Dog Trainer's Log

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!’ [Read the rest of this entry...]

Image via Wikipedia

Syracuse Obedience Training Club, Inc. will be hosting its second annual Doggone Good Day on Saturday (tomorrow, January 23) from 9a.m. to 4 p.m. at their training building, 6392 Deere Road, Syracuse NY.

Activities at this event are specially planned to help the public meet owners and dogs of various dog breeds, representatives of local dog clubs and rescue groups; see dog activities demonstrated; and explore different dog supply and dog food vendors. Special events will include: [Read the rest of this entry...]

Image by State Library of New South Wales collection via Flickr

Big conformation classes can last for a half-hour or more. Even though smaller classes are shorter, a dog that wins his individual breed class has a long stretch to look forward to in the Winners ring. At specialities, Best of Breed classes, aka ‘intersex,’ can run 50-75 dogs, and often end up being split into multiple sections. Those are the kinds of classes where Madison, Ch. Kabree Mad About You, learned her default behavior: stand-still-look-pretty (SSLP.) [Read the rest of this entry...]

Image via Wikipedia

Strong and flexible butt/lower back muscles are critical for working dogs – but especially for performance dogs who face 15-20 agility obstacles which must be leapt over, climbed and descended in every course, and many times that number in every practice. My Madi is a pretty square little southern belle, and she sometimes isn’t quite as flexible nor are her rear and lower back as strong and muscled as I’d like them to be. Those weaknesses show up in her preference to jump 12 or 14″ rather than 16, and when she doesn’t quite make it from the floor to the back arm of the couch, or struggles just past the mid-point of an A-frame climb. If she doesn’t have enough space to get up a good head of steam going into that frame, when she can’t get enough momentum, her little butt sometimes struggles with the task. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Here at American Spaniel Club’s winter specialty in Philadelphia, I’ve been having a great time watching dogs and catching up with people I usually only get to see once a year.

Good Rally Excellent and Advanced courses – not such a hot Novice Rally course, which didn’t use the ring space efficiently. Finally got the three steps & sits sign in Advanced … howEVER Princess M. had gone directly back in time to her stand-still, look-pretty behaviors from 2007, her very first outing in a Spaniel Club performance event.

I haven’t had to pick her up off a course in months, but yesterday we left the course after sign 8 (or was it 9?) No sense reinforcing the no-sit behavior that I don’t want to continue.

Pictures from the front later…