Day 27: Wide Open Spaces

Today Rob and I headed out to the club to take the pups for a swim. The weather was beautiful and the dogs were all ready to take a dunk. When I think to my issues with Fred, a lot of them were rooted in trips to the club. The majority of our sessions there for the past year have gone like this:

• Let dogs out of car to run
• Put on boots
• Yell for dogs
• Yell for dogs again
• Walk down to the pond
• Yell for dogs
• Run marks and blinds
• Let dogs run
• Yell for dogs
• Put dogs up

Today we altered the plan a bit and went with:

• Take dogs out of the car
• Walk to pond on lead
• Run marks and blinds
• Walk back from pond on lead
• Let dogs run

This new plan appeared to work much better than the old as Fred heeled nicely with no shenanigans at all. We shortened up what we had been doing just to see where we stood after the two weeks off and all of the obedience. He did a wonderful job. It was great to not have to fight with him, and certainly made my entire experience much calmer and more enjoyable for both of us.
 
After training, while Rob worked on force with Hondo, we talked about the fact that there is a big difference between getting the job done; and being a good all around employee. Hopefully we are taking more and more steps towards a long and happy employment!