We still needed the fence I didn’t get to buy yesterday, and I’d promised Laev an outing after disappointing her yesterday, so off we went. Laev’s welcome in the farm store and I take care… 

Something I love about clicker training is the sheer speed of it. Yes, I know that initial training can be slow and can feel slower (usually feeling much slower than it really is, if we… 

Okay, to fixing our sit-for-the-bite latency problem. Quick review: Laev had chained four barks before the sit, making her response a standard of 2 seconds, where I wanted a sit within 1 second, with or… 

So we set up for an obedience for the bite session, with a new goal of a 1 second latency. Revved her up, lifted her collar to bring her out of a scrabbling lunge, cued… 

Laev and I hope to participate in the AD (endurance test) at UDC Nationals this year (weather permitting). The AD consists of a 12.5 mile run for Laev, followed by an obedience routine (I get… 

I’m trying to straighten Laev’s fronts, which are, um, imperfect. 🙂 She sits close, but crooked. Our Schutzhund helper recommended teaching her to bump and hold the dumbbell against my torso, which is only possible… 

I was asked recently, “Why do you train in bitework? I think that is a kind of weird sport, but same can be said of my love of freestyle! I’d love to read a blog… 

Laev got much less exercise this week; we had “winter storms” of ice and 12-16″ of snow on top. I don’t mind snow at all, but ice is bad; it slicks the roads and it… 

Here’s an overdue post on last weekend’s trial. Wednesday was our club specialty, and I was working the fundraiser sale/raffle tables. I took Laev for some socialization and experience. It was a good idea; she’d… 

It’s been cold this week. Last Saturday we went tracking and I kept Laev’s fleece coat on her, as temperatures were cold enough to induce frostbite in only a couple minutes of exposure. She tracked…