Training Day ... and other musings

It's back to boot camp for us ... it was brought to my attention that I've been slack with training. I met some Newfie owners at the soccer field; they had a dog who used to be a lot like BB, pulling them across the parking lot to get to the field etc. But they made the commitment to train and travel about 1 hour every Saturday to dog school (after their dog learned the basics one on one). I was impressed with Newfie's behavior; BB was less so as he hysterically barked his high pitch bark through the fence. The woman kept asking me, "Is he in training?, Is he in training?" and that was my epiphany ... we've slacked, except for having BB sit before food and before going out.

I was tempted to sign BB up at the dog school --- but it is not positive training, it is more classical --- the Newfie owners used a small link prong collar. After some deliberation; oh do I want instant success; I realized that perhaps my positive training isn't working because I have not committed my fifteen minutes a day to training BB --- sans distractions. I've been making excuses: it's too hard with three dogs, I'm working more, yada yada.

The next week I wrote down goals --- to work on "Let Go and Give" of his toys, to work on getting in and out of the car (we practice not going anywhere), and a little bit of Recall. Amazing --- I see progress already on all three goals. We're still having mucho problems on loose leash walking, and that is where BB vs. the environment (he almost caught a cat this a.m., and dragged me ten feet in the chase. Sigh. Can't space out for a minute!)