Fair week

We've been busy with the Winneshiek County Fair this week. We have a booth set up for the Good Dog Center and have been enjoying visiting with past customers as well as new ones. Noah and Sula have accompanied us at the booth and have been very well-behaved, enjoying the extra attention from everyone. We also helped with the UITC demonstrations yesterday and spoke to the public about kid/dog safety, puppy training and other common behavioral issues. Noah did an obedience demonstration and even remembered his hand signal training from Utility years ago. I'm looking forward to three more days of the fair and socializing at the booth.

Irresponsible dog owners

While walking our dogs at the community prairie the other day, we ran into a friend and dog training client of ours who said to be on the look out for a large yellow Lab. She had been walking her two dogs, one of whom she recently adopted from rescue and is quite timid, when she was approached (this is a nice way of putting it - the dog was at a dead run) by a Lab running loose, no owner in sight. Eventually she spied the owner who had no verbal control over his dog at all. The dog ended up chasing her new rescue dog half way across the prairie before she was able to get him away. She has been working for months building her dog's confidence and thanks to one very irresponsible owner, all that work may be undone. I also recently had a similar, but not so damaging, experience when we were approached by four loose dogs (a cocker and 3 jack russells). All three terriers charged my dogs, barking and growling. I put my dogs in a down stay (if I didn't have this skill they wouldn't be off leash in a public place) and body blocked the charging dogs repeatedly. When the dogs' owner eventually appeared I was polite but blunt about her having her dogs off leash, for her own dogs' safety. While we can't always control the actions of others, we can be responsible for our own dog's training. Having reliable stays under very distracting circumstances can prevent a dog fight from occuring and is a good preventative measure against irresponsible, or uninformed, dog owners.

Alternative medicine for dogs

I am curious what experience all of you have had with alternative medicine for your dogs. Noah has always suffered with seasonal allergies and we've tried a lot of different possible solutions but very few things make any bit of difference, short of steroids which I won't do. Last year we tried a Chinese herbal blend and saw a remarkable improvement in his symptoms. They weren't completely alleviated but it was enough to take the edge off and keep him from getting a staph infection due to relentless scratching. I wish I'd discovered it years ago. Has anyone tried an alternative flea and tick remedy that actually works? I don't like regularly putting frontline on the dogs but during flea and tick season in the fall and spring we usually treat them. This year we've found several engorged (live) ticks on the dogs within 1-2 weeks after the frontline application and I've heard a few others remarking about the same thing on their own dogs. From what I understand the frontline is supposed to kill the ticks within 24 hours. Any thoughts?

Plateau periods in training

I've run into this often with my own dogs and we see it regularly in classes, and it is something to keep in mind when working with your own dogs. When learning new skills dogs seem to hit a plateau period that often happens around week 5 of training. This is a period where their progress seemingly comes to a dead halt or sometimes even back-slides a bit. This can be a frustrating time for owners that are working hard with their dogs and seeing regular progress. If your dog hits a plateau period, back up in your training for a couple of weeks by going back to easier exercises, or at least not continuing forward with more difficult skills. Within a few weeks your dog will be back to normal and will be able to pick up right where they left off originally. You can expect this to happen whenever you teach several new skills to your dog and the good news is, it's normal! :-)

Back in the swing of things...

I apologize to everyone for our lack of activity this month. We'll be back on schedule now with regular posting. An upcoming event tomorrow to attend is a PAW fundraiser in Decorah to raise money for emergency veterinary costs for rescued animals, including a recent dog that needed major surgery. The craft sale is held at the fairgrounds in Decorah from 9-3.

The Good Dog Center has been busy with spring classes and agility season starting up again. Spring classes are my favorite because the people and dogs are both usually rearing to go, anxious to get out in the nice weather. This mid-60s weather is my favorite, warm enough for short sleeves and not too hot for the dogs. In addition to the increased outdoor regular exercise, spring also means more for dog training like tracking and weight pull practices for our own dogs, two of our favorite dog sports. My birthday present to myself this month was a new weight pull harness for Noel (what makes us dog people happy....). Of course the other part of our business is grooming and this time of year means twice as many calls with everyone wanting to get in yesterday.

I hope everyone has been enjoying the wonderful weather with their dogs!

Cross-training

I realize that trying to prepare for more than one sport can be overwhelming at times--I know that I have been guilty of trying to do too much with my dogs--so much so that it has taken some of the fun out of training and competing (not to mention has made me less patient with my dogs). However, especially for those who compete in obedience, doing some other sport like agility can really help both you and your dog enjoy training. Obedience is difficult and requires a lot of thinking for both dog and handler. It's not inherently enjoyable. I know that I have to consciously work at making obedience training fun so that my dogs will not get overly stressed or bored--I want them to enjoy it. I am struggling now with my Amstaff, China, who has completely shut down in the obedience ring--this has a lot to do with the fact that I put too much pressure on her in our training--a mistake I really don't want to repeat.

On the other hand, agility for many dogs is self-rewarding. The dogs get to run and jump and go through tunnels--I mean running through a tunnel at top speed--come on that even sounds fun to me. Doing something different like this--mixing it up a little bit--will keep training enjoyable and interesting. When you and your dog are having fun training together, your relationship will improve significantly. One last anecdote from my own experience. Paloma, my 10-year-old Aussie, use to completely blow me off in the obedience ring. We barely managed to get our CD after which I vowed I would never do obedience again (that was 6 years ago and I'm still doing it)--so we took a break and did agility which she absolutely loves. About two years later I returned to the obedience ring with her--she finished her CDX with her best score yet--a 195.5--a great accomplishment for us as a team. I'm convinced that our agility training--something we really enjoyed doing together--played a significant role in improving our working relationship.

Just some thoughts.....oh, and sorry we haven't posted for awhile.

Scott

Good Reading

One of the things that Carmen and I love to do is read books about dogs--dog behavior, dog memoirs, dog sports, dog breeds, etc. So I thought that I would share a couple of my favorites every now and then and hope that you will do so as well.

To start off I would highly recommend two books about dog training:

1. Patricia McConnell's The Other End of the Leash: Why We do What We Do Around Dogs
This book not only talks about the importance of positive dog training, but also how we as "primates" think differently about, and therefore interact differently with, the world from our canine companions. It really gives some good insight into how dogs think about the world.

2. Suzanne Clothier's If a Dog's Prayer Were Answered...Bones Would Rain from the Sky. This is absolutely my favorite book. Not only does it talk about training, but it suggests that working with our dogs reveals things--the good and the bad--about our character. She espouses a kind of "zen" dog training. This is as much a philosophy of life book as a training manual.

More to come later...Again I would love to hear about some of your favorite dog books.

Scott