Bonding through training

Want to build a better relationship with your dog? Train together.

That’s the message I got after visiting an evening session of obedience and agility classes at Companion Dogs in Madison Heights.

Says Companion Dogs’ Diana Rutherford, “I don’t view training as working. It’s peace. I enjoy it. Training intensifies the bonding. You explain to the dog what to do, and then watch the dog work through it.”

Training, and competing if you so choose, says Rutherford, is an ageless past-time. “You can be 8 years old, you can be 80 years old. I’ll probably do this in my wheelchair!”

I have never formally trained my dogs. They learned to sit on command, and they learned not to jump out of the car until invited. They learned to drop objects they shouldn’t have in their mouths, like shoes. It seemed sufficient.

The Companion Dogs students think otherwise. Armed with patience, an enthusiastic high-pitched voice, and a fanny-pack full of treats, the obedience students practiced heeling their dogs.

“Yay, yay, yay! Good boy! Let’s go!” modeled the instructor.

“Eventually you can do this cookie-free,” she promised.

Elsewhere, obedience graduates practiced on agility courses strewn with obstacles like jumps, teeter boards, weave poles, and tunnels. Dogs ran their course, enthusiastically complying with the commands “Tunnel!” “Weave!” “Jump!” For further direction, the people ran ahead of their dogs, using their bodies to cue the dogs where to go next. If they didn’t stand in the right place, the dogs went off-course. People sometimes took several tries to find the right spot to stand to get their dogs on track.

Watching the people run, repeat body blocking stances, even pirouette, exhausted me. I perked up when student Rob Alexander practiced giving direction from afar. Standing in the middle of a mini-course, he used his voice and subtle body moves, including taking a step or two, to instruct his sheltie Legend to maneuver over jumps and around poles.

After class, Alexander conceded that sometimes at competitions he feels that younger people do have an edge, but that doesn’t mean the older folks can’t take home the trophy. He’s been impressed by people with physical problems doing agility courses, training dogs to work at a longer distance from them, as he was doing with Legend, to accommodate their decreased mobility.

Alexander and 4-year-old Legend have been training together for three years. It’s rewarding for both partners.

“Dogs love to run and play … this is great fun for them,” he explains. As for the person: “You’re working as a real team. It really is about the relationship and how you learn to communicate with each other. “

I returned home. My dogs joyfully greeted me with wagging tails and gleaming eyes. I said “hello” by patting their heads. No communication problem there. But maybe we could improve our relationships, I thought, as I admonished, “Now drop that shoe!”