Moments of Brilliance

A thread for all those small moments of brilliance that just make you want to gush somewhere.


My moment: Other dogs are currently our kryptonite. He sees them and just kinda ends up like this:


So the neighbors whose fence line runs the driveway recently adopted a dog aggressive bully mix who explodes everytime he's out and we're in the driveway. If my guys are offleash at the time, this results in fence fighting. ARG.

Anyway, today we were walking back into the house and passing through the driveway offleash and said dog started barking..... but mine RECALLED! I was so excited I literally dropped everything to run in the house and JACKPOT! I didn't have treats on me so getting into the house required another recall, which he did! Then after we went outside with more treats and worked the far end of the driveway while the other dog was barking. Full attention. Then we heeled down the driveway and back. Mostly full attention. I didn't want to push it anymore than that, as I was just so estatic! He's just so awesome it hurts.

Rider has been having a lot of trouble adjusting to the new schedule and has been quite the fool lately; however, he kicked butt on our heeling session today. He hasn't been that in tune with me in a while and you could tell he was loving it. Harlow is bratty as always, no worthy news for her.

But my squid gets big news! She's just coming along so dang nice. She's out of her last fear stage completely now and it completely cool with everything. We went on about an hour long walk through the woods last night, then did OB, THEN DJEtzel played some disc with her and she was just go-go-go, no slacking on drive because she was tired. Then today we went out and did some impulse control stuff with the flirt pole, worked through distractions of toys in hand and using our brain for discrimination. We worked on some wraps and sends and just had a bunch of fun. Now she's self settling in the house. Love her!

That's awesome on both fronts! Go Rider! And Go Tulsa!

I want to start disc, it seems like such a great thing for days where you have little time and just want to play in the yard with your dog. Maybe one of these days I will actually actually start introducing the disc I bought last winter. HaHa.

Yay for both of you!

I'm lacking a brilliance moment in our current trick. For the last few nights I've been trying to teach Cbone to run out behind a ball and face me/the ball waiting for the next cue. I mistakenly taught him to push the ball with his nose first, so now he thinks staying still behind the ball instead of pushing it is stupid. It sounded so simple and I'm getting frustrated. I'm just rushing the steps--increasing the distance too much and removing the target too soon...but gosh, he normally is so good at mind reading

Hank is incredible.

We haven't done much real training but on the play front he is already dropping it, biting things, sitting, fetching, lying down... All on cue. And he is even sitting any time he wants something. His recall on a long line is fantastic.

He is really neat. So devoted to me already. So so so smart. It's a different kind of smart though than Mia. Mia is sneaky in it for herself smart. Hank is trying to figure out all the rules smart.

Hank is so quite compared to any dog ive had. And so intense. He is very serious and thoughtful and then on the other hand he'll be an over the top slamming into walls and wildly jumping furniture moron. But like... Mia and Summer are happy bouncy a lot and Hank isn't. He is happy and bouncy but in a serious way? Gah I can't even describe it.

Suffice it to say he's a conundrum to me. So over the top wild and silly and so serious and smart on the other. I have neve had a dog train faster. It's like he reads my mind. Just show him what to and he will do it religiously. He even in 2 car trips went from being scared to loading up when asked.

I think the only 'problem' I will have training him is impulse control. Everything else he picks up scary fast.

Crate rest is teaching Patton how to hold it together in his crate.

F YES. Finally.

I walked into the dining room this morning where his crate is and he didn't even start wagging, let alone get up and start whining.

We did a lot of pivot foundation work for the left pivot. But I didn't have a ton of time to fade out my exaggerated hand signals before the the trail. We worked on it maybe 3 times for 5 minutes each time to fade them and they were still pretty there the 3rd time.

He did a left pivot like a boss! Heck he decided all left turns should be tight and he did turn on the forehand for all them. My dog is amazing. The end.

Tulsa has caught at least one disc the past 3 times we have played. She's also kicking butt with confo stuff lately. And she has an off-switch in the house! HUZZAH for grownup puppies!