2017 Nov Dec

My dog had to go over the jump and keep looking for the
dumbbell, which I kept moving. If your dog can fetch a dumbbell
50 feet away with a cookie a foot away from the dumbbell and
tons of dogs outside the practice ring, then you’ll probably be
okay when you enter a real trial.
If I am training a dog sport, I don’t correct because it’s all
about what I want. If my dog went for the cookie, I’d let him
eat the cookie. I would just set it up better the next time. I never
set the dog up to fail and then correct the dog for what was my
mistake. I set up the dog to win, to be more confident and stronger.
I avoid stress in trials because I teach my dog to work with
extreme distractions. This makes my dogs strong and confident.
And also not bored. I make them think all the time.
However, if my dog is being an idiot in the house, I may yell
at him; mostly because some days I’m irritable. It makes me feel
better to yell here and there, but I am well aware that I am not
changing behavior; it will recur soon enough. If I actually want
to change a dog’s behavior, then I create a plan and I train it. If I
actually care enough to stop bad behavior, I then train. If I don’t
really care, I leave it alone and don’t bother; then I live with the
bad behavior. But yelling? That does about nothing.
All of my dogs have a voice. It is really hard to say where they
come from. I just look at each dog and have a feeling about who
they are. Raika is a very interesting dog. She is quite confident
and quite neurotic, which makes an interesting character to have
in the same dog. She is a working-line Belgian Tervuren whom I
bred. I imported her mother from France and I imported her father
for the breeding from Finland. She is American.
She is a genius; she is an unbelievably smart dog who does
really interesting things I’ve never seen other dogs do. She does
not just swim, she will dive to the bottom of the pool. What dog
does that?
She is a pessimist. She is sure that if one bad thing happens
in the house, then the whole house is coming down. At the same
time, she is so sure of herself. On occasion in obedience, she
was absolutely sure she was right even when she made dramatic
errors.
She is quite demanding: “I-want-I-want-I-want” – all day
long. At the same time, she worries a lot. She really does check on
me all night long when I’m sleeping. She breathes on me all night
long.
I’m her everything. She does not care about anyone else in
the family. She does not have any use for my other dogs, but she
mostly tolerates them. Raika is not complete without me. But if I
give her the right support, she can be amazing. And she has been
quite successful in many dog sports.
She is the best communicator I’ve ever had. Raika has learned
that I do listen to her and I do pay attention to her. One day there
was a plate of food on the table and I was in the bedroom. She
came into the bedroom and stared at me. Then she started tapping
AUSSIE TIMES November-December 2017 85