Day 2 - Reality, But With Progress

One of my goals is to make time to work with my own dog everyday, as I truly believe that hands-on, practical experience is essential to becoming a pro. So while I didn't get as much done yesterday as I had hoped, I did make some progress with training, and with training one of our toughest "opportunities" - the recall.

With most of my dogs, the recall hasn't been important - we had a fence, they just stayed around or they were slow enough that I could catch them. Ben was so obsessed with tennis balls that any small yellow object in my hand gained his immediate and intense attention.

Not so with Mac, my beautiful, bunny obsessed, sniff happy Collie/Shepherd angel.

And worse yet, we live on a major road, and not far from a very fast express way. Mac, who loves to run and play, has been on a leash or a long-line for the better part of the last year. Occasionally she's allowed to run with a drag line, but I tend to panic - what if she sees a rabbit!

I have been working on the recall, and 80% of the time she comes the first time she's called, but for me, that's not good enough. But yesterday, when she started playing "mad dog" (running around the house like a Tasmanian Devil, overturning furniture and rucking up the rugs), I knew she needed a run. So I stuck my courage to the sticking post, grabbed a hand full of her favorite treats, put her on a short drag line and we headed out to the field.

And she was wonderful! We practiced coming while I had hold of the line, then from a short distance and her recalls where a vision. She dawdled one time when she got to the trees, but when she saw my hand moving in an inciting manner, she decided that kitty treats where better than sniffing. We even started fading treats in favor of a good scratch above the tail while we were on the way home.

So day-one of training was a success. And I realized that tough as it is, I needed to let go of at least a little bit of my fear... yet again.

Question of the day: How do you distraction-proof a dog against things over which you have no control - like the sudden appearance of squirrels, bunnies or deer?