Jo's Old Site

As I now have to get about with a walking aide called the canadian crutch, one of the hardest exercises for me to teach Ilse is the stand for the exam. And in this exercise, we tell our dog to stand then stay and then step out in front of them. Then you get someone to run their hands over your dog.

The reason why it is hard is because if Ilse moves, I have to rely on people to move her back in the position I had left her, and the reason why she moves is because she is so friendly. The other problem I have is when I’m returning, the lead sometimes gets in the way. And this also causes Ilse to move, though I now put the canadian crutch on the side that I’m heading and go around Ilse that way and this stops the lead from getting in the way.

Then at a recent trial where Dita obtained her CCD someone suggested to mum that I should get a Pet Extendable Target. And now that I have one find it very useful when we do a stand for exam.

As Ilse now focuses on the little yellow ball that is on the target as I smear that with peanut butter and she licks that while a person is running their hands over her.

Targets is one of the tools used in clicker training, which is a method that encourages dogs to think and the idea is for them to work things out for themselves. They are also guided by the use of a clicker which their trainer uses, and to find out more about clicker ideas and products here’s a website address:

www.clickertraining.com