Gone to the Dogs

[heirloomgal]

and also there needs to be a reminder to every potential dog owner that the dogs you see in movies or on-line are usually well-trained and you're not seeing all the work through the years to get them to that point.

So true. A balanced, well mannered dog takes work. The amount of reps I have put into my dog with recall training now, thresholds, all the time put into the tricks. It took DD a full month of at least 2 or 3 sessions a day to get our dog into a back stall position - and it still took time after that for him to be comfortable with it. Doing it was one thing, looking like a pro doing it was another.

And then the underlying reality that everybody who has a dog is a dog trainer, it's a question of what you're training the dog to do when you don't think you're training anything. When I pivoted away from 'sessions' of specific training exercises and realized that all the daily interactions I was having with my dog was the the training, that was a gamechanger. When he gets in my car, when he gets out, when he wants to eat, everything is an opportunity to show him the correct way to behave.

I played a little game with my boy today where I had this tiny 2 inch bottle with a scented oil in it he dislikes. I slid it toward him slowly like snake, which his usually mute little self responded to with a bark. Each time he barked I made the 'snake' back up a little. His barking increased quickly the more effective it was on the 'snake'. Then I reversed course, each time he barked (he had been enjoying his bark power over this scary thing) the snake jumped toward him a little, he still tried using a bark to get it to back up but I kept moving it forward each time. Within about 20 seconds he realized the barks were no longer creating distance between him and the snake, they were now bringing it closer and closer! He got mute again pretty quick! How smart canines are is truly amazing!