Griffin’s relatives are very, very busy and it’s been an overall very successful year for “the family.” High level accomplishments in agility, obedience, field work, and tracking.
In an email his breeder sent out this week, she talked a little about the “richness” that the dog sports and training and activities add to our dog’s lives, as well as to the people involved.
There’s the change in behavior that can be useful/practical for daily use, but there’s also the physical and mental activity, giving the dogs a chance to do doggy-things, to go places and do things (off property experiences can be helpful for preventing some types of behavior problems!), and more.
With my experience, it’s really been a very different relationship between myself and the first dogs I knew and my dogs now. Through training and those types of interactions, it’s created a very different relationship.
And even on the short term, there have been a few dogs at the shelter that have a -very- different relationship with me after training. Previously, people were for feeding and opening doors and anything else involving thumbs. Now these dogs are soliciting interaction and demanding to something with people.
Here’s one of the dogs a few days ago. If I’m working another dog nearby, she stands with her nose pressed through the fence, getting as close as she can, hoping I’ll do something. Occasionally she offers a sit or a down or a bark. She used to just go off and do her own thing, ignoring people.