Week 4 Newsletter
“Dogs should be allowed as much liberty as they can responsibly handle. The greatest gift of training is that it increases the dog’s ability to handle liberty.”
The above quote really sums up, for me, what this whole challenge is about. The reason I’m getting out and working Biggie every day is to build up his skills and comfort to the point where he can go anywhere and do anything with us, without all the stress, strain, or struggle; to expand his world and have it be more joyful.
Here, in the home stretch of this challenge, I see Biggie’s progress. I see my own progress. The daily successes, the improved walking, the quicker and easier recovery from over-reactions, and at times, not over-reacting at all; all this is very exciting and inspires me to do more.
We’ve also started walking with the other dogs, something I tended to avoid with Biggie because he was very tough to manage during a group walk. Now, I look forward to daycare days for the chance to get Biggie out with different groups and practice our skills.
We’ve still got a ways to go to get to that idealistic place where Biggie is off-leash, making great decisions, and feeling comfortable and confident in most settings, but after this 30 day challenge (26 days completed thus far), I see more clearly where we’re headed.
This will be the final newsletter for this challenge(maybe we’ll see you back in 2024 for a reboot). I just want to say thank you all so much for all your support, sharing, and feedback. And also thank you for all that you’re doing for your dogs. We’ll release more newsletters throughout the year with tips & resources to help owners succeed with their dogs, so please stay tuned.
As for the final week, and beyond…
Putting It All Together
What’s all this about?
This challenge is all about working with your dogs emotional states and energy levels, as well as your own. These exercises are meant to help you and your dog develop techniques that, through practice, will allow you to guide them through the challenging moments of life, so as to smooth out the highs and lows, thereby promoting balance, understanding, and cooperation.
The exercises, once learned, practiced, and mastered, can be adapted and deployed in any situation to help you guide your dog back to you and reconnect with them before moving on in life.
If you didn’t watch the guiding-your-dog video, I’d highly recommend it. This is the simple technique that will make your dog light and responsive. If you take one thing away from this challenge, take this.
Examples:
How to handle forging and pulling on your walks, a common issue for many owners. This is a great place to deploy a tool such as the crossover. It will interrupt and reset the dog, breaking their focus and lessening intensity.
Technique: Crossover, pause, crossover, pause,… Do it until your dog gets behind you and stays back there while you’re paused. Once you get there, praise, pause, and move on. (crossover video refresh)
When moving on, understand that you’ll likely see the same thing, repeatedly, possibly right after you start up again. Be mentally ready for that. At first, you may need to continually work with your dog(i.e. do this over and over on the walks) until they start to understand. Go slow and make sure you’re pausing after praise to give your dog time to process what’s happening.
Next on your walk, you see another dog coming up the path. Maybe your dog starts to pull, bark, whine, etc… if they’ve become too over-stimulated for the crossover to be deployed smoothly, try circles. Keep the leash short, guide lightly but firm, always paying attention for that pass through the circle where the dog has lightened up; stop, praise, pause, continue on.
As you continue to practice moving your dog through these patterns, you will get better at noticing when your dog is showing improvements and when they’re still struggling and need more guidance.
Expect set-backs, they WILL happen
The other day I took Biggie for a walk with four other dogs, an experienced group but by no means perfect. We traveled farther than normal too, going to busy areas; things I don’t typically do with him, but since we’re learning and things have been going so well, I pushed it.
We started out great, but after about the halfway point I realized that I was getting increasingly frustrated with Biggie. He was struggling, getting lost, not as responsive to me; over-stimulated. It took several blocks until it occurred to me - this situation is much different than what we’re used to, and therefore I need to reset my expectation.
**Whenever the situation changes and new variables are added to the equation, there’s bound to be a regression.
Possibility of regression doesn’t mean that I should attempt the walk, but I could have anticipated some of Biggie’s and mine’s struggles. Once I realized and named my frustration, I became more empathetic to his struggles. The shift in perception was enough for me to get the walk back on track.
Video
The following video demonstrates what it could look like to apply these techniques during your walks.
It’s a very engaging way to interact with your dog. In this 15ish minute video(a couple minutes should give you the idea), Luka and I walk over to the park, working all the while(on-duty, mostly crossovers, circles, and recall).
I don’t walk experienced dogs in this manner, because there’s no need to. The connection we’ve established allows much more freedom on walks. But I still practice these [and other] exercises with all the MDC dogs so as to keep our communication clear and skills sharp.
Shout-out to Oregon Tails:
The tools used throughout this challenge are informed by many sources. I thought about putting a resource page together for this final newsletter but it was too large and confusing. Instead, I’m going to add one key resource here and add more resources to future mailers, based on the specific subject matter.
For this challenge, I want to acknowledge the Oregon Tails’ team. Their Jentle Method is a foundational system that heavily influences and informs all my work. People looking for a deeper connection, and willing to put in the groundwork to get there, will find an incredible amount of amazing content on their website.
It’s a great value, please check them out. https://ortails.com
Previous Connect-With-Your-Dog-Challenge Newsletters
I put together an archive page that has all the prior newsletters for this challenge for anyone that wants to reference them.
Thanks again, happy adventuring!!