When I first brought Marshall home, I had hung an ornament made of multiple bells on the back door. I had quickly trained my older dog to "ring the bell" by hitting it with his nose to signify "outside." I never really had a chance to purposefully train Marshall on the bell.
My dog, still being a bit bigger than Marshall is always the first to reach the bell. I say "outside" and he hits the bell.
I thought Marshall had hit the bell the other night, but it was hard to tell, with two rambunctious dogs at the door.
Just now, as I was doing dishes, Marshall was standing by the door, looking at me, and hit the bell with his nose. I asked Marshall, "did you just tell me something?" and he hit the bell again. I reaffirmed his action by saying "outside" and he hit it again. Followed by a party of lots of praise, and of course a little trip outside.
He seems to have learned just by watching all these months--how cool is that!
Hi, my husband met "Logan" and trainer on a bus shuttle over to the BMW Golf Tournament yesterday in SC. We live in NC. Ironically, our daughter was diagnosed on the Autsim Spectrum last fall. She is now 4. I keep a blog (she was adopted from China and blogging is big in the China adoption community). We live on a horse farm and prior to Eliza's adoption, I had planned on training our next dog to be a service dog. I'm now thinking about looking into training our young Hogan to be in service to our family and daughter. I am so happy to have found your blog and the DFA website. Kuddo's to you all! I added both sites to my own blog, I hope that's okay? Congrats on all your hard work. I can tell you that a service dog is both beautiful and inspirational, but also so comforting. -- Sarah
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