Boca and I are signed up for our first Obedience trial. We are going to try for a leg toward a Companion Dog title...eeek!
Last week I called a trainer and popped in to her class before it started for a run through. She had never seen us train/work
So, the Rally people suggested to me that I should enter Maggie in the show that's coming up at the end of August. They have Rally on Friday, so we could actually do that one day. But I'm looking at the premium. It's 60 pages long and I'm totally ove
Read more…I have a weird one, that seriously isn't the end of the world. But I keep thinking about the behavior and the "reward" and how I know I'm reinforcing this behavior, and I can't figure it out. I don't know how to *not* reinforce it. I just think it's
Read more…The family and I spent a whole 4 hrs at a Fun Match at a training club an hour away. It was really great that I did this because I would have bombed horribly at a real obedience trial. So many little things you don't realize until you've practiced
Read more…Over the past several years my training philosophy has continuously evolved. Some of that evolution has been driven by the vastly different temperaments and capabilities of the dogs I was training, some was due to the constantly changing "dog traini
Read more…Boca is a great dog, very responsive, has a bit of a natural recall (though I wouldn't trust it in any precarious circumstances) where she's just so happy you're calling her she generally doesn't think to NOT come to you. She's pretty good at heelin
Read more…I would like to have a discussion and I'm not sure if it's more training or rescue. And I'm going to try to be concise (so hard for me!) But I'm happy to provide more info. So give me all of your opinions!
Maggie has a trainer this session who I am no
Read more…That's what someone said to us today, and that's what we did. They weren't perfect scores. Maggie wasn't interested in laying down without a treat, and I apparently don't know how to do a figure 8. But they were good enough to qualify! She has 4 legs
Read more…So far had about three private lessons with wrangler and his trainer. We have a set of commands that we wrangler and I are working on daily. The big challenge is the walk. He is such a big boy that he is able to pull me right down the street if he wa
Read more…I came across this cartoon and it really hit home (and it made me laugh). So often when I was "knee deep" in training my Doods I was totally amazed (and crazed) about how well they did in obedience class and then seemed to forget it all in those pra
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Willow did it! And no lie, she made look pretty easy. To our credit, we've been practicing. The only downside to tonight was that there was a dog disagreement across the room during our test and I think it freaked Willow out a little. She pushed thr
Read more…This week Willow has decided that sitting for exam is terrifying. We've practiced. She will sit and let me go over her like a champ. Feet, ears, tail, teeth. No problem. But when the instructor bent down to pet her she flailed around like she was sur
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