled in, other times he will be way out to the side or way behind me. We continue to address this problem areas and he is making great progress. Mason has demonstrated the ability to go to my left when I say heal, this is done automatically, also he has gotten very good at staying on the same side of obstacles as I do, for example, if there is a telephone pole he will go around it the same side that I do this also done automatically. He has mastered sit and is good with stay, we are working on heal. He has 50% of the heal command under his belt. We are getting there.

As for the in the field stuff, Mason continues to show interest in the Winged species(birds) which is a good thing. He has still yet to trot into the water on his own. In my previous writing I mentioned that I was using sticks to get Mason to go into the water. I do not expect Mason to hunt sticks, I was using the sticks because it was all i had at the time. On the way back from Maine the other day I stoped and bought a couple of training dummies, one canvas and one plastic. I have not taken him to the water to attempt to get him to go in yet but I have placed the dummies in various places in the apartment and had him "fetch", "bring it" and "give it". The distance that he had to travel with the dummy in his mouth was very limited but he was able to fetch the dummy, bring it to me and allow me to take it out of his mouth without chewing it. This is Mason's progress and we shall keep you updated. Happy training!!