I would definitely like you to take a look at Bella Rosa and maybe assess what you think she is capable of. She's 9 months now and we got her from Judy at the Asociaci?n De Amigos Por Los Animales De Sos?a on their adoption programme, last January. We're in PP, as you know, with a medium sized grass area for training purposes.
She is very bright, Heinz57 breed
and if not fully occupied, her talents tend to become delinquent :cheeky:. Anything which the bus mechanics and washers leave on our back wall or stuck in our railings, she steals. She waits until no-one is looking though - we have a collection of sponges, mop heads, T shirts, jackets, squeezy bottles and even some tools, all carried round to the front of the house surreptitiously. We have now trained the mechanics not to leave things there, so Bella Rosa is turning her attention to be gardener's assistant and demolishing the
cayena.
Obedience she is pretty ok on, just
chooses not to sometimes...or 'forgets' that something is a 'no'. Maybe some memory training? Grahame & I will join that part as well.............!
I don't think full protection training is required, but some of the techniques would be helpful. She is very quick to learn, loves challenges & is a great jumper. This is the only Dominican dog I have ever met which when we first had had, showed absolutely no fear of anything. We had to teach her a little bit of fear so that she could make sound judgements, & she's getting there with that - another area for you to look at. We don't have a problem with dog poisoning in our area, but I would like for her to learn how to refuse bad food. Her stealing tendencies aren't a problem btw, just highly entertaining. In fact she's a wonderfully amusing dog. But obviously we don't have the time to keep her occupied with different challenges all day long, so some protection training which we could then reinforce would probably be a good idea. And I'm sure she'd love it!