Place targets, body targets, waiting at doors, and loose leash walking are all versions of boundary skills. All are very valuable in helping our dogs understand and succeed in our human world of fences, leashes, gates and endless number of…
How to Be Bored
Often times life for dogs involves a fair amount of “hurry up and wait.” Waiting for meals to get prepared, walks to happen, car rides to end, owners to return home, balls to be thrown, for neighbors to stop chatting…
Role Models
This morning we joined a friend and her 5 month old lab pup on a walk. He’s a fun, bouncy pup. At that age where social graces are often a quite bit of a struggle. Observing him shift from in…
How to Talk to Girls
Max is getting quite the education this week. As an adolescent intact 11m old Golden retriever with raging hormones, and apparently a belief that of course everyone will think he’s as awesome as he knows he is, he’s learning more…
Taking Turns
I adore using mats or dog beds or other place type spaces to teach and then remind dogs about taking turns. Tom and Zora have both been getting rather nudgy, pushy and whiny lately around the concepts of sharing my…
Teaching Dogs ‘The Basics’
The other day during a lesson with a long time client who has a new puppy she asked me, so when do we start teaching The Basics and how long will they take? I looked at her blankly. The Basics?…
Training Wildlife
Dogs that fixate on the wildlife, we all know them, right? Chase squirrels up trees, hunt rabbits, yank your arm off if a chipmunk races across the sidewalk. The dog you know would never recall off a deer. The dogs…
Waiting
“Don’t you want to play with me?”
Using targeting in distance skills
One area of training Zora and I have been struggling with consistently is when I’m wanting her to turn away from me and then keep moving forward despite limited movement forward from me. So after a couple of different approaches…
Skill A Day: Day 22 & 23 Walks, Basset Hounds & Leave It Choices
Well, seems I managed to get a bit behind on posting of our Skill A Day. So here we go couple of days at once! Day 22 was Thursday. That morning we took a walk with a couple of friends…