Brito update

Go ahead and admit it; you’ve never seen such a cute little dog in your entire life:). Here we are working on some heeling, fronts, and the very beginnings of sit in heel position.  He is just beginning to hand me the metal scent article; separately he has...

Brito Ring Prep

I took Brito to his weekly ring prep class today.  A miracle happened. For two minutes and fifty three seconds, he stayed in the ring with me and focused on his job.  He did not run off to visit dogs outside of the ring.  He did not  leave work to look for a promising...

Brito: Balancing movement with control

The past few weeks I concentrated on a few things with Brito: Play with toys. That is coming along pretty well. Less good outside but hey, he’s  a baby. Play with me.  That also suffers outside, but still…we’ll get there. Retrieve.  Super!  Good boy...

Brito five months general training

Here is an eleven minute training session of Brito from this morning.  You can see a variety of things. Shaping with a dumbbell.  I normally hold it because he tends to put his feet on objects sitting on the floor.  That is not a habit that I want to encourage. (...

Brito – Training Day 5

For those who are worried that Lyra may have disappeared…no worries.  She’s doing very well and, if anything, has been rather brilliant this week. But…she’s getting to be a “trained” dog, which means there is less and less that I...

Brito home

  You can meet Brito in the following three videos.  I chopped out the 80% where he sort of wandered about and behaved much like a puppy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is0d9zZ7qnY (tug) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZOn_w2lnxk (beginning of heeling)...

Lyra – training update

It’s been a while since I posted a generic training video.  So you here you have it, unedited, full of mistakes (hers and mine) for your viewing pleasure. Note that Lyra is working for food.  I’m doing this for two reasons.  One, I want her to learn to...

Heeling Games!

Heeling games are simply fun ways to practice your heeling.  Basic heeling games involve some kind of movement – either vertical, horizontal or some type of trick behavior.  More advanced heeling games are a compilation of movement, patterns, surprises, opposition...

Ziva – Adding Distractions

The earlier you add disractions to your training, the better. This video shows Ziva learning to ignore distractions while heeling.  At 11 months of age,  Ziva’s heeling is pretty good but the reward schedule is quite high.  This is the best time to introduce...

Placement of Rewards

If you want beautiful heeling, there’s something you need to know. It’s more important than your reward structure.  It’s more important than verbal markers or clickers.  It’s more important than throwing corrections into your training....

Happy Birthday Lyra!

It’s Lyra’s birthday! In honor of Lyra, this is not a training blog; it is simply a training session to show where were at in terms of skills, play and drive when she trains at home. There are five videos here; they start as I take her out of the yard to...

Lyra – 8.5 months Heeling

As I worked Lyra’s heeling today, I was reminded of what a slow process it is to teach beautiful heeling.  Lyra has been heeling since she was ten weeks old, yet with six months of consistent training we still don’t work for more than ten or fifteen steps...

Lyra 6 months – distraction training

I do not consider distraction training to be a unique stage of training; it is part of the overall process.  Distraction training starts from the day I bring a puppy home, whether I wish to work on distractions or not. Regardless, there are periods in training where I...

Cisu – Working with a Metronome

Ms. Lyra managed to rip all of her pads off running around a wet pool deck, so she’s lying around looking very sad right now – no training until she’s chipper again. Ms. Cisu has offered to substititue in for a training blog today.  For those who are...

Lyra 4.75 months: my good dog is back – today anyway

Today I took Lyra for training with a few other trainers, and she was brilliant. She wasn’t afraid of anything.  She wasn’t hyper attracted to the other people and dogs present.  She needed very little sightseeing time before asking to work.  Her interest...

Lyra – Four months

Most of my training time with Lyra is really structured play – play that gets me the behaviors I want with maximum joy and energy. There are also a few skills that are more easily mastered when the dog is calm.  For these, I use food as the reward.  Food leads to a...

Lyra – 12 weeks of age

I’m switching from “time she’s been here” to “age” for the titles of my blog posts about Lyra.  Makes more sense over the long run. Lyra’s doing great!  Either her food drive is increasing or I’m doing a better job at...

The Beginnings of Pretty Heeling

In 500 words or less. 1) Have strict criteria.  Either your dog meets your criteria or he does not.  If you do not know what your criteria are, your dog will not succeed.  Do not reward your dog if the criteria are not met.  Either lower the criteria if you asked too...

Lyra Week 2 day 2

Either Lyra’s food drive just kicked in, or I’ll be purchasing Freeze Dried Turkey Hearts in bulk.  My friend gave me a few, and wow…..got some serious work out of her.  Check out her heeling with something delicious.  At the end I spent a bit of...

Lyra – Week 1, Day 4

Sleep is improving by the hour!  I still have to get up every few hours to let her potty, but the screaming is minimal now. Today she visited my son’s school.  We went early in the morning, so there were very few kids around.  After 10 minutes I took her home....

Finn – choosing to work

Here’s Finn, an adult Golden Retriever who already knows how to work in obedience.  He is now learning how to choose to work. Note the emphasis on choice.  In Finn’s first lesson with me, it took about three minutes before he even glanced at his trainer....