Today's Sunshine

Monster and I had a breakthrough with heeling today! For the first time while out on a walk I managed to interest him in cooperating with me and training rather than sniffing, watching, and listening (not to mention reacting) to everything around us. We worked on the heel position, with alternated pace, sudden turns, diagonals, stops, starts, running, slooooooow walking, and even halts and sits (while I move away), for about 10 minutes! Out in the real world! I'm sure your dogs are all much more impressive (Don't listen to that, Monster, I'm just lying to make them feel better!)

You'd better be...

but for Monster and me this is really great. I honestly think it's the best heeling training we've managed ever, even at home. He was 100% focused on me, keeping eye contact, giant grin on his face. Sure, positionwise he could have been a bit tighter, and the angles on his sits were frankly horrible, but all that can be worked on! What can't be worked on (or at least, is a lot more difficult to work on) is him being completely uninterested in training. Once he wants to train, even when we're not at-boring-home, things become so much more fun!

Fun!? I work for pay, dammit! Fork over the carrots!

Admittedly, at the end he was having so much fun he lost the plot a little and jumped up at me and clawed my shirt to shreds... I may have overdone the excited praise a bit... Still, worth it!