Whoo! I have been very occupied lately. Working full time...education full time...and training!
My Zeke is improving in leaps and bounds!! For those of you who don't know, Z has been quite a handful. As a pup he was perfect, with the exception of a bit of separation anxiety(which we tackled). He learned many commands very quickly, and flawlessly. Then came puppyhood, and my unbelievably intelligent, laid-back sweetheart turned into a ball of energy with a non-existant attention span, despite consistent training and exercise. Even the professionals told me they'd seen some get kind of "dumb" around the adolescent age, but never have total regression. ALL of his tricks were forgotten(or eaten up by his newfound excitedness). So...I kept working, with the pros telling me I had been doing everything right all along and I couldn't possibly do anything more....to no avail. No improvements. Not even small ones. At my wit's end, I decided to give him some time off. Every time I tried to pick back up--same results. So, despite all my instincts and knowledge, I decided to simply let him mature. Then came fear aggression issues, which we are still working on, prey drive work, which we are still working on...
And through the recent guidance of a new trainer friend who I happened upon completely by sheer luck, we've started up again. I started talking to her about him a few weeks after some great progress, and she gave me some more advice. Yay!
Zeke is even learning faster than my dear Mudflap!
Mud is improving as always. We're laying off the new tricks a bit to advance the other ones. She too has met my new trainer buddy who loves her. ^^ I'm so glad she's such an easy dog to train. A very sweet reprieve from my less than simple Zeke boy. :doghappy: Rusty hasn't learned anything new as of yet...still working out some kinks in his dog aggression that we are constantly working to improve. He's doing good though.
Along with my own dogs, I've taken on two more. One is a paying customer, the other is my boyfriend. The customer is a relative of one of my coworkers. The dog is an 8-month old female short-coated BC. A gorgeous little tricolor with a short attention span but a real desire to please people. In our very first session together, we perfected her rusty sit, learned down, come, and would walk almost flawlessly at a loose-leash heel. (Not obedience heel---simply stayed at my side in proper position.) My boyfriend was with me at the time and Misty would even listen to him for any command. She does very well with switching trainers! For such a young dog and of her breed, she did wonderful considering the environment---I am going to the owners house and walking her to a nearby field. The field however is immediately next to houses with barking dogs, busy traffic, and at that time we shared it with some teenagers having a game of football at the other end. Way to go Misty!
My boyfriend just got an 8-month old Boxer puppy, male. He's adorable!! Very cute, laid-back, and sweet as can be. I'll be training him as well. I think he's going to be relatively easy. He's going to be fairly new to me...the last non-BC pup I trained was Rusty, and that was 4-5 years ago!! Lol. So...he's going to be simple, moderately smart, and extremely calm in comparison to my BC buddies. Haha...perhaps this will be nice for me. His first day of training begins either tomorrow or the day after, and I will be sure to post on his progress. :dogsmile:
My Zeke is improving in leaps and bounds!! For those of you who don't know, Z has been quite a handful. As a pup he was perfect, with the exception of a bit of separation anxiety(which we tackled). He learned many commands very quickly, and flawlessly. Then came puppyhood, and my unbelievably intelligent, laid-back sweetheart turned into a ball of energy with a non-existant attention span, despite consistent training and exercise. Even the professionals told me they'd seen some get kind of "dumb" around the adolescent age, but never have total regression. ALL of his tricks were forgotten(or eaten up by his newfound excitedness). So...I kept working, with the pros telling me I had been doing everything right all along and I couldn't possibly do anything more....to no avail. No improvements. Not even small ones. At my wit's end, I decided to give him some time off. Every time I tried to pick back up--same results. So, despite all my instincts and knowledge, I decided to simply let him mature. Then came fear aggression issues, which we are still working on, prey drive work, which we are still working on...
And through the recent guidance of a new trainer friend who I happened upon completely by sheer luck, we've started up again. I started talking to her about him a few weeks after some great progress, and she gave me some more advice. Yay!
Zeke is even learning faster than my dear Mudflap!
Mud is improving as always. We're laying off the new tricks a bit to advance the other ones. She too has met my new trainer buddy who loves her. ^^ I'm so glad she's such an easy dog to train. A very sweet reprieve from my less than simple Zeke boy. :doghappy: Rusty hasn't learned anything new as of yet...still working out some kinks in his dog aggression that we are constantly working to improve. He's doing good though.
Along with my own dogs, I've taken on two more. One is a paying customer, the other is my boyfriend. The customer is a relative of one of my coworkers. The dog is an 8-month old female short-coated BC. A gorgeous little tricolor with a short attention span but a real desire to please people. In our very first session together, we perfected her rusty sit, learned down, come, and would walk almost flawlessly at a loose-leash heel. (Not obedience heel---simply stayed at my side in proper position.) My boyfriend was with me at the time and Misty would even listen to him for any command. She does very well with switching trainers! For such a young dog and of her breed, she did wonderful considering the environment---I am going to the owners house and walking her to a nearby field. The field however is immediately next to houses with barking dogs, busy traffic, and at that time we shared it with some teenagers having a game of football at the other end. Way to go Misty!
My boyfriend just got an 8-month old Boxer puppy, male. He's adorable!! Very cute, laid-back, and sweet as can be. I'll be training him as well. I think he's going to be relatively easy. He's going to be fairly new to me...the last non-BC pup I trained was Rusty, and that was 4-5 years ago!! Lol. So...he's going to be simple, moderately smart, and extremely calm in comparison to my BC buddies. Haha...perhaps this will be nice for me.
His first day of training begins either tomorrow or the day after, and I will be sure to post on his progress. :dogsmile: