Dinnertime and obedience training part 1

Things we learned from Kaylah at dinnertime:

• She eats her food slowly and politely.
  
• She begs at the table. She sat within inches from us at the table and stared at our every move as we ate. We've decided to train her to lie down and stay to prevent the begging.

After dinner, we started training Kaylah.

• We asked her to sit, moved a treat (a piece of cooked turkey) backwards over her head until she sat, and then gave her the treat. That worked well, and she is getting more reliable with the "sit" command. She also knows to sit if you touch her butt.
  
• She takes treats gently.
• It was more difficult getting her to lie down on command, but we'll keep working at it.
• She kept trying to jump up onto our couch. We pulled her off it five times and then finally laid a chair up there to keep her off. We don't allow big dogs on the furniture at our house, and Kaylah sure wants to be up there. I can totally envision her snuggling with somebody on a couch while they read a good book or watch TV. When we pet her head, she leans into it and cocks her head sideways and really enjoys it.

As I'm typing this, she is curled up on the floor next to me like my other dogs. I appreciate that she settles down nicely when it's time to be calm.

The shelter described her as a goofball who loves to play, but we haven't seen that side of her yet. I actually don't think that any of the ASPCA "canine-alities" describe her very well: http://www.aspca.org/adoption/meet-your-match/meet-the-canine-alities.html -- I would describe her as a mellow, friendly girl indoors and highly inquisitive and social outdoors.