The theme for this month’s Positive Pet Training Blog Hop is “My Training Mentor or Inspiration,” (someone you have worked with personally or look up to, who you aspire to or admire).
In September of 2014 I wrote a book review for Kari Neumeyer’s “Bark and Lunge”, which is about Kari’s training journey with her reactive dog Isis. Reading that book couldn’t have come at a better time for me, as at the same time we were just learning we had our own reactive dog in Luke.
It was my first true exposure to the importance of positive pet training, especially in reactive dogs. If I hadn’t read that book, I dread to think of all of the mistakes we would have made with Luke as well (not that we haven’t still made some).
Kari, and all of the hosts and bloggers who participate in this blog hop are such a help to me. However, my true inspiration comes from Luke himself. The love he gives us daily inspires me to work harder with him to hopefully one day get to the point where more people can be in his life and experience that love as well.
It’s not just his love that inspires me though, it’s his intelligence and motivation as well. He shows me the strength of his nose and how he can use it, such as in the post I wrote recently “This Nose Knows All”. That inspires me to continue his nose work training, and I’d like to try tracking with him as well.
Lately we have been continuing with his crate training. I moved the crate into the bedroom, not just to switch things up, but to give me a place to work with him on going to his crate on command. I need to work with him away from his sisters, otherwise Cricket always has her nose in there wanting the treats as well! With it being so cold outside I can’t very well put the girls out in the yard like I do during nice weather.
He really showed me his smarts when we started working on that. There were some toys in his crate, and when I got him to go into the crate he immediately started picking up the toys and putting them out of the crate! When Luke is not sure what we’re doing yet, he’ll just give me some past behavior that he learned; and in this case his brain went all the way back to before we moved to our new home last March! We were crate training then and he created his own game of putting the toys in and out of the crate. You can read more about it in this post: “DIY Positive Pet Training – Luke’s New Trick”.
Luke’s fears and reactivity mean we’ll never run out of things to train and work on; but the true inspiration comes from the bond we have that increases every day due to his willingness to work on things; whether they are for fun or out of necessity. The smiles he brings to my face when he does something like above make it so enjoyable.
BTW, crate training is coming along great! He now easily goes into the crate on command (though he responds more to my pointing at the crate than the word “crate”), and lies down. I can zip the crate up and walk away. Sometimes he will stand back up when I do that, but when I come back, he’ll lie down again without a command. Now we’re working on getting him into the crate from further away; and increasing the time he stays in there when I’m not in sight.
He did pretty well on Christmas when we had company. He was in the bedroom with a gate and the crate in front of the gate (so he wouldn’t lunge at anyone). He barked at some people when they went by, but not everyone. My sister’s boyfriend’s daughter was even able to talk to him with no reaction, and he has never seen her before! He did get whiny later on about being down there alone, so I think he is getting ready to be in the crate and closer to everyone soon. As with everything, we’ll start out very slowly with that.
What or who inspires you to train with your dog?
Thank you to our blog hop hosts Tenacious Little Terrier and Rubicon Days. This hop begins on the first Monday of every month and runs all week long. Each month has a theme, but any positive training post is welcome. Please visit other blogs through the links below for more positive posts!
Go Luke! He has made a lot of progress. Isn’t it great watching them make strides? Thanks for joining the hop.
It sounds like he is really making great progress. My Shyla is a fearful one too, and that does mean that every little thing that we do with them can make a big difference in their life outlook!
Seeing how well Shyla does, and how far she’s come, is such great encouragement for me!
Yeah Luke, you guys are doing great. I loved kari’s book at well.
What strikes me about your post is not only Luke’s progress but how much you love him. He’s lucky to have you as his owner & trainer, taking the time and making the extra effort to train him in a patient and gentle manner.
Thank you so much! I will never feel like I’m doing enough so positive support is always appreciated.
I’m a HUGE advocate for crate training. Shermie wouldn’t go near a crate when I brought him home and that was something that took us almost a year to get right. I think he spent too much time in a crate before I adopted him…. that’s a whole different story BUT when I brought Walter home who was much younger with less baggage we crate trained right away. LOVE that Luke is getting used to the crate!
I hope the crate can become a place for him to feel safe. I have a friend coming over next week and we’re going to see how he does being in there when she’s here. This will be our first trial run with a “stranger” in the house. We’ll take it very slowly and all paws are crossed that it goes well!
Let us know! Hopefully it’ll go smoothly!
You guys have come so far! I love these types of posts.
I love those crossed paws! And I’m so happy my book found you when it did. Thank you for your review then and now.
Leo is an inspiration to me too. Whenever I feel down, I just smush my face against him and he brings such comfort.
Happy New Year!
One of the OES’s I had a few years ago could have used this training then. He was such a case and being a 100# pup, scared me to death he’d pull me over whenever he reacted which was to everything. Poor thing, his previous family had abused him and he developed a severe case of PTSD. Boy could I have used that book with him! Bravo, what a great job you’ve done with Luke.
The boys seldom use their crates since we are home with them. Bentley used to open his crate door with his nose and get inside when I left for work each morning. ♥
That’s so cute – what a good boy Bentley was!
Such great news about the crate training! He’s making such great progress and you’re doing such a great job of taking things slowly and going at his own pace. I love how he creates games on his own! He’s such a cutie.
Luke sure is doung good and we are all proud of him!
So glad he is getting better with his crate training. We have been lucky as none of us were formally crate trained, we just got stuck in crates one day and that was that. We all go in willingly whenever it is necessary. Mom says it is a useful thing around here. Great post.
Thank you! Luke was our first dog for crate training. We tried briefly with Cricket when she was a puppy but quickly gave up. Now that we understand it better, all future dogs will be crate trained, and they will keep their crates for their whole lives this time – I don’t want to go through this re-training thing again! 🙂
Well, as you know mom isn’t into training much, something about no patience. Glad Luke is going well with his crate training. I lasted my first 6 months in mine. Love Dolly
Patience is an issue for me too. Honestly, Luke makes it easy (most of the time). I didn’t keep up with training the girls because they weren’t nearly so cooperative!
I love the photo with the crossed paws… he looks comfy… like one of our neighbors who look out of their windows the whole day… but I bet Luka has better stories to tell tha´n the peeps in our hood :o) we started with training too, just some minutes every day… but that’s not easy to find out what we should train first…so we decided to walk on a leash without making the human on the other end to a sled is our first goal :o)
That seems like a great place to start!! 🙂