This week, LaLa had a lot of both canine and human company around her in the house.   So far, she is absolutely turn key with the human company.   She just wants to snuggle with them or enthusiastically greet them.  My brother in law came for a visit, and our cleaning person is also a favorite of LaLa's.

She likes other dogs, but he it takes her a day or two to get to know them and not be so forward with them.   Once she feels comfortable with them, she is great.  I don't let her play with everyone, because she can be a bit much (even with us) in that regard.  LaLa just keeps getting better and better as time goes on.

LaLa and I have just about completed our 7th week training.   She is remarkably well behaved on leash.

Off leash, she is more than just a little critter obsessed as you can see by the photo to your left.  After that photo, I had to work on getting her back into the house by luring with food and having her work for a bit on obedience.  LaLa clearly has the terrier gene hard wired in her.   I know where critters are in the walls of my house (or were maybe).  The critters under the deck clearly don't have the good sense to move their home.  Our previous girl, Shana, was prey driven too, but not as much as LaLa, but then again she had at least 9 years of training under her belt and being diverted to other activities.   

I am working with LaLa on making other activities as interesting as hunting critters.    I am also trying to find a way to make that a motivating factor.   We got 5 minute games of interactive play this week with poor Lamby toy (the only toy she will play a little tug with me with some prolonged enthusiasm.

​There is something so basic in dog training that I often forget to communicate to my human clients. It ends up being important what you wear to train your dog or puppy. I typically have a basic dress code everyday even with seasoned and trained dogs.  A lot of my work requires me being able to get dirty and play with the dogs in different environments as the training progresses.  This could be in the woods around wetlands or on a mountain trail.

I have separate clothes for dog training, so I don’t ruin my non-dog training clothes.  Do not wear your favorite (dry clean only or hand wash only) clothes while training dogs. Some of this advice may be over the top for just a dog owner trainer, nevertheless, I think they are great tips to keep in mind for either the professional trainer or dog owner:

When I got my second dog, Neptune, I remember not understanding why we could not just work on his reactivity.  Why did we need to do this other stuff.  Neptune was the first dog that began my introduction into dog training.   Truly, he was not that bad at all, but I was that novice of a dog owner.  The trainers involved were spot on.  I don't know if I fully realized how spot on they were at the time.  Neptune managed to have a great life despite my very novice dog owner training skills with him.  There is a definite learning curve when you begin training your dog.  

As my dog's performance improves or is at least manageable in less distractions, then I start pushing the distractions a bit at a time.   I want to challenge my dog but not totally overwhelm them.  For me this becomes a judgement call.  I can wait for more perfect performance in non distractions.  I can also increase their performance in non distractions by pushing them a little bit when I am fairly sure they can handle it.  I decide later whether that ended up being a bad idea or a good idea.   With LaLa, it was a good idea as she did better than expected around distractions.  Her biggest distraction is my husband, Robert, moving in and out of her view BTW.  Next biggest distraction would be critters, but they are definitely second place to Robert.