Conversations with a Dog Trainer

Little Red It’s been quiet the busy week so far.  Monday was a cold and wet day so I stayed inside with the Doodle Bug Puppies.  While working with teach them to walk on a leash, I tripped over a rug and fell.  So I was very sore but oh what sweet babies.  They are 6 weeks old now and have taken well to sitting with a lure and even offering a Sit from time to time.  They do a Down really well and are starting to respond to Come even without playing the name game.  Tuesday I took it easy because I was so sore but Wednesday saw us working a full day.   First pup of the day was a little Frenchie named Rogan, we were working on public access skills and learning to ignore things such as food dropping to the floor and Ms. Riley.  Other ladies sitting at a table near us who he just knew if he could get over to them, they would give him lots of loving.  He did amazing though as he always does, and within a few times of practicing each beha...

There are days when my own issues get to me and get in the way of training.  It's all I can do something to hold it together, something causes me to cry and I can barely hold back the floodgates.   Yesterday one of those days.  Our training was mostly centered around the issues that we have been having at home. We started off this morning with having a battle of wills for lack of a better word with Riley.  When I'm fixing everyones breakfast I put their bowls on the counter and put their food in the bowls then add the probiotic and then a hip and joint supplement for the Corgis.  Then everyone has to go to their places and then I put their food bowls down and they get to eat.  Well Ms Riley decided she didn't want to wait this morning and barked at me the whole time.  She jumped up and knocked her food bowl off.  But instead of letting her eat any of it off the floor, I told her to "Leave it" every time she went near it.  I gave Yadi his bo...

Yesterday was a very light day for me, I was feeling under the weather as it was cold and wet and the barometric pressure was up pretty high with the rain front moving though.  My head was aching, but I went to breakfast with the hubs which is something we try to do to do on his off days cause we really don't get much time together these days.  Then we went to visit mom at the Nursing home, which is always a stressful time in which I really wish I could have Riley with me, but I'm not sure how they look at that, since they are a state run nursing home and don't even allow therapy dogs to come in.  I'm not sure if they would allow service dogs.  I spent most of the time there writing yesterday's blog so that I could keep my mind occupied on something other than how stressed I was. Later in the afternoon I had an appointment with Aspen one of my Therapy dogs in training.  Our main focus was her not forging ahead of her mom.  Leash walking can be such a sour...

Yesterday was a good, but frustrating day for training Riley.  She is so good at some things and so annoying at others, but that’s why we are training.  We started our day out at Starbucks for a coffee and some quiet downtime before my day of training started. She settled into a spot between my chair and the window and laid down to watch the world go by as I did some light reading and enjoyed my coffee.  She got lots of stairs and smiles and one guy even asked if he could take her picture.  I didn’t mind because at least he asked.  She behaved herself very nicely I was super proud.   One of the things best things I was happy to see was that traffic didn’t phase her in the least.  As we crossed two busy intersections she happily stayed right with me in our heel position, and stopped when I did.      She didn’t care to walk in the rain at all, however every puddle we came to she wanted to drink it dry.  So we had to do a lot of ...