I have published a permanent page on my blog that collects all the posts and videos I have made that I have been told are useful for dog trainers to show their students.
It can be accessed here:
but also is listed on the permanent menu above. I hope it is helpful. I will be adding more material as I develop it.
Our Weekend
For those of you who saw my last post on practicing Rally with Summer and attempting to reinforce appropriately, here are some pictures of how we spent our weekend. We trial very infrequently for a number of reasons, so it is a big deal for me when we do.
On Saturday we both worked hard but it wasn’t fun like it can be. I tried hard to make it easy and fun for her, but there were various stressors. We held it together in a difficult ring with an 88 and fourth place.
But on Sunday it was magic. We had a lovely run, stayed connected, and Summer stayed happy despite the difficult trial environment. I am pleased with the sequence of photos below that show her eagerly taking the jump, then beautifully collecting and checking in on her landing (fourth photo).
We scored a 98 and took first place. My unlikely competitive obedience dog and I.
Congratulations! I’d say you scored 110% + in Summer’s eyes….you can see how happy she is and how much she adores pleasing you!
Congratulations to both of you!
Oh, yay! Wonderful!
Congratulations! Such a great example of how positive training works with supposedly hard to train breed/mixes. I hope you got to spread the word at the trial.
Thanks, Mary. The mixes are still pretty rare at shows, but there are getting to be more. Summer is so very mixed that she can’t pass as any particular breed, so she tends to stand out that way. It’s nice when she stands out by doing well, too!