Long days, great training

I've had a really cool past few days. I did several hours of privates every day with a family who lives several hours away and was very much wanting to learn clicker training. One of the unique aspects to this situation was that they had read several books and watched some great DVD's but had not yet applied the knowledge.

We spent some time every day working on basic manners skills, CGC prep, and on "good trainer" skills. The dogs made measurable progress, as did the humans!

The very interesting part to me is that the family had a history of using choke chains in previous classes. Years and years of practice popping the dog for all sorts of behaviors. But I could not tell! Those habits had been replaced with "click, then reach and pull out the treat." and "Stand still and wait." and "Feed with the closest hand." The "Training skills" were -fabulous-! And my favorite? They didn't run out of treats!

I need to find ways to encourage and inspire more students to be this dedicated! I also wish I was teaching this type of lesson every day.

In between the lessons I had a bit of time to work my dogs or I was teaching classes. Exciting moments: Griffin learned about playing with the flyball box. He did a training demo for our visitors and was very responsive. Luna was happy and did a perfect teeter performance*. My dogs weaved 12 poles. Griffin tugged VERY well. He was quiet in his crate!