Puppy Play Outside!

Posted on 03/14/11 14 Comments

Over the weekend Swagger got to have his sixth visit with his stand-in siblings the PineBank Labrador Retrievers. It was, once again, a great improvement upon his last two visits this time showing great confidence and less aggressive play with the group. He did more running about they actual wrestling and arguing. He is definitely [...]

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Count This!

Posted on 03/10/11 20 Comments

Mr. Swagger has some new things for you all to count today. Naughtypants! See how many unwanted behaviours you can find in this short clip. You can see where the foundation of a lot of unwanted behaviours starts so young. This puppy could easily grow up to be a dog that will not come when [...]

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Swagger Working Calming Signals

Posted on 03/08/11 19 Comments

Swagger had his fourth play date with the Labrador puppies.   It was by far the best to date. Many “firsts” were shown during yesterdays play date. For the first time in four visits he actually allowed the Labs to put him on his back and play with them from this position. What was really [...]

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Swagger’s Early Education

Posted on 03/06/11 25 Comments

This is a video I posted to my FaceBook page a couple of days ago. It shows Swagger with his new toy (which is a great confidence building toy for puppies). At the end it shows how I start my puppy’s jump training.   Swagger turns 5 weeks old today, hard to believe really!   [...]

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Lessons in Frustration, Recovery and NRMs

Posted on 03/04/11 14 Comments

Following up on my last post on NRMs I mentioned  that the only place I really use one in my training is when the lack of information will create an expectancy of reinforcement for my dog. I mentioned the teaching of weave poles as one place that a NRM is critically important. The other place [...]

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Socializing the Singleton Puppy: Swagger’s Big Adventures

Posted on 02/27/11 52 Comments

I think I have neglected you blog readers a bit by posting a lot of my updates about Swagger on my new Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/SusanGarrettDogAgility). So today I am going overboard, with this mega- blog post. And yes, I promised to get back to our talk on NRM this week:). As you can see in [...]

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Swagger Turns Three Weeks Old!

Posted on 02/21/11 15 Comments

Great conversation about non reward punishers over the past week or so. More on that later. For those of you not on facebook I thought I would post a few new pictures and videos of Feature’s little boy “Swagger.”  He turned three weeks old yesterday and is a whopping five lbs! He is totally living [...]

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What IS Ideal Meaning of A NRM?

Posted on 02/17/11 35 Comments

Now to answer an unanswered question from last week; when exactly DO I use a NRM? The answer is I only use a NRM if, by not using one, the dog can earn reinforcement. Routinely I can only think of two examples in my training (in the value testing stage) where that may occur. The [...]

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Puppy Preocuppiedatiousness

Posted on 02/16/11 26 Comments

Feature’s puppy has taken over my life. I just can’t get any work done he is sooo darn cute, I can just sit and watch him all day long . . . and I do! He is no longer going by his puppy name of “Sid the Kid.” As cute as it was, he grew [...]

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Getting Un-Stuck While Shaping

Posted on 02/10/11 22 Comments

To follow up on a comment written on  yesterday’s blog; what do we do when we are shaping one thing but our dogs get “stuck” offering something she already knows. My first choice is to set things up in my favor to avoid this from ever happening.  Two big things that will help are; Your [...]

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