Dog Training Should Be FUN!

The cold windy weather has reduced the amount of time the dogs get to spend playing around in the garden and long walks are out of the question for the next few days. Less activity outside leaves more energy to burn off inside...Berry and Basil wouldn't quiet down this morning, they devoted themselves to barking not only at every person who dared to walk in front of our house, but also at any noise they heard. I thought about turning up the volume on the TV to mask the outside noises and giving the dogs a bully stick to chew on...but I decided it would be better to work off some of their energy doing something constructive: training and learning tricks.

Berry and I practiced heeling and automatic sits on stops, and once I really had his attention we started to learn how to walk backwards; he caught on pretty quick, I look forward to seeing how much he remembers tomorrow morning. The video below shows some awesome backing up...a little more advanced than where Berry and I are at with our training!

Basil and I worked on sitting up on his haunches with his front paws in the air...no not "begging"...it's "sitting pretty"; the cue I am using is "please". We also worked on "leave it". Leave it is something we taught Berry when he was a puppy, I have never really taught it to Basil, better late than never! I have a lot of other tricks to teach Basil, he is an eager student.

On Saturday I went to the Rose City Classic Dog show; it is one of the bigger dog shows around. There are vendors for just about any dog related item one would want to buy...I think the show would be a great place to market artificial turf, but that's for a future post! I enjoyed watching the obedience competition and visiting with the people of all of my dog friends. Some of the obedience competitors are very serious...while others, though still serious, are a little more light hearted as you will see in the video below. Dog training should be fun for both the dog and the handler!