After a short time, it was time to get to work on the assessment.  We got started by calmly walking into the kitchen area.  I like working with a dog in the kitchen since there are tons of good smells there that are great for simple distractions.  I gave him a few treats for sitting and laying down just so he could get a taste for his reward.  We went through all of the basics.  Sit, down, OK, take it, and enough.  I varied the tone and pitch of my voice.  I whispered, yelled, and calmly issued all of the command.  Of all the different commands I gave Tiger, he only missed two of them and that was because I was yelling.  Before anyone jumps on me for yelling at the dog, there is a good reason for it.  By trying the same commands in different ways, I was testing his recognition.  Tiger knows the commands solidly.  He knows the words so well he can differentiate between yelling and whispering.  Next, we tested his visual recognition of commands.  I quickly went through all of the verbal commands once again, but added in the hand signals for each one.  Finally, for the third round of testing I issued only the hand signals.  He got them all.

After such a taxing training regimen, I took a quick trip down to the basement to get something to drink, and Tiger followed me to check out the new surroundings.  As I was reaching into the refrigerator, I saw Tiger heading over to the dark part of the room.  I closed the door and turned to find him calmly walking over to me with two things.  A wagging tail and a fresh (barely chewed) tennis ball.  I reached down for the ball and he gently let it drop into my hand.  The two of us headed up the stairs and when we got to the top of the stairs I decided to give Tiger a quick test.  I asked him to sit and then lay down (all of which he did without me correcting him).  I backed up a few feet and placed the tennis ball on the floor to the left of his center.  I then pulled a treat from my pocket and placed it about 2 feet to the right of the ball making a triangle.  Yep, I was setting him up to choose.  I needed to know what motivated him.  As I suspected, from what I already knew about Tiger, I gave him the OK command and he jumped up to grab the ball and bounce over to me for some play time.  In the canine training world, there is a technical term for a dog like this….AWESOME.

After we played ball for a few minutes, I set Tiger up for a new test.  I took him into the kitchen and asked him to sit.  He dropped down and stared at me intently.  Without hesitation, I turned my back to him and walked into the next room.  After taking my time to silently walk through the dining-room and the hall, I came back around to the kitchen to find a really good dog sitting there waiting for me with his head cocked trying to look around the corner.  He nailed it!  After all that good training it was time for us to sit down and relax while I wrote this blog post.  Tiger slept at my feet, I clacked away at the keyboard….great day.