Okay, I will put a freeze on the cow stories for a bit:). I was at a trial today, I was there for less than an hour but I did speak to a student, Clare. Clare doesn’t live close by so we only see her for camps, but she does frequent a lot of camps so she knows our program very well. Clare always has the most profound and hysterical one-liners. She told me that she was enjoying my Training Tips that I have been sending out each day this month. She went on to say she hadn’t really learned any thing new in these tips, they just reminder her of all of the things she knew she ought to have been doing, but she had been sweeping under the carpet. Funny thing, I was speaking to one of my instructors, Tracy Sklenar, on the way to the trial and we were talking about a similar thing.  At every workshop there will be students that may struggle. They have been at a camp or seminar previously and are coming for follow up help. Lets say they are challenged to doing rear crosses because their dog will not drive ahead. The first thing I ask them is to show me their Crate Games. I want to see how much motivation there is for the dog to leave the handler and drive head towards something of value . . . “oh yeah, yeah, I know I should do more of that, but what else can you suggest?”  Now this just cracks me up. The success of my program is based on the a solid foundation of fundamentals. Yes, there are other ways to teach a rear cross but I really don’t think there are any easier ways!  Similarly I was talking to a someone that is getting a new puppy and I suggested he come to puppy camp. He would really like to he said, but he thinks he will save the dough and just bring the puppy to a handling camp when he is older.  There are lots of different ways up a hill, but personally I think you can be playing the games that create the focus and understanding that will carry you up that hill a lot easier.

I am so grateful that difficult tasks can be make easy by the rehearsal of the simple ones.