Griffin and I visited an AKC trial today and saw more people than we expected to! We saw lots of golden retriever people we know, lots of people we know from training and class, and some of his family! We were able to talk about the Certificate of Conformation Assessment Read more…
It was a tropical 50* today. And with our inch of snow melting, everything was very, very muddy. I took Blaze and Luna to go biking, one at a time. The bikejor tugline was nowhere to be found (maybe in the still-being-repaired-new-used-van-that-I-haven’t-seen-in-months?). We took Blaze for about 10 minutes of Read more…
Dog training is very simple. Reinforce behaviors you like. They happen more often. Manage so that inappropriate responses cannot appear or are not likely to appear. Dog training is also very complex: rate of reinforcement, placement of reinforcement, make a training plan, choose the best training plan, types of reinforcers, Read more…
It’s probably been at least two months since we’ve done a training session on dogwalks. Griffin had a few reps at agility class (and missed every time). And during a private last month (was good, one was a jump). But no ‘real’ training. Monday night we did one session and Read more…
A continuation from earlier today, we’ve done a bit more with the bell ringing. One factor I didn’t mention, but definitely considered, is the social pressure in the behavior. It’s harder for a dog to come right up to another to ring the bell than to ring it when held Read more…
I thought it would be cute to get the dogs to do some tricks together. Back when Blaze was an only dog, I desperately wanted another dog to train so that he could have breaks, but also so that we could do tricks with two dogs. I had a trick Read more…
My Grandma came for Christmas and brought her westie. And the dogs were surprisingly peaceful. He is used to playing with other dogs when he is boarded (…fairly regularly as grandma travels a ton!), but is very much an adult, probably around 7-8 years old. Blaze (10) has probably met Read more…
Every week I do a shift at a nearby humane society. And I work on getting the dogs to have more behaviors that will help them be adopted and behaviors that make them easier to handle. It’s not a high volume facility and we don’t have a lot of dogs Read more…
I’m surprised how often I hear this objection to clicker training. Some people are concerned about being limited to only one way to train, with one training plan, and what may happen if this doesn’t work. The more I learn, the more distressed I get because there are so many Read more…
I probably spend too much time on these behaviors. And so while waiting for the car to warm up before leaving classes last night…I ‘tested’ our finishes. Verbal or visual cues for both the left and right finishes. I need to move less. But I’m getting better! I think the Read more…