Training
From the moment I got her, I wanted to be sure to train Hershey to be a very good dog. Right away we accomplished sit and stay. "No" almost became her middle name. She was always so easy to train. She was very easy to scold and want to please. It didn't take very long to see that she was so very smart. She was constantly learning....even when we weren't aware we were teaching her.
One of her best lessons was about the street. Somewhere along the way she caught on that it was a bad thing to go into the street. She could be at a dead run after a ball and stop at the curb as the ball rolled down the street. The fact that she could recognize all different types of "streets" always amazed me. One time was at a softball game and were playing ball with her. One of the guys threw the ball from home plate across second. Hershey watched the ball, but would not go after it.....the base lines were streets. Go figure.
When we moved to Flagstaff, the street rule became even more important. The yard is very mixed terrain and Hershey (being almost 15 years old when we got there) spent most of her time out the front. She knew her boundaries very well and would not leave her yard. She did enjoy greeting all passersby and would get all four feet up on the curb as she barked, but she would not get off on the street. The neighbors even thought she had an invisible fence. Up to her very last day she new the rule...she never left the curb.
Boundaries were another great rule. Whenever the need would arise, all you would have to do is show her where the boundary was....usually just be calling her back when she reached it....and she would figure it out. Sometimes it was pretty amazing that she did figure it out. When we lived in Florida the boundary in the yard was not very clear. It wasn't a definite line like a street or something. It was an area in the grass between our property and the neighbor's. There might have been a tree at one end. She always seemed to know. I remember once I saw her at the line barking at a cat in the other yard. There might as well have been a fence up....she did not cross the line.
