Image via Wikipedia I haven’t posted anything here since I posted the tribute to Casey, a few days after I put him down on June 9. It wasn’t because I haven’t been writing – I have – but writing about dogs other than writing about events has been really, really hard. I’ve spent most of [...]
I commented today (twice) on a blog written by Laurie Luck called the Smart Dog blog, on a post called “A surprising look at balanced dog training.” Many trainers become familiar with operant conditioning at some point in their training lives – and the shorthand for positive reinforcement (R+), negative reinforcement (R-), positive punishment (P+) [...]
People love rules. And dog trainers love routines. Can you remember those old obedience class homework handouts: practice 15 automatic sits, heel forward with three left turns and three right turns, practice two fasts and two slows, practice sit/stay for three minutes and down/stay for five minutes on lead with distractions. I can. Taped each [...]
Madison and I have been working on her play skills – every day, a couple encouraged and praised tosses and retrieves of her favorite toy, the ginormous Nylaknot left in the toybox by the gordon setters. I’m still focused on trying to reward the right behavior (and not commit CRAP training – constantly rewarding ‘almost’ [...]
It happened so fast that I couldn’t capture it on film. I said, as I’ve said to the southern belle several times a day for the last 38 months, ‘Where’s your toy? Go get a toy!’ Tweet
Syracuse Dog Training