Progress Report on our Recall training

So far I have found Susan Garretts recall course to be excellent and I am so glad I signed up for it. So you want to know how our recall training is going? ...well, let me tell you anyway! hahahaha!

We of course started off strong, and all three of the dogs were just little super stars. They all had their strengths and weaknesses, and some things were easier for one dog, and some things were easier for the other dogs, but overall...to be truthful, sweet little Breeze actually was a little behind the others.

The last week though.....the games are using a lot more distractions and doing some testing of the skills we have been working, and poor Lizzie....well, she is once again looking like a special needs girl,...sigh...she simply is not ready for such things. I think Liz and I will be staying at the basic foundation steps for a LONG time. It makes me feel so good too (NOT!) when SG said that your dog is a reflection of your skills as a trainer. YEP, I realize that...at this point I just want to know what I am missing with the Lizard. Maybe as we keep working and Liz gets to the point she can do the higher level games and we work through our distraction list it will all become clearer.

This is where I really feel it is hard to work with three dogs....I have the other dogs working around their highest level distractions and they are doing great with that, and poor Liz is really doing well...considering... if I was only working with Liz and had no one to compare her to...then it would be easier to just concentrate on how many great strides she has made, but the other dogs make it hard to not see how far we still have to go.

Tonight Susan Garrett had her Distraction Webinar which she has said she plans on packaging and selling. I have totally loved almost everything else I have bought from Susan and I have bought it all!!! Not so sure about the webinar, unless the second one has a lot more info and some more helpful ideas, not sure I found it helpful enough to consider buying.

The first two coaching calls were great and left me feeling like I had learned so much and gave me some great things to think about that have really helped our training, and I always love listening to Susan- she is a great speaker but with this webinar tonight after it was over I just felt frustrated and it all seemed like the same things you hear from everyone about dog training over and over and over, really good sound principles, but if I really knew how to apply it we would have fixed her issues long ago. Maybe the webinar will seem much better when it is edited and I can sit down and listen to it without it disconnecting or the sound cutting off every few minutes.

Maybe I am looking for more concrete answers, or maybe I just am not getting it yet.. or maybe it was the fact that the webinar which was over the Internet kept freezing and disconnecting, so I missed a lot of it.

One thing that really made me think and I would recommend checking out is an article that was in the last Teamwork Ebook SG released and it was in Clean Run March '06, called "But it is Not a Border Collie" I found that really interesting talking about how if a dog is under aroused they are way more prone to worrying about the environment, or they won't work in the heat, or they won't want to work if other dogs are barking and if they are overstimulated they can not think or work and how you can help your dog to find a more comfortable middle zone where they are excited enough to work at a high level.