Successes All Around
Moving into our last day of Critical Elements camp, I am a little sad to see it all end. It is so much fun being a student and we have such a great group of students -- we are all accomplishing a ton. Of the [...]
Feature at the World Agility Open Championships
Today I will go over some of my rounds at the WAO. Sadly for Encore all of my clean runs were with Feature -- that is no reflection on Encore whatsoever! The first run for Feature was Individual agility -- the first run in the [...]
Puppy Preocuppiedatiousness
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 [...]
Non Reward Markers: Reducing the Use
It seems everyone has a slightly different slant on their application of Non Reward Markers (NRMs) in training. Here is a little more on my approach. First of all, I never use them in training during a value building session (shaping). Actually, I rarely use [...]
Try On Those Snow Shoes!
Last week my friend Lynda and I went for a walk with the dogs. Yes the snow was close to a meter deep (that is about a yard for our American friends) but the dogs didn’t care -- they wanted their walk! Now walking up [...]
Is Good Dog Training Static or Dynamic?
We just wrapped up four days of puppy and young dog training. It started with our two day Advances in Dog Training (AiDT) and then rolled right into Critical Elements (the camp formerly known as puppy camp:)). As of January 2010 we now been honouring [...]
2×2 Weave Pole Training Discoveries
Recently I responded to a post on a forum about someone struggling with their 2x2 training and wondering what they did wrong (or perhaps was the method flawed and not appropriate for all dogs). Obviously I feel the method works wonderfully for all dogs but [...]
Progress Not Perfection
As many of you know I am pretty big into continuing education. I am constantly enrolled in some course trying to learn something. At this time of year I end up having more time to digest some of this great information. One of the coaching groups [...]
Colouring Outside the Lines
Yesterday I finished the last of 4 days teaching foundation handling workshops. A great group of enthusiastic students with a varied range of experience. Some handlers brand new to agility while others were coming back for a refresher after a year or so of trialing [...]
Ever So Close!
Well my last agility event for 2010 has been put to bed. Encore and I had the honour of representing Canada at the American Kennel Club Invitational last weekend. The annual event has 5 of the highest pointed dogs of each breed that competed in [...]
Lessons from Oz
Many years ago during my first trip to New Zealand I cracked up when I heard the handlers refer to a set of weave poles as the "weavers". The concept stuck with me and both Encore and Feature's weave cue for the weave poles is "w-e-a-v-e-r-s!". [...]
All the Answers Anyone Could Ever Need
Just in case you missed this very informative interview, I thought I would share. Enjoy! Today I am grateful for the enthusiastic dog trainers here in Australia.
