Sunday, January 8, 2012

January Thoughts

1) We've had a lot of really, really warm days.  40-60* out.  This is kind of unusual for this time of year.  I'm still counting down the days until spring -really- starts in March.

2) Normally this is a slow time of year for animal-service related businesses.  With people making big holiday purchases, typically there is less spent on the "extra" things of pet services. Less travel after the holidays, until spring break, makes it a slow time for boarding kennels.   Surprisingly, we've had a -lot- of class sign ups this week.  I had to get out of bed and make a few additional plans before I could sleep last night.  The Tuesday class is looking to be giant.

3) Efficiency is important to me.  Working on a few behaviors with Griffin, I'm struggling to find the "in between" steps for where we are and where we need to be. This isn't usually a problem, but for once it is a huge issue. It will be interesting to see what solutions we come up with.

4) Dog resources:  There are a million books, DVD's, websites, and everything available. It's overwhelming for me.  And probably worse for people who are new to dogs.

5) Lack of resources:  Yet, I haven't found a basic training book that I love.  Things are too long or too opinionated or too weird or too punishment focused despite a positive label and description.

Puppy Griffin!

2 comments:

Raegan said...

Have you seen Sue Ailsby's New Training Levels? The new books are really fantastic. I think they're great for a single person training a dog on their own (perhaps with some professional guidance), but they don't immediately lend themselves to a beginner class.

Kristen said...

I've reviewed what is online... in some ways I really loved the old ones more, but these new ones are far more user-friendly for beginners.

Thanks for the reminder to check it out again!