Don't tell my dog that I'm a mess

On walks, I don't want him to yank my arm in every direction, mark everything, or generally just to think that he calls the shots, but I do want him to enjoy himself. Telling him, “ go see! ” and having him respond by smelling some sweet peemail and looking back at me with pure happiness while he’s kicking his own pee smell around a patch of grass, is pretty heartwarming.   It’s an absurd little interaction but I like to think that it strengthens our bond - it's also a good functional reward for a well-behaved pupper. I read a number of of books, most noteably, Inside of a Dog , by Alexandra Horowitz, and The Other End of The Leash by Patricia McConnell, that explain how important the olfactory world is to dogs and the importance of letting your dog enjoy being a dog. Pierre is extremely scent driven, I assume it's because he has some kind of setter or spaniel in him, so I definitely think it would be cruel to force him to ignore the wonderful world around him. I e...

Something I noticed with Oliver (and I will probably explore Oliver’s learning specifically in another post because I have a lot of useless information about it) is that he started to learn cues that I didn’t even realize I was using. I tend to talk to my dogs on our walks, just because I’m a weirdo, and the main verbal cue Oliver picked up was, “This way!” I would often say it if he was sniffing something or otherwise distracted and I was doing something like changing directions. Because Oliver didn’t get a lot of regular training practice in places with distractions, his recall was terrible for a while.   To be honest, it probably still is but we don’t put him in situations where he will get in trouble anymore. “Come” didn’t mean a whole lot to him if there was something smellier and more fun. I found out on a whim, that if I yelled, “OLIVER. THIS WAY” if he was off leash, he would come running. It was a nice surprise.       I realized eventua...

Is a real comeback I had to another child when I was approximately 6 years old. I fucking loved dogs immediately. I emerged from the womb and took up my place crawling around with my grandmother's dog, Muffin, an alleged Rottweiler/Shepherd but I'm almost 100% that sweet Muffy was mostly Rhodesian Ridgeback. Let's just delve right into my dog snobbery then, I guess. My family got our first rescue black lab, Tabby, when I was four. She took me for walks when I was really young, maybe six? The neighbours thought it was questionable that I was out walking this chubby babe by myself, and it probably was, but I loved it so much. At home, I would get her to stay.. go hide.. and tell her to come and find me. She would get lots of treats when she did and I would make the hiding places harder and harder. I didn't realize at the time, obviously, that this is a legitimately helpful training technique. She was amazing. A true gem, she had a lot of beautiful retriever traits, ...