Flying Poodles

The nature of dog training

I’ve been watching a surprisingly large amount of dog training stuff… specifically, I’ve been watching Victoria Stillwell (It’s Me or the Dog). She’s actually a very good trainer, with a good grasp of both people and dog psychology. She figures out what people really want, tells them what to do to get there, and provides a reasonable amount of instruction in how to do what’s required.

What stuck in my brain from a few shows ago was the woman who said “oh, it’s nice to train the dog, it feels so good when they actually understand you and behave the way you want them to.”

Which is why I got into dog agility. Once I started training Elly and getting some reasonable responses from her, I enjoyed the feedback loop. That’s the one where the more you train, the more fun it is to train. (I have a friend who says that’s why she’s working on her advanced obedience titles.)

And once you start training regularly, things really do start to happen. I’m really pleased at the difference a year has made in Dancer’s contacts. She almost has a teeter performance. Regular training matters… now there’s a concept.

(At barn time today I lowered the teeter all the way to the lowest setting and Dancer was quite comfortable with that. Then I was working with Elly, with Dancer watching and barking with enthusiasm–she was in a major state today, just a ball of fire, we even worked on the 26″ tire–and Elly was running the low teeter and just slamming it down and barking for a treat. (I guess they were both on fire.) So I made sure Dancer was watching and counted out lots of treats for Elly while she did the teeter fast three times. Then I did the same exercise with Dancer (two jumps to the teeter) and got one very fast and enthusiastic teeter (at the lowest setting). Lots of treats and we were done for the day. Sibling rivalry.)