I was correct…Blaze did finish his APDT Rally Level 1 title last month!
10.5 years of training and we finally completed something!
The funny thing is, I’ve spent more hours training him than Luna and Griffin together (and probably multiplied by 10). What’s different?
The primary difference is that I’m not quite as enthusiastic about training as I used to be. When Blaze was young, I would spend hours and hours every day working on various training projects. I still enjoy training… but not that much. Now I “get” it and would much rather spend my time on the more interesting challenge of teaching other people to train their dogs.
Another difference is that I’m more experienced and more efficient. I can make better training plans and better predictions of what will or will not work. It just takes less time to train a behavior or task, and to train it to a higher level than what Blaze learned.
The other difference…. Griffin is a normal dog. Luna is more “normal” than Blaze. Per the veterinary neurologist a few years ago…Blaze probably has some sort of brain lesion that is impacting his behavior/learning (as well as a cause of his seizures). Dogs with normal brain function learn better than dogs with abnormal brain functioning.
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| Blaze wanted to play with the ribbon rather than pose… |