What does your leash cue to your dog? Have you ever thought about it? Or noticed? Does it depend on which leash, what environment? Dogs have an amazing ability to learn environmental cues. The leash will often trigger a reliable…
Listen for Stillness
This is starting to look like the season of stays. With stay instruction and training working its way into many lessons. Stays are an integral foundation behavior and a part of nearly all performance sports. And the bare bones basics…
Freestyle Shaping
Materials: 1 kitchen chair 1 bored corgi in need of entertainment Handful of dog kibble or small treats 1 tired human 1 comfortable sitting place for tired human preferably warm and with cozy blankets Goal: entertain corgi in silliness and…
Contact Obstacles: More Than the End Zone
This spring I’m working with a number of agility teams specifically on contact obstacles. Some of the teams are with young dogs that the handlers want to set a solid foundation for contacts on, some are dogs who are nervous,…
Thank goodness for Premack
A favorite dog of mine, Rose, who belongs to a good friend has been ill for the past couple of months. Steadily going downhill. Thursday my friend learned Rose’s symptoms were due to cancer. It beyond sucks. Rose is a…
Training Dog Agility when Visually Impaired
On average I have 6-10 degrees of functional vision. In certain lighting conditions I have less. With my glasses on I have 20/20 central vision. In doing dog agility, or training dogs, I have to make some modifications. And often…
Progress! With our stands
Today, thanks to the assistance of a friend playing judge, Zora and I did our first as in Novice competition start to finish behavior as I goaled to train it Stand for Exam!! I’m thrilled! Stood square confidently on cue,…
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?…
Loopy Stays
Training formal competition obedience stays is not something I’ve, in the past, been great with. Informal stays, good at teaching those. Stay on your bed, stay at the start line, moving wait, wait for release at doors, stay while I…
Training multiple skills
Yesterday at a training gathering we attended someone asked me, “Do you train more than one thing at a time?” And then the follow up, “How?” As it’s a question I would get from nearly every student I’ve come to…