Steve and I have been holding our breaths for what feels like weeks, waiting for the first Professional Training Report about Dionne to arrive. As noted in my last post, we celebrated when she made it past the point where Darby was released (before she even got her first Professional Training Report). We thought Dionne's report was supposed to be e-mailed to us Wednesday. But Wednesday came and went.
It finally arrived this morning. Nothing in it surprised either one of us. Our first reaction was to try and parse out: just how bad is this report? Our conclusion: not that bad.
After the standard boilerplate paragraph about how the dogs have mostly been undergoing temperament and medical testing and being evaluated on how they were fitting in came the meaty part:
"Dionne has transitioned well into the kennel environment and is starting to adapt to the advanced training schedule," we read. "At times she displays a higher energy level than normal, which can be counterproductive to training" (no!!!!! not Dionne, we thought, rolling our eyes), "but with consistent work we have seen some improvements."
"She is easily distracted by her environment and other dogs and needs help refocusing on the handler." That's the Dionne we remember! As, to be fair, is the Dionne who "is relaxed during grooming sessions and does not require much help to get into a cradle position. She has shown some rough play behavior in the play yards with other dogs but can easily be called over to handler to break this behavior. Dionne has been progressing at known and new commands at a normal rate."
They checked off "excitable greetings," "rough play with other dogs," and "distractibility," among the bad behaviors she had exhibited. But they also checked the boxes for "interacts appropriately with people," "walks nicely on leash," and "willing."
So I guess we keep holding our breath. The next report -- should we get one -- should come in about a month.
