Do you NEED Engagement Training?

Engagement training is the very specific training process where responsibility for starting and pushing for work is transferred from the human to the dog.  That is different than having an “engaged dog, which could happen with no specific training at all. Do you...

Selecting Criteria

Two weeks ago I talked about criteria – decide what is important to you and hold the line. Now I’m going to tell you one more thing, since it might appear that I have a lot of criteria for one young dog.  In reality, I only have one criteria for Lyra. I...

Training Criteria – proofing

Last week I talked about my criteria for trialing.  Many of you will be surprised to learn that I was only holding her to one criteria – the fact that she did excellent work was a bonus.  I’ll get back to that topic in another week or so. This week...

Play – Give and Take

Today I began my student’s lesson with the following directive: “Heel with your dog for two minutes without using a food or toy reward.  You may talk, play, put hands on, and make the heeling as interesting as possible.  At the end of two minutes, you may...

Cisu – The Normal One

It’s Cisu’s turn in the limelight. She’s will remind some people of their own dogs because she’s rather typical of “dog”. Cisu has many interests, of which I am only one.  She enjoys food and toys and exploring.  She likes humans...

Two and a half dogs – Juno

I’d like to introduce the current canine members of my household – not only are they a huge part of my life, but  each has contributed greatly to my current ideas about training for competition. My plan was to start with Cisu; after all, she is the oldest....