Skip to main content

Here I go again!!!

Tazie in a basket
Tazie 2007
Training a service dog is not easy, and only 1 in 10 actually make good service dogs. It's a very hard road to training a service dog.  There are days when my mental energy is so low that I just can't push through.  Just getting out of bed in the morning is more than I feel like I can handle some times.  I have a wonderful support system in my husband and friends though.  I know that there is a reason that this is my calling and the more I devote to it the more I love it.  
Marley & Yadi

I was very lucky with my first service dog Tazie.  I lost my hold on a lot of things when I lost my Tazie.  I felt that my connection to dog training had just been cut off as he was my partner.  He taught me that I could do things on my own if I would just trust myself the way he trusted me.  He was always up for learning, but then again maybe I was always up for training him, we were a good team that way.
I finally got around to trying again with Yadi. He however did not have the right personality.  He is feisty and barks at bigger dogs.  Though he did help me get back part of my love of training.  We did a great deal of tricks training and he even became an Intermediate Tricks dog.

Marley
I thought I might have a better chance with my sweet Marley but she likes to sleep when we are not moving and I don't think she will pay much attention to me and to what I need her to pay attention, to the subtle changes in my mood or the change in my breath that denotes a migraine coming on.

I've had an opportunity to add a beautiful little girl to our family.  So I'm going to work with her and pray that she is able to give me back the relief and confidence that Tazie used to.
So hopefully little Sidda will help me get back to who I used to be and what I used to love.  I am hopeful as I start training more with her and with the corgi kids that I'll find that love and passion I used to have for training again.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Positive Changes of Dog Training

In the last century dog training has been under going an evolution of sorts.  It wasn’t so long ago that the lexicon of dog training included words like punishment, compulsion and Intimidation.  The tools of the trade where things designed to inflict pain and cruelty as a way of training dogs to do or not do things the handlers wanted.  Dogs were punished with ear pinches and the like, if they didn’t perform the desired behaviors.  The idea of training a dog was to break the dog of some bad habit it had.   One of the forefathers of scientific study into dog behavior was Edward Thorndike (1874-1949).  He studied the effect of positive reinforcement on dog behavior.  Thorndike called his study the Law of Effect.  His study put forth the idea that the key to understanding how to train dogs was to understand canine behavior.  Behaviors that produce an effect that is desirable are ones that a dog is more likely to repeat, whereas behaviors...
1 comment
Read more

The Kona Diaries - Secondary Fear Stage and Vet Visits

This morning I had a plan.  I was going to take Kona to Hollywood Feed for some social interactions.  Since spending all this time at home with the COVID-19 Shutdown, she has regressed a lot on her social skills.  My intention was to do some filming of her while we were out, however that was quickly abandoned.  At first, she did pretty well, she walked with me and would every now and then forge ahead of me but would come back to heel when I asked.  Not once did she try to take anything off the shelves though.  I was very proud.  As we made a loop around to the front counter she caught sight of this sign spinning in the air and she just lost it.  She never once barked at it but she crouched down and her legs were shaking.  We have definitely had a setback.  After a nap to try and get some relief from a migraine that had started making me feel sick, I went out with the pups and found a huge blood smear on my patio at first I thought Ko...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Plan without Goals, is just a Dream.

It takes time, patience and dedication to train your dog. Think of it as a journey.  When you go on a road trip, you need a plan and an idea of where you want to go and what you are going to do when you get there. You most likely would have planned out your route and got your map ready on your gps.  Granted there are some that just say "Let's get in the car and just drive".  I however, am NOT one of those people.  Dog training is also not one of the things that can fall under that free for all mindset either.  You need to know what it is you are going to be teaching over all so that you don't shoot yourself in the foot.  So I have two in-board service dogs that I am training.  They are both young retriever puppies and love having something in their mouth.  It's not always the things they are allowed to carry in their mouths.  I heard my husband saying to one of them Leave it. I looked and she had my slipper in her mouth.  My normal res...
Post a Comment
Read more