How much autonomy does your dog have? Willie's work with sheep is what motivates me to ask this question. As I mentioned earlier, Willie and I attended a sheepdog clinic 2 weeks ago with Patrick Shannahan, and the big take away for us was that, too often, Willie looks to me to tell him what to do while working sheep. It's not that he doesn't know what to do himself, he's just in the habit of being dependent upon me to tell him before he takes action on his own. This was not a complete surprise to me, but I didn't realize what a significant issue it was until I worked with Patrick. I think I know why this has happened: First, Willie is a naturally biddable dog and dependent dog. I chose him over his 7-week old brother because Willie seemed to care deeply about where I was and what I Read More
International Shipping!
Yippee! After months of hard work (no kidding), Katie finally convinced our website that it could handle shipping to North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. We partnered it with a big discount on packages of books and/or DVDs for folks who would like to begin a "library." We've had lots of inquiries from folks in Canada, the UK and Australia especially, so we're sooooo happy to be able to accommodate! You can get more information on the website. Meanwhile, here's a photo of Willie moving up on "The Camel Sisters" from earlier this year. As soon as I post this we're going out to work sheep some more. Oh boy. Read More
Favorite “Non-Traditional Cues,” Part II
Wow. You all are amazing. So far there have been 165 answers to the question posed two weeks ago, "What's Your Favorite Non-Traditional Cue?" I've read through every one of them with great interest (and often amusement). My plan was to go through all the comments, list every cue mentioned with it definition (some people included as many as 7 or 8), and see if I could find some patterns. Several hours later, and less than a fifth through all the cues mentioned, I suspected that a smart person might want to modify the plan. So that's what I've done, whether either out of laziness or wisdom, I couldn't tell you. I'm using the list I've generated so far as a sample, and have re-read all the rest of the comments that have been so thoughtfully provided. Here's what I'm seeing so far: Read More
What’s Your Favorite “Non-Traditional” Cue?
A few weeks ago I wrote a post on the cue "Get Back," which is one of my favorites because it is so useful in so many contexts. Katie Martz, Communications Coordinator here at PMcC, video taped Willie getting back in a variety of contexts, and we noticed that every time I said "Get Back" in a context in which he'd rather not, he tongue flicked. That led to a very interesting discussion with readers about why he was tongue flicking, but distracted us from the reason we did the taping: the usefulness of "non-traditional" cues in dog training. Yes, we all need Come, and Sit and Stay; I can't imagine what I would do without them. But there are a variety of cues that are equally useful, but not as common or well known. I thought it would be fun to canvass readers to learn about their favorite Read More
Going to the Light
Much of my time in the past few weeks has been in a pretty dark place; learning things I wish I didn't know about some hunting practices that occur in northern Wisconsin. (Not to mention reading death threats directed toward me and colleagues.) I'm not opposed to hunting, but I am very much opposed to some of the practices I've learned about recently while researching the use of dogs to hunt wolves. I'm not going to be more specific; I don't want to take you there for your own sake, and I need to take a break from it. (If you want to know more, you can start by googling wolves, dogs and wisconsin, or hound hunting of coyotes, bear and bobcat). Tonight I get to shift focus in a wonderful way: doing a fund raising speech for the Fox Valley Humane Association in Appleton, Wisconsin. If Read More
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- …
- 36
- Next Page »