 Today I went back to the canal trail I visited with Luna last week with the “Young Guns”, Stark and Ella. It is definitely a new favorite, and it feels good to have a favorite place again. The day was warmer, but the trail was just as quiet as the last trip. For part of the stretch, I even let the dogs have a bit of off-leash time. It was a narrow, secluded area, one where I could easily see if others were joining us on the trail.
Whenever Stark is off-leash I marvel a little bit. He can be hard to “get rid of”, not underfoot, but never going far. On the rare occasions he gets an uncomfortable distance a quick call of his name calls him to bolt back towards me. Today he created his own game where he would run out a few yards full speed, turn on a dime and charge back to us, continually re-orienting. It’s a beautiful thing for someone that never felt comfortable letting her dogs run, no matter how secluded. When I was eleven our family dog was hit by a car and killed, in the mountains of all places. It left a lasting impact on me of the importance of always having control of your dog. No matter how safe you thought it was. I never expected to feel safe again, to trust myself and my dogs. Today we played, and I knew I didn’t have to worry. While Stark played his own game of environmental orientation Ella and I played an actual game of orientation, keeping her close and focused on me. We’ve been working hard on developing a natural proximity with her, similar to Stark’s. For him a leash is an accessory, a social requirement. She can still get a little excited, recalls on a dime, but wants to pull when she gets excited. So we played somewhere we had never played before, met with several impressive distractions, including splashing ducks that startled Stark (for half a second) and a cat. Both looked at the animals and back at me as we moved on. My dogs are starting to find novelty (intimate or not) optimistic, non-events and it is amazing. They’ve become flexible in new situations and find it easy to go with the flow. Again, all thanks to the games.
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 If you’re ready to start Ditching the Routine then its best to start with ditching something else - the bowl. Every morning we start the day with a pot of value, our dog’s daily food allowance. We can decide how to use that value, but too often we chose to put it in the bowl. Our dogs love their bowls, but we want them to find the value in our relationship. Instead of pouring their food away it becomes an almost endless currency (unless you have a tiny dog!) you can use to boost your relationship. Their food can be used for training, enrichment, or rewarding good choices.
 When you call your dog’s name do they come bounding towards you, meander back to your side (with or without some stops along the way), or seem to not hear you at all? Recall, or the ability for your dog to come when called is often regarded as one of the most important behaviors we train our dogs. It can be disaster avoiding when two unknown dogs are barreling toward each other or lifesaving when a dog is running into oncoming traffic. Yet it often remains one of the vaguest concepts for our dogs to learn and one many dog owners struggle with. In fact, most owners don’t realize what they want from a recall. When we are unsure what we want our dogs to do, how can we expect them to meet our expectations? |
Lisa QuibellOwner, Head Trainer ArchivesCategories
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