[Class] Learning Games

It was tomorrow. It hadn't taken much effort to Rob to convince Ollie to bring him to and obedience training class. His brother had seemed all too eager to oblige, leading the water with a bounce in his step as they made their way to the training guild headquarters. There was always a class going on, Ollie had said.

 

Leeward was doing the usual, make every attempt to charge ahead without them as they walked down the street. Occasionally she would veer across their path and attempt to throw herself into the road, where carriages and carts rushed past. In short, she did everything in her power to make the walk a living hell, and Rob was hard pressed to grit his teeth and take it.

 

It would all be better once they got through some training. Or so he kept telling himself.

 

"Why is this hound so badly behaved?" he said, after he had lost track of how many times Leeward had tried to yank the lead right out of his hands and commit herself to an early death in the street.

 

"What, hm?" Ollie asked distractedly, head vaguely turning in Rob's direction as he bounced along on the balls of his feet. He walked with light, almost floaty steps when he was excited, as if putting his heels on the ground would have slowed his progress down too much.

 

"Leeward. She's being awful." Rob jabbed a finger in the orange hound's direction, pointing out her atrocious behavior as she strained hard against the collar, accidentally choked herself a bit, and paused to hack up a loud, disgruntled cough. As if it was Rob's fault that she had done this to herself.

 

"She's not awful, don't say that about her!" Ollie hissed, covering Leeward's ears. "She just hasn't learned yet!"

 

Rob fixed Ollie with a humorless stare and batted his hands away from the hound. "You don't need to protect her feelings. She's just a dog."

 

"Ha, you say that now," Ollie said, shaking his head in amusement.

 

They rounded the corner and arrived on the front lawn of the training guild headquarters. Set up in front of the impressive building was a cordoned off square of the lawn, where a few hound and handler pairs had already gathered for today's basic obedience class. Ollie pointed at the area and steered Rob and Leeward into the square, squatting down just outside the boundary to watch. Absently, he ripped a long stalk of grass out of the ground and stuck one end between his teeth, chewing gently as he watched.

 

"Good morning, class!" A young lady with pointed ears and a set of spiral horns swept into the enclosure after Rob, clapping her hands to get everyone's attention. "My name is Sylva, and today, I will show you how to train using positive reinforcement! Our goal for today is to create a positive association with training for our hounds, so that they enjoy learning and derive enjoyment out of working for you."

 

Rob nodded. That sounded promising.

 

"Now, as a warm-up, we will play a game to help our hounds with impulse control. If you find yours scarfing down absolutely everything they can find, this game will help teach them to make good choices about what they can eat and when they should do it," Sylva said. She held up a fistful of treats as a demonstration, holding it in her open palm in front of her dog's nose. When the hound leaned to try to eat it she simply closed her fist. When the hound sat back straight, she opened it. After several repetitions, the hound simply sat and watched the treats, at which point she let out a cheerful "Yes!" and palmed the handful into the hound's mouth.

 

"Simple game, Leeward," Rob said, rubbing his hounds head and crouching down beside her to try it for himself. He fished a couple of treats out of his bag and placed them on his open palm. The moment she saw them, Leeward dove toward them, and Rob snapped his fist shut. Leeward stared intently at his hand, waiting for him to reopen it. He did. She lunged for them again, tail sweeping left and right with glee. Rob shut his fist. This time, he could see the wheels start to turn in her head. She looked at him carefully, then back at the hand. When he reopened it, she didn't move. "Yes!" said Rob, moving his hand to her mouth to feed her the treats.

 

"Good job, Leeward. We're off to a great start."