Gone to the Dogs

[Shades-of-Oregon]

 

[Marie2020]

 

[Marie2020]

Does she really sleep like that!?

The woman in the video, what she's describing in dog training lingo is called 'working under threshold'. It is super popular in the circles right now. So much I'd love to say about that lol, but, it's much like my daughter at 3 years old when I forced her into swimming lessons. She hated the water, in a big way, hated putting her head under which was required in her tiny tot class. She did not want to go for quite a while. Surprising to me as I was a fish at her age. But I absolutely forced it because I wanted to drown proof her; one of the nicknames for where we live is city of lakes.

Fast forward to now, and as a teenager, her passion in life became swimming. We never stopped lessons/pool fitness all these years, and now she's on the verge of becoming a scuba diver. Her skills are truly incredible and she loves it in a way I could never have imagined. Working dogs under threshold prevents them from ever gaining confidence. If I had let my daughter not go because she hated it, she'd never be where she is now and its much the same with dogs and their operational thresholds. And even if you shelter a dog from being above threshold there is always gonna be places where you can't avoid it, like the vet. Their world tends to get smaller and smaller.

Being in so many classes and seminars, I've seen many dogs who were extremely reactive totally stop, it really isn't a permanent part of the dog, which is why I don't believe in working dogs under threshold. Keeps people and their dogs stuck. And many of those reactive dogs I saw were also dog killers, and that totally stopped too. They just need the right feedback to stop the behavior. (That said though, I don't think leashed dogs should ever meet under any circumstances, the leash is too problematic. And definitely no loose dogs either!)

We have the DNA results in. This might explain a lot more of her behaviour as well as all I have shared

 

[Marie2020]

50% Border Collie
31% Boxer
11%Staffy
3% Bearded Collie
3% Springer Spaniel

My little princess