6 whole weeks of Snickers and we’ve come SO far! That nub is nearly vibrating on a daily basis. She loves to engage in play, she is enjoying our adventures away from “home”, and she’s loving our time of learning. We’ve have built an incredible relationship fueled by love and respect. Since I don’t have a magical crystal ball telling me the outcome of my training dogs, I really wasn’t sure what to expect from Snickers based on our first week. I certainly didn’t expect what I’ve gotten from her and I’m more than pleased with the outcome 🩷
The coolest thing about dog training: you can eff up and start over as many times as you need to until you get it right. I purchased my first German Shepherd in January of 2023. I was very new, very green as a sport dog handler. I was (I still am!) in awe of those insanely talented handlers with flashy, fun dogs! We worked our tails off together to earn his first title by October. It was pretty awesome for what we were able to accomplish together in a very short amount of time. Now, we’re 1.5 years together, and I’m all the way back to the basics, working on cleaning up his füss with food luring 🤷♀️ it’s actually fun to “retrain” with my new knowledge and learning base. Moral of the story, everything you do is a learning process. If you don’t like the end result, go back to the start line and try a new approach. Your dog won’t judge you, they’ll just be happy you’re playing with them!
Reaux loves pup cups from Full Moon Brew Bar 😋
Snickers enjoys a nice roll in the warm grass 🥰
Zeus has also been working on his boundaries of the property, gaining more freedom and his skills of playing and socializing with other dogs. All things he has been excelling at! I love, LOVE when our dogs grow so confident and understanding that they can have more freedom to run and play, and are not just limited to the fenced in play yard. It’s my absolute favorite thing 🥰
Snickers being the best girl on place while we have a kitchen full of people here! 🩷
Lucy’s a show off 😂 but it’s a beautiful day for some fetch!
How it started vs how it’s going
Snickers is giving me more nubby wags every day 🥰
This mornings, I was recording some videos of Diesel interacting and successfully being around other dogs. I was so excited to share this with his owners because they have seen a less ideal side of him, an aggressive side of him. I thought “wow, nearly 3 weeks and we’ve come THIS far!” We really have come a long ways — we need to give credit where credit is due. But moments after this video, Diesel & my GSD got into a pretty nasty scuffle & it took some serious effort to get them apart 😓 thankfully, they’re all okay! Anyhow, I watched these videos back and realized how inappropriate and rude Diesel was actually being towards Huey and trying to steal his toy. I was correcting him for it and helping redirect but it wasn’t enough for him to take the hint. I wanted to share this because transparency is a huge piece of the puzzle for me. I don’t work some crazy miracles, I don’t sprinkle some magic dust and the dogs just behave. But I am well versed in dog behavior and body language. I can read the room when I’m with dogs and I can advocate where it’s needed. To most, Diesel’s behavior looks playful and probably cute. In the dog translation, it’s annoying and rude. If this were a puppy doing this to its mom, she would correct him pretty harshly and he likely wouldn’t try it again. One of my friends said today: proper socialization is invaluable . And she is 100000% right. The reality of my life, my job is sometimes I have to break up dog fights 🤷♀️ sometimes I have to share the ugly truth with clients because I’m not here to work miracles. Sometimes I have to fail in order to succeed. Every case is different from the next, as is every outcome. This morning was less than ideal, but I love that I can learn from the experience and have another new approach to apply to a future case, because I’m sure there will be more like this in my career span. No matter what happened, there’s so much to learn and understand from this short cli
Diesel continued to work on his behaviors when bikers go by us on the trail. Even received compliments 😇
Day 1 vs Day 3 (part 2) with snickers
Day 1 vs Day 3 with Snickers
Diesel and I made our training session extra fun tonight! Play can be rewards too 👻