Last night kicked off spring term's Beginning Obedience Level 1 class. We're off and running! Classes are full of good questions, and I have the idea to make a running series of blog posts highlighting a question from each night's class.

So we'll jump right in!

Context: We were practicing "automatic attention" -- where the dog looks at you and pays attention to you (without you needing to give an attention command) in distracting or novel situations. For beginners, this is done by waiting for the dog to look at you, then marking "Yes!

I love teaching class through Portland Community College -- I share a lot of their vision and mission as far as having everything geared toward student success and taking students needs into account. As far as I'm concerned, PCC is one of the most progressive educational institutions I've ever come across. Every time I'm on campus, there's some new program -- today I saw an announcement that there's a "family study room." How brilliant! For parents who lack child care and are forced to bring their kids to campus on occasion.